"On August 8, 2011, LightSquared repeated yet again its self-serving assertions regarding what the FCC
International Bureau (IB) has authorized it to build and the effect of the January 2011 conditional
waiver. LightSquared states:
“The January waiver had nothing to do with the interference at issue in this proceeding. The
public record shows that the Commission first approved rules allowing terrestrial operations in
the L-band in 2003. LightSquared received its authorization to conduct terrestrial operations in
2004. LightSquared has had the legal right to build the network it is building today – with the
same number of towers and power levels -- since 2005.
The interference at issue today arises
because of sensitivity of GPS receivers to LightSquared’s base stations, operating at the power
level authorized in 2005.”
LightSquared’s assertion ignores clear statements in prior FCC decisions and critical elements of the
FCC’s rules. Those statements and rules contradict LightSquared’s claim that it has some pre-existing
“legal right” to build its proposed free-standing terrestrial network. The real history and facts follow
below.
• Prior FCC decisions – including the ones that LightSquared seeks to rely on for its claim of “legal
right” – made absolutely clear that MSS licenses could not offer the kind of stand-alone terrestrial
services that LightSquared has now proposed and the FCC’s IB conditionally approved. As early as
2003, the FCC stated categorically that “[w]e do not intend, nor will we permit, the terrestrial
component to become a stand-alone service.”
1
• MSS licensees in the L-band, including LightSquared, have long been on full notice that the FCC
could take further action to protect GPS if interference issues arose. In a 2005 proceeding dealing
with the very same ATC license conditions that LightSquared cites, the FCC committed to take
actions necessary to “ensure that all FCC services provide adequate protection to GPS.”
2
Given this commitment and the clear language of the FCC’s rules, neither LightSquared nor Harbinger could
reasonably rely on earlier decisions to shift the burden of interference to GPS users. If they did, they
made a very bad bet with their investors’ money.
• As recently as the 2010 National Broadband Plan, adopted at the same time Harbinger was
approved to take control of LightSquared, the FCC reiterated the limited nature of permitted
terrestrial operations in the MSS spectrum. The FCC explained that “[t]he ATC [ancillary terrestrial
component] rules allow MSS providers to deploy terrestrial networks to enhance coverage in areas
where the satellite signal is attenuated or unavailable” and that “MSS licensees must integrate MSS
and ATC services, including, notably, a requirement that all ATC handsets must have a satellite communications capability.”
3
In fact, the FCC acknowledged in January 2011 that it had to waive
this integration requirement in order to conditionally authorize LightSquared’s proposal.
• By requiring an MSS licensee to integrate any terrestrial offering with its satellite service, the ATC
rules effectively require the licensee to operate the terrestrial component in a manner that does not
interfere with the satellite component. This “self-correcting” mechanism also indirectly protects the
GPS satellite services in the adjacent spectrum. When it waived this rule for LightSquared in January
2011, the IB eliminated this critical protection of GPS. This is why NTIA told the FCC in January 2011
that LightSquared’s November 2010 proposal, which the FCC greenlighted by granting the waiver,
presented a “new interference environment” for GPS.
4
• In any case, LightSquared’s license was (and remains) subject to a general FCC rule that MSS
terrestrial operations are not permitted to cause interference to other services, including GPS, and
that LightSquared is obligated to cure any such interference.
5
LightSquared’s contention that GPS
users are somehow responsible for mitigating the interference that LightSquared would create is
false. It has no legal right to commence interfering operations or shift the burden of curing
interference to GPS users.
1
Flexibility for Delivery of Communications by Mobile Satellite Service Providers in the 2 GHz Band, the LBand, and the 1.6/2.4 GHz Bands; Review of the Spectrum Sharing Plan Among Non-Geostationary Satellite Orbit
Mobile Satellite Service Systems in the 1.6/2.4 GHz Bands, Report and Order and Notice of Proposed Rulemaking,
18 FCC Rcd 1962, ¶1 (2003).
2
Flexibility for Delivery of Communications by Mobile Satellite Service Providers in the 2 GHz Band, the LBand, and the 1.6/2.4 GHz Bands, Memorandum Opinion and Order and Second Order on Reconsideration, 20 FCC
Rcd 4616, ¶ 70 (2005).
3
National Broadband Plan, Recommendation 5.8.4., p. 87.
4
Letter from Lawrence Strickling, NTIA, to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, January 12, 2011, at 1.
5
Section 25.255 of the Commission’s rules states that: “[i]f harmful interference is caused to other services
by ancillary MSS ATC operations, either from ATC base stations or mobile terminals, the MSS ATC operator must resolve any such interference.”
# # # "
Source of Post
http://www.saveourgps.org/pdf/wp_2003HistoryLeaveBehind.pdf
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