THE FIGHT TURNS POLITICAL
The report lends additional weight to arguments against LightSquared’s deployment plan, which culminated on June 23 with congressional action to block FCC approval by the House Appropriations Committee.
Siding with critics, the committee added an amendment to a fiscal 2012 spending bill that funds the FCC that would slow LightSquared’s plan by preventing FCC funds from being used to implement a Jan. 26 conditional waiver of a satellite and terrestrial service bundling rule. Objections from competing service providers were set aside in granting the conditional waiver, but interference concerns raised by the GPS industry were not. That waiver order included a condition that LightSquared satisfy the FCC that the GPS interference questions raised during the public comment period for the waiver are resolved before the FCC would allow the plan to proceed.
A Washington-based coalition of GPS venders and users across many industries, including construction, called the Coalition to Save our GPS ">has driven opposition to the plan. It officially launched on March 10 a vigorous campaign to block LightSquared’s rollout following the conditional granting of the waiver in January, which it saw as representative of scope creep, with LightSquared plans morphing into a more and more pervasive and powerful source of interference to the nation’s network of GPS devices.
In addition to its technical issues with interference, the coalition has also alleged that approval of LightSquared’s plans have been rammed through the FCC with unprecedented speed, insufficient public notice and inadequate study of the imminent peril to the GPS system. Those concerns were among the complaints that moved the House Appropriation Committee to take its blocking action.
Others leading the charge include Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who objected in a letter dated April 27 to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Grassley specifically objected to the FCC issuing “an order granting LightSquared Subsidiary LLC (LightSquared) a waiver which allowed it access to a band of spectrum which is adjacent to the spectrum used by the Global Positioning System.” He also expressed dismay that the FCC originally planned only one week for comments to the request for the waiver and only extended it another week at the urging of outside stakeholders.
Grassley also expressed concern that “this accelerated timetable raises further concerns given that Phil Falcone, the senior managing director of Harbinger Capital, which owns LightSquared, faces an ongoing investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into a $113-million improper transaction, which came to light in November 2010, shortly before the FCC gave notice of its dramatically accelerated timetable. If anything, this investigation should have led the FCC to proceed with caution rather than step on the gas.”
In closing, Grassley requested copies of all communications between employees of the FCC and the White House and Falcone, LightSquared and Harbinger Capital.
In a May 31 reply, Genachowski wrote that the GPS interference issues are being taken seriously. He pointed to the waiver order’s direction that LightSquared organize and participate in a GPS interference technical “working group” as a strong response to concerns that were raised so strongly during the waiver comment period.
He then went to some length to “correct two misperceptions” about the LightSquared matter: that the order granted “a waiver which allowed it access to a band of spectrum which is adjacent to the spectrum used by the Global Positioning System (GPS), and second, that the commission has acted on a ‘dramatically accelerated timetable.’”
Genachowski began, however, by noting, “As I have stated previously to Congress … the commission will not permit LightSquared to begin commercial service without first resolving the commission's concerns about potential widespread harmful interference to GPS devices.” He noted that the Jan. 26 conditional waiver “outlines our interference concerns, and unambiguously conditions LightSquared's commercial operation on first resolving those challenges to our satisfaction.”
“The order was not the trigger to permit LightSquared access to the spectrum in the band adjacent to GPS,” Genachowski wrote. He noted that the LightSquared company is built upon acquisitions and license transfer approvals dating back a number of years. “LightSquared’s predecessors have had access to this L-Band satellite spectrum since 1995 and have been authorized to provide terrestrial service since 2004. LightSquared itself gained access to that spectrum in March 2010, after an extensive comment and consideration period.”
