Updated February 15th, 2012 Almost exactly a year (01/26/2011) after granting LightSquared a conditional waiver for their terrestrial network in spite of the quantified warnings of the GPS industry, the FCC reversed course today following a report by the NTIA that "there is no practical way to mitigate potential interference at this time"...
So was all this fuss necessary ? Well possibly, because the FCC explains that the fault lies with the GPS receivers currently on the market that do not filter the LightSquared frequencies properly but that it would be too costly to the economy to replace them...You can use the Lightsquared - GPS Jamming - FCC Pulls the Plug topic in the "GPS and Mobile News" forums to discuss.
Updated December 14th, 2011 - The battle rages on between Lightsquared and the GPS industry around the impact of LightSquared's proposed 4G/LTE network using frequencies adjacent to the GPS frequencies, with renewed testing and a potential launch in late 2012.
Developments since May include the finding that GPS receivers were not designed as well as they could have been in terms of...
... frequency filtering as there was no expectation to have to deal with high power transmissions on adjacent frequencies. One "fix" suggested by LiqhtSquared would be to reduce the power of their transmissions, so more testing is required. You can use the Lightsquared - GPS Jamming - saveourgps.org topic in the "GPS and Mobile News" forums to discuss.
Updated May 27th, 2011 - As requested by the FCC a Technical Working Group (TWC) was established to determine the impact of LightSquared's proposed 4G/LTE network using frequencies adjacent to the GPS frequencies. The working group has now published three monthly progress reports and the latest one dated...... May 16th lists the final list of participants and planned testing, with the first batch occurring in the Las Vegas area. You can use the Lightsquared - GPS Jamming - saveourgps.org topic in the "GPS and Mobile News" forums to discuss.
Posted March 15th, 2011 - Momentum has been building over the past few weeks to raise awareness about the potential threat to GPS as we know it that would be caused by a proposed new wireless network to be launched by LightSquared in the second half of 2011. These efforts are being speardheaded by the SaveOurGPS Coalition that counts Garmin, Trimble, TomTom, UPS, the ATA, etc...in its ranks. LighSquared's 4G/LTE network will combine terrestrial and satellite technology to maximize coverage. The cause for concern is...... that the FCC has granted them a temporary license to convert their low power L Band satellite spectrum for high power terrestrial use. As a result GPS receivers using the adjacent GPS band (1559-1610 Mhz) will be jammed when they get near one of the 40,000 proposed transmitters. You can use the Lightsquared - GPS Jamming - saveourgps.org topic in the "GPS and Mobile News" forums to discuss.
Updated February 15th, 2012
