"" RESTON, Va., Dec. 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- LightSquared today asked
the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to confirm LightSquared's
right to use the spectrum licensed to the company by the federal
government. In addition, the company asked the FCC to confirm that
commercial GPS manufacturers have no right to interference protection
from LightSquared's network since they are not licensed users of that
spectrum.

"The one inescapable conclusion from two rounds of independent testing
is that the incompatibility problem is not caused by LightSquared's
network," said LightSquared's executive vice president for regulatory
affairs and public policy Jeff Carlisle. "It is clear that GPS devices
are purposefully designed to look into LightSquared's licensed spectrum,
and given this evidence, we believe decision-makers should consider
LightSquared's legal rights as the licensee." ""

Amazing what lawyers can come up with.

I think I'd answer that by saying, "Sure, we'll license you to use that
bandwidth as originally defined, that is: _from space_ or on the ground
with the power print at ground level being the same level as it would be
received from space."

See the whole press release here:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/21/l...-files-petiti/

Petition:
http://www.lightsquared.com/wp-conte...quared-PDR.pdf

--
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."
Douglas Adams - (Could have been a GPS engineer).

I'd suppose their rights are what FCC currently says they are in this
matter. All the technical wavers are in place granting Lightsquared
what's required to operate their Ancillary Terrestrial Component
(ATC). Ruling 'In the public interest, the FCC ignored it's own
'Gating' rules allowing them to deploy terrestrial only handsets. Of
course, forty thousand 'fill in' base stations are required to
service these handsets .. not exactly what was envisioned for ATC way
back in 2005.

Now, if that pesky GPS 'conditional' problem would just go away.

--- CHAS

On Dec 26, 4:27*pm, Alan Browne <alan.bro...@FreelunchVideotron.ca>
wrote:
> "" RESTON, Va., Dec. 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- LightSquared today asked
> the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to confirm LightSquared's
> right to use the spectrum licensed to the company by the federal
> government. In addition, the company asked the FCC to confirm that
> commercial GPS manufacturers have no right to interference protection
> from LightSquared's network since they are not licensed users of that
> spectrum.
>
> "The one inescapable conclusion from two rounds of independent testing
> is that the incompatibility problem is not caused by LightSquared's
> network," said LightSquared's executive vice president for regulatory
> affairs and public policy Jeff Carlisle. "It is clear that GPS devices
> are purposefully designed to look into LightSquared's licensed spectrum,
> and given this evidence, we believe decision-makers should consider
> LightSquared's legal rights as the licensee." ""
>
> Amazing what lawyers can come up with.
>
> I think I'd answer that by saying, "Sure, we'll license you to use that
> bandwidth as originally defined, that is: _from space_ or on the ground
> with the power print at ground level being the same level as it would be
> received from space."
>
> See the whole press release here:http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/21/l...king-so-good-s...
>
> Petition:http://www.lightsquared.com/wp-conte...LightSquared-P...
>
> --
> "We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."
> Douglas Adams - (Could have been a GPS engineer).

Lightsquared is clearly operating with "my way or go to court" rules.

Their level of ignorance of the facts is hilarious, they think that
stating things as they see it entitles them to change anything to the
contrary.

Mark my words. Their project is DEAD. Congress will kill it in a new
york minute if the FCC grants them anything. And the FAA chair might
be bold, but he's not stupid.

They are unwilling to pay the billions that it will take to replace
the GPS receivers manufactured in full compliance with MSS band power
parameters (using only low power ATC signals). Even if JAVAD can
provide L^2 ready receivers the users can't be forced to replace all
their receivers in a few years. Even if the whole industry could adopt
JAVAD's filters in a heartbeat, there's still the hundreds of millions
of US$ it will cost to re-certify devices that require FAA aproval
(for civil aviation) and DoD aproval (for military receivers).

Their latest argument that regular non aviation GPS receivers aren't
certified in any way, so they have no priority is one of those
attempts to redefine the truth ! All FM/AM radio receivers aren't
certified either, but if the FAA granted some company permission to
broadcast in interference with FM/AM radio requiring all receivers to
be redesigned, just imagine the public outcry it would cause !

This is a soap opera. A very serious one, but still a big soap opera.
Nothing of consequence will come out of it. The US does have some
minimum level of congress sanity, some basic issues like that do get
ample bipartisan support.

