LightSquared Continues To Defend And Promote Troubled System

The long saga involving the bizarre and inexplicably persistent efforts of LightSquared to foist an unworkable and reportedly dangerous wireless system on America might finally be coming to an end.

Despite the FCC's seemingly indefensible, though limited, waiver for a system with a multitude of problems and issues, the final nail in LightSquared's coffin may have been hammered late Friday. Late in the day; the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Executive Committee (PNT ExComm) stated that the collection of nine federal agencies that constitute the organization body had reached a unanimous conclusion in that none of LightSquared's proposals would overcome significant interference with GPS technologies.

The National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) is a US Government organization established by Presidential directive to advise and coordinate federal departments and agencies on matters concerning the Global Positioning System (GPS) and related systems.

The PNT stated that, "Based upon this testing and analysis, there appear to be no practical solutions or mitigations that would permit the LightSquared broadband service, as proposed, to operate in the next few months or years without significantly interfering with GPS. As a result, no additional testing is warranted at this time."

Previous testing proved that the LightSquared systems and technologies interfered with many GPS devices... since then LightSquared has taken a number of controversial positions including blaming the GPS industry, itself, for the problems seen in working in concert with their system. 

LightSquared has, of course, responded. The company is, "... urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to retake the lead on government testing for GPS filtering solutions after a series of actions by federal agencies have demonstrated bias and inappropriate collusion with the private sector..."

FMI: www.pnt.gov/interference/lightsquared/