The Coalition to Save Our GPS sent a letter today to the FCC asking the agency to “promptly rule” that LightSquared be barred from using the upper mobile satellite spectrum (MSS) band for high-powered terrestrial operations. Previous tests of LightSquared’s 4G broadband transmitters in the upper MSS band resulted in widespread GPS interference issues.
The option of LightSquared using the upper band “should be taken off the table now,” the coalition told the FCC. The group maintains that LightSquared has not met the terms of the FCC’s January 2011 conditional waiver for the upper and lower 10MHz MSS bands specifying that LightSquared prove its planned operations would not cause interference with GPS. As such, “The FCC should make clear now that the condition imposed in [waiver] has not been satisfied and that the waiver is revoked with respect to the upper MSS band.”
The coalition said revoking use of the upper band will allow LightSquared to concentrate on the narrower issue of high-precision GPS interference with its lower-band transmissions, while eliminating the GPS community’s concern about LightSquared expending “significant resources on another round of upper-band testing a few years from now.”