Marcelo Pacheco

On 2011-12-27 15:08 , macpacheco wrote:
> On Dec 26, 4:27 pm, Alan Browne<alan.bro...@FreelunchVideotron.ca>
> wrote:
>> "" RESTON, Va., Dec. 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- LightSquared today asked
>> the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to confirm LightSquared's
>> right to use the spectrum licensed to the company by the federal
>> government. In addition, the company asked the FCC to confirm that
>> commercial GPS manufacturers have no right to interference protection
>> from LightSquared's network since they are not licensed users of that
>> spectrum.
>>
>> "The one inescapable conclusion from two rounds of independent testing
>> is that the incompatibility problem is not caused by LightSquared's
>> network," said LightSquared's executive vice president for regulatory
>> affairs and public policy Jeff Carlisle. "It is clear that GPS devices
>> are purposefully designed to look into LightSquared's licensed spectrum,
>> and given this evidence, we believe decision-makers should consider
>> LightSquared's legal rights as the licensee." ""
>>
>> Amazing what lawyers can come up with.
>>
>> I think I'd answer that by saying, "Sure, we'll license you to use that
>> bandwidth as originally defined, that is: _from space_ or on the ground
>> with the power print at ground level being the same level as it would be
>> received from space."
>>
>> See the whole press release here:http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/21/l...king-so-good-s...
>>
>> Petition:http://www.lightsquared.com/wp-conte...LightSquared-P...
>>
>> --
>> "We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."
>> Douglas Adams - (Could have been a GPS engineer).
>
> Lightsquared is clearly operating with "my way or go to court" rules.
>
> Their level of ignorance of the facts is hilarious, they think that
> stating things as they see it entitles them to change anything to the
> contrary.

Their knowledge of the facts is probably 100x better than yours or mine.
That does not prevent business interests from pursuing their goals
using lawyers and influencing lawmakers and bureaucrats.

> Mark my words. Their project is DEAD. Congress will kill it in a new
> york minute if the FCC grants them anything. And the FAA chair might
> be bold, but he's not stupid.

I'd like to believe it's dead. But until L^2 declare they are backing
off, it is not dead. They still have recourse to the courts, and as
long as they do, this is not a dead issue. It remains dangerous grounds.

>
> They are unwilling to pay the billions that it will take to replace
> the GPS receivers manufactured in full compliance with MSS band power
> parameters (using only low power ATC signals). Even if JAVAD can
> provide L^2 ready receivers the users can't be forced to replace all
> their receivers in a few years. Even if the whole industry could adopt
> JAVAD's filters in a heartbeat, there's still the hundreds of millions
> of US$ it will cost to re-certify devices that require FAA aproval
> (for civil aviation) and DoD aproval (for military receivers).

The real point is they hoodwinked the FCC into granting notional
approval for that band for ground transmission. That is what the FCC
should focus on.

Based on _some_ of the aviation GPS receivers of which I'm very
familiar, filtering could likely be retrofitted into them.
Certification would be expensive and the filtering _might_ impact the
tracking algorithms. That affects software. Re-certifying _that_ would
be very expensive.

When I left that co., we had over 5000 units of a single model installed
in commercial passenger aircraft (widebodies and down).

However, some of the later receivers, have much more compact designs,
and I would bet it would be challenging/impossible to integrate filters
without redesign of the front end. Many thousands already delivered and
installed.

JAVAD seems to be L^2 night in shining armor. But as we know, it's
serving their interests, not the community's.

> Their latest argument that regular non aviation GPS receivers aren't
> certified in any way, so they have no priority is one of those
> attempts to redefine the truth ! All FM/AM radio receivers aren't
> certified either, but if the FAA granted some company permission to
> broadcast in interference with FM/AM radio requiring all receivers to
> be redesigned, just imagine the public outcry it would cause !

Good way to put it. However, IIRC aviation GPS' are not certified to
block signals in the out of band area in question.

> This is a soap opera. A very serious one, but still a big soap opera.
> Nothing of consequence will come out of it. The US does have some
> minimum level of congress sanity, some basic issues like that do get
> ample bipartisan support.

The US, unfortunately, does not work that way. That is both the US'
strength and occasional deep weakness.

--
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."
Douglas Adams - (Could have been a GPS engineer).

