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LightSquared dealt blow by regulators [The Kansas City Star, Mo.]
(Kansas City Star (MO) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Feb. 14--LightSquared, a company that represents potentially billions in revenue to Sprint Nextel, suffered a severe blow Tuesday to its chances of lighting up a wireless network.
The National Telecommunications & Information Administration said that LightSquared's plans pose a significant and perhaps insurmountable threat to global positioning devices.
That threat to navigation, under review by the Federal Communications Commission, could doom LightSquared.
The company has already launched a communications satellite. It has plans to build a network from conventional earthbound cell towers, partly in concert with Sprint, and combine them with its satellite for a network with both wireless broadband and nearly ubiquitous coverage.
But the radio spectrum it secured through a provisional license to works with radio waves very close to the frequency used by satellite navigation devices. The NTIA said in a recommendation to the FCC on Tuesday that even revised plans by LightSquared to avoid problems seem unlikely to work, risking widespread jamming of GPS devices.
"It is our conclusion at this time that there are no mitigation strategies that both solve the interference issues and provide LightSquared with an adequate commercial network deployment," the agency wrote in a recommendation to the FCC.
Were LightSquared allowed to move forward with its plans, Overland Park-based Sprint stood to reap billions in revenue for installing the companies transmitters and other electronics in tandem with much Sprint's network. The two companies also had plans to share capacity, a possibility that could extend the coverage for both carriers. Sprint stopped its network construction for LightSquared late last year, and had been prepaid for its earlier work.
LightSquared has complained throughout the regulatory process about two issues.
First, it's suggested that it had to adjust its operations to accommodate a generation of GPS receivers too easily jammed. Garmin Ltd., headquartered in Olathe, was among those in the GPS industry fighting LightSquared's plans. The frequencies assigned to LightSquared have been little used because satellite phone companies were given the spectrum, and they have represented a string of commercial failures.
Secondly, LightSquared said the government's tests were poor approximations of real-world conditions.
"NTIA relies on interference standards that have never been used in this context, and were forced by the GPS community in order to reach the conclusions presented (Tuesday)," LightSquared said in a news release. "The FCC should take the NTIA's recommendation with a generous helping of salt."
The company said it still hopes to win an FCC OK.
"Sprint," the carrier said in an email, "supports LightSquared's business plans and efforts to resolve potential interference issues expediently."
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(c)2012 The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Mo.)
Visit The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Mo.) at www.kansascity.com
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