LightSquared is Dead > Good riddance

reply to jseymour

Re: Good riddance

That is my feeling... This a failure on all parties parts. GPS manufactures built a flawed product that relies on empty space outside their assigned spectrum for "proper" functionality. LS failed to meet the conditions of the waiver for the assigned spectrum. The FCC, again, just failed all over.
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Para Bellum!!

the FCC is too toothless thanks to industry pressures though. I'm not surprised by the results of all of this. I am disappointed though.

Congress let the FCC become as lame as it is.

As am I. It offered the idea of a new player who would open up the data market for the small, innovative companies to go to town on Att and Verizon.
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Para Bellum!!

reply to Smokey
It doesn't rely on empty spectrum, it relied on the neighboring spectrum to be used for its original purpose, which was for transmissions from space to earth, not from base stations close by and more powerful.

That is inherently flawed. Would not a device capable of responding to a satellite in that band also cause that interference?

The idea that your device must have other devices working in a way not thought of 20 years ago when the bands were set aside is flawed. What makes it even more flawed is that the makers were told almost a decade ago to fix this mistake, and failed to do so.
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Para Bellum!!

reply to FBGuy

reply to Smokey

reply to FBGuy
Do you realize how weak a GPS signal is at the receiver? There is always crosstalk between neighboring frequencies. When the neighboring frequency's signal is several orders of magnitude more powerful on account of its proximity (remember that effective power is inversely proportional to the square of the distance), it will drown out other signals, even if they're not on the exact same band. GPS cannot have terrestrial signals around it, and that's not the fault of GPS.

reply to Smokey
Smokey, neither you nor "John McClane" apparently understand How Radio Works. (Hint: Regurgitating LightSquared's wildly inaccurate assertions as to How Radio Works does not constitute "Understanding How Radio Works.") Nor, apparently, do either of you understand how frequency allocation/planning works, either. (Hint: Whining about the alleged "unfairness" of frequency allocation/planning, just because it doesn't work to ones advantage, does not constitute "understanding.")

I, on the other hand, having been in radio for over 40 years, including terrestrial and satellite microwave communications, do understand How Radio Works. Having held both FCC Advance Class Amateur and FCC Commercial licenses, I also understand how frequency allocation/planning work.

LightSquared's plans were a massive Fail from the get-go. I knew it. Anybody that knew the least bit of How Radio Works knew it. I'm certain FCC's engineers knew it, and FCC granted the conditional waiver only under political pressure from above. (Research "Barack Obama" and "LightSquared" to get an idea where that might've come from.)

reply to BF69

reply to jseymour

reply to jseymour

reply to Smokey

reply to Smokey

reply to FBGuy
Using your thinking, so is everything that is wireless. This includes, radio, TV, mobile phone, etc. Look at the facts. LightSquared bought SATELLITE spectrum and then later wanted to use it for terrestrial communication. If the spectrum was used as it was sold for, there would be no issues. The issue is that at high transmission power levels, you do get bleed over and the higher the power, the more the neighboring devices will have to deal with it. In this case, you have the GPS signal as a very weak signal and you have a massively more powerful neighbor drowning those signals out. This is why that spectrum that LightSquared bought was for SATELLITE use. LightSquared bought the wrong spectrum and nothing more.

reply to jlibuszowski

reply to marigolds
So then if Dish were to attempt this same idea with their spectrum, would we hear the same argument from the GPS community?
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Para Bellum!!

reply to FBGuy
Ya know, there ARE certain design limitations to transmitting a beacon from space, right?

Size of the unit deployed, technology available at the time of launch (the oldest GPS satellite still in service has been up there for 22 years, anyone here commuting in a 22 year old car, or using a 22 year old computer?) Power available at the transmission source, etc.

The technological parameters drawn up when the system was deployed were designed to take the spectrum conditions in place at the time of deployment into consideration. Since we don't have unlimited money to lob fresh GPS sats into the stratosphere on a weekly basis, and no one has found a way to run an extension court into space, I would say it's a pretty well designed system.

Lightsquared is getting the axe because they were going to use spectrum that wasn't designed for the intended purpose in the first place. They bought the spectrum on the cheap, thinking they could bribe the Obama administration into steering a waiver their way, and they lost.

So, the DoD has designed and deployed a constellation of 26 satellites that can reliably tell me my precise position anywhere on earth, and you see it as flawed.

Did you own a piece Lighsquared or something???
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Petty people are disproportionally corrupted by petty power