On Dec 30, 1:43*pm, Alan Browne <alan.bro...@FreelunchVideotron.ca>
wrote:
> On 2011-12-27 15:08 , macpacheco wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Dec 26, 4:27 pm, Alan Browne<alan.bro...@FreelunchVideotron.ca>
> > wrote:
> >> "" RESTON, Va., Dec. 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- LightSquared today asked
> >> the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to confirm LightSquared's
> >> right to use the spectrum licensed to the company by the federal
> >> government. In addition, the company asked the FCC to confirm that
> >> commercial GPS manufacturers have no right to interference protection
> >> from LightSquared's network since they are not licensed users of that
> >> spectrum.
>
> >> "The one inescapable conclusion from two rounds of independent testing
> >> is that the incompatibility problem is not caused by LightSquared's
> >> network," said LightSquared's executive vice president for regulatory
> >> affairs and public policy Jeff Carlisle. "It is clear that GPS devices
> >> are purposefully designed to look into LightSquared's licensed spectrum,
> >> and given this evidence, we believe decision-makers should consider
> >> LightSquared's legal rights as the licensee." ""
>
> >> Amazing what lawyers can come up with.
>
> >> I think I'd answer that by saying, "Sure, we'll license you to use that
> >> bandwidth as originally defined, that is: _from space_ or on the ground
> >> with the power print at ground level being the same level as it would be
> >> received from space."
>
> >> See the whole press release here:http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/21/l...king-so-good-s...
>
> >> Petition:http://www.lightsquared.com/wp-conte...LightSquared-P...
>
> >> --
> >> "We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."
> >> Douglas Adams - (Could have been a GPS engineer).
>
> > Lightsquared is clearly operating with "my way or go to court" rules.
>
> > Their level of ignorance of the facts is hilarious, they think that
> > stating things as they see it entitles them to change anything to the
> > contrary.
>
> Their knowledge of the facts is probably 100x better than yours or mine.
> * That does not prevent business interests from pursuing their goals
> using lawyers and influencing lawmakers and bureaucrats.
>
> > Mark my words. Their project is DEAD. Congress will kill it in a new
> > york minute if the FCC grants them anything. And the FAA chair might
> > be bold, but he's not stupid.
>
> I'd like to believe it's dead. *But until L^2 declare they are backing
> off, it is not dead. *They still have recourse to the courts, and as
> long as they do, this is not a dead issue. *It remains dangerous grounds.
>
>
>
> > They are unwilling to pay the billions that it will take to replace
> > the GPS receivers manufactured in full compliance with MSS band power
> > parameters (using only low power ATC signals). Even if JAVAD can
> > provide L^2 ready receivers the users can't be forced to replace all
> > their receivers in a few years. Even if the whole industry could adopt
> > JAVAD's filters in a heartbeat, there's still the hundreds of millions
> > of US$ it will cost to re-certify devices that require FAA aproval
> > (for civil aviation) and DoD aproval (for military receivers).
>
> The real point is they hoodwinked the FCC into granting notional
> approval for that band for ground transmission. That is what the FCC
> should focus on.
>
> Based on _some_ of the aviation GPS receivers of which I'm very
> familiar, filtering could likely be retrofitted into them.
> Certification would be expensive and the filtering _might_ impact the
> tracking algorithms. *That affects software. *Re-certifying _that_ would
> be very expensive.
>
> When I left that co., we had over 5000 units of a single model installed
> in commercial passenger aircraft (widebodies and down).
>
> However, some of the later receivers, have much more compact designs,
> and I would bet it would be challenging/impossible to integrate filters
> without redesign of the front end. *Many thousands already delivered and
> installed.
>
> JAVAD seems to be L^2 night in shining armor. *But as we know, it's
> serving their interests, not the community's.
>
> > Their latest argument that regular non aviation GPS receivers aren't
> > certified in any way, so they have no priority is one of those
> > attempts to redefine the truth ! All FM/AM radio receivers aren't
> > certified either, but if the FAA granted some company permission to
> > broadcast in interference with FM/AM radio requiring all receivers to
> > be redesigned, just imagine the public outcry it would cause !
>
> Good way to put it. *However, IIRC aviation GPS' are not certified to
> block signals in the out of band area in question.
>
> > This is a soap opera. A very serious one, but still a big soap opera.
> > Nothing of consequence will come out of it. The US does have some
> > minimum level of congress sanity, some basic issues like that do get
> > ample bipartisan support.
>
> The US, unfortunately, does not work that way. *That is both the US'
> strength and occasional deep weakness.
>
> --
> "We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."
> Douglas Adams - (Could have been a GPS engineer).

