FCC Bars Use of Airwaves for a Broadband Plan

Excerpt from an article in The New York Times
Wednesday, February 15, 2012

F.C.C. Bars the Use of Airwaves for a Broadband Plan 

By EDWARD WYATT

WASHINGTON — A proposed wireless broadband network that would provide voice and Internet service using airwaves once reserved for satellite-telephone transmissions should be shelved because it interferes with GPS technology, the Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday.

The F.C.C. statement revokes the conditional approval for the network given last year. It comes after an opinion by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which said that “there is no practical way to mitigate the potential interference at this time” with GPS devices. The telecommunications and information agency oversees telecommunications policy at the Commerce Department.

The news appears to squash the near-term hopes for the network pushed by LightSquared, a Virginia company that is majority-owned by Philip Falcone, a New York hedge fund manager.

LightSquared said on Tuesday that the testing of the network was “severely flawed.” It “remains committed to finding a resolution with the federal government and the GPS industry to resolve all remaining concerns,” the company said in a statement.

The company said it “profoundly disagrees” with the results of the testing, which was done by a national engineering group, and the telecommunication agency’s opinions, “which disregard more than a decade of regulatory orders, and in doing so, jeopardize private enterprise, jobs and investment in America’s future.”

The F.C.C., which had granted a conditional approval to LightSquared to go ahead with its network pending the results of more testing, will now propose barring near-term deployment of the LightSquared system, the F.C.C. said. The commission will issue a request for public comment on the proposed action on Wednesday.