Just let 10 million street GPS receivers (including smart phones, car
navigation systems, handhelds) become unusable half a mile from L^2
towers... The public outcry will spell doom for whatever party was
responsible for this approval. People vote the incumbent out of office
for much less. Political doom. I envy the fact that all it takes in
the US is serious accusations without a powerful rebuttal to get a
congressman/senator out of office (in Brazil senators and congressmen
get re-elected into office, even with proof of corruption, due to an
ignorant, poorly educated lower class). The L^2 project approved would
be much worse than the Eliot Spitzer scandal, because it will affect
peoples life all the time. I might be wrong, but I think the odd are
90% in my favor on this bet.

Marcelo Pacheco

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
Alan Browne <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>On 2011-12-30 11:28 , macpacheco wrote:
>
>> Just let 10 million street GPS receivers (including smart phones, car
>> navigation systems, handhelds) become unusable half a mile from L^2
>> towers... The public outcry will spell doom for whatever party was
>> responsible for this approval.
>
>If the present financial crisis, about 100x more (or more) expensive
>than the entire GPS system, including all receivers in service
>worldwide, is not an indicator to you of political accountabilty, then
>you really have no idea about US politics.

It seem to me that by the time you a banking sector that is too big to fail,
then there is nothing you can do. Of course, something will go wrong, so you
can always find some scapegoats. But you can't solve that basic problem.

The funny thing is, Europe can probably solve the banking problem. But they
can't solve the problem with the little country called Greece.

I think the GPS issue is different. It is a national resource (and it would
be extremely embarrassing if in the rest of the world there would be GPS
receivers that are both cheaper and more accurate). And Lightsquared is
essentially worth nothing.

>Read the link that Sam Wormley posted last night - at first a positive
>sign, but still gives Lightsquared a lot of breathing room and hope.
>
>It ain't over by a long shot.

I think that makes sense. If they would deny Lightsquared something at this
stage and it comes to a lawsuite, then it may become be costly.

The only way out is to maintain that they never got a license to operate
the way they intend to.


--
That was it. Done. The faulty Monk was turned out into the desert where it
could believe what it liked, including the idea that it had been hard done
by. It was allowed to keep its horse, since horses were so cheap to make.
-- Douglas Adams in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

On Dec 30, 2:46*pm, Alan Browne <alan.bro...@FreelunchVideotron.ca>
wrote:
> On 2011-12-30 11:28 , macpacheco wrote:
>
> > Just let 10 million street GPS receivers (including smart phones, car
> > navigation systems, handhelds) become unusable half a mile from L^2
> > towers... The public outcry will spell doom for whatever party was
> > responsible for this approval.
>
> If the present financial crisis, about 100x more (or more) expensive
> than the entire GPS system, including all receivers in service
> worldwide, is not an indicator to you of political accountabilty, then
> you really have no idea about US politics.
>
> Read the link that Sam Wormley posted last night - at first a positive
> sign, but still gives Lightsquared a lot of breathing room and hope.
>
> It ain't over by a long shot.
>
> --
> "We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."
> Douglas Adams - (Could have been a GPS engineer).

Apples and Oranges. The present financial crisis was caused by many
idiotic but ideology based decisions. I fail to see how any
congressman will be able to explain why they made all existing GPS
equipment from unreliable to useless due to L^2 deployment being
allowed. There's no ideological explanation that will save L^2. When
was the last time that tens of billions of dollars worth of equipment
became useless in just a few months time due to a government decision,
without a very good reason ? The response L^2 will create jobs can be
easily countered with the monetary loss to replace equipment.

It will cause pain in many special interest groups, agriculture,
finance, telecoms, aviation. They will be knocking on congress doors
asking where is the money to replace those billions worth of equipment
that is now useless ? Even the GPS industry itself might find itself
unable to sell current equipment that require having replacements go
through certification and testing, with significant losses.

Why should be GPS industry pay for re-engineered their equipment in a
hurry because of L^2 ?

The lobby weight of just a single one of the special interest groups
above easily outgun L^2 by a tenfold margin.

And finally, the DoD will use the national security card (unless POTUS
orders them not to), just that alone kills L^2. And there's more and
more legislation that essentially gives the DoD official veto power
over L^2 due to any interference concerns (actually legislation that
ORDERS the DoD to veto L^2 if interference issues remain).

Marcelo Pacheco

In
news:2e790c11-aeaf-4784-88ff-(E-Mail Removed)
macpacheco <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> I fail to see how any congressman will be able to explain why they
> made all existing GPS equipment from unreliable to useless due to L^2
> deployment being allowed.

I fail to see how any Congressman can explain nearly anything he does.

That doesn't stop them, and they almost always get re-elected anway.

--
(E-Mail Removed) St. Paul, MN

On 2011-12-30 15:07 , Philip Homburg wrote:
> In article<t5CdnSGQoJdvd2DTnZ2dnUVZ_s2dnZ2d@giganews. com>,
> Alan Browne<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>> On 2011-12-30 11:28 , macpacheco wrote:
>>
>>> Just let 10 million street GPS receivers (including smart phones, car
>>> navigation systems, handhelds) become unusable half a mile from L^2
>>> towers... The public outcry will spell doom for whatever party was
>>> responsible for this approval.
>>
>> If the present financial crisis, about 100x more (or more) expensive
>> than the entire GPS system, including all receivers in service
>> worldwide, is not an indicator to you of political accountabilty, then
>> you really have no idea about US politics.
>
> It seem to me that by the time you a banking sector that is too big to fail,
> then there is nothing you can do. Of course, something will go wrong, so you
> can always find some scapegoats. But you can't solve that basic problem.
>
> The funny thing is, Europe can probably solve the banking problem. But they
> can't solve the problem with the little country called Greece.
>
> I think the GPS issue is different. It is a national resource (and it would
> be extremely embarrassing if in the rest of the world there would be GPS
> receivers that are both cheaper and more accurate). And Lightsquared is
> essentially worth nothing.

I was just making the point that US politicians, who have been
de-regulating the financial markets since the 90's and generally been
ignoring all warnings of the high leveraging , increased risk and
bubbling away of real wealth - have not been held accountable for
something much more valuable and important than GPS, they certainly
would escape accountability for allowing L^2 to seriously impact the GPS
user segment.

>> Read the link that Sam Wormley posted last night - at first a positive
>> sign, but still gives Lightsquared a lot of breathing room and hope.
>>
>> It ain't over by a long shot.
>
> I think that makes sense. If they would deny Lightsquared something at this
> stage and it comes to a lawsuite, then it may become be costly.
>
> The only way out is to maintain that they never got a license to operate
> the way they intend to.

And it's past time that the FCC employed its own counter salvos against
L^2 in the press: Most esp on issues such as the original intent of the
band in question. Which if used as intended, at that power print (on
earth) would not affect receivers at all.

--
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."
Douglas Adams - (Could have been a GPS engineer).

On 2011-12-30 18:56 , macpacheco wrote:
> On Dec 30, 2:46 pm, Alan Browne<alan.bro...@FreelunchVideotron.ca>
> wrote:
>> On 2011-12-30 11:28 , macpacheco wrote:
>>
>>> Just let 10 million street GPS receivers (including smart phones, car
>>> navigation systems, handhelds) become unusable half a mile from L^2
>>> towers... The public outcry will spell doom for whatever party was
>>> responsible for this approval.
>>
>> If the present financial crisis, about 100x more (or more) expensive
>> than the entire GPS system, including all receivers in service
>> worldwide, is not an indicator to you of political accountabilty, then
>> you really have no idea about US politics.
>>
>> Read the link that Sam Wormley posted last night - at first a positive
>> sign, but still gives Lightsquared a lot of breathing room and hope.
>>
>> It ain't over by a long shot.
>>
>> --
>> "We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."
>> Douglas Adams - (Could have been a GPS engineer).
>
> Apples and Oranges.

Convenient counter label to set up a poor argument.

The basic fact, proven by history, is that US politicians are _never_
held accountable for anything passed as law or policy or committee
decisions.

--
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."
Douglas Adams - (Could have been a GPS engineer).