Lightsquared LTE Network Clears One Hurdle

Obama did talk about covering 98% of america with wireless broadband. Oh wait I forgot, AT&T will be doing this within a few years with low caps and high fees.

nvm.....

Or like Bush's FCC Michael Powell and Kevin Martin pushing BPL.

quote:

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"you'll know Lightsquared is getting closer to being a viable player in the space when you see AT&T and Verizon (who collectively dominate 70% of the wireless sector) begin ramping up efforts to derail this project"

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you'll know Lightsquared is getting closer to being a viable player in the space when your GPS stops working and you find yourself being routed off the edge of a cliff (along with various missile tests landing in populated areas).

I have no doubt that Lightsquare will pay off anyone and everyone necessary to get this up and running regardless of the interference issues. They have probably learned a thing or two from the BPL industry.

quote:

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LightSquared, backed by billionaire Philip Falcone and his Harbinger Capital hedge fund

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He is well plugged in to the people who control the money and the economy on Wall St and in Washington. And while AT&T & Verizon could make his life miserable, he has considerable power and contacts to return the favor. I suspect a truce here, where they will mostly leave him alone and wait to see if his extremely ambitious plans fail of their own accord. It will be very hard to break in to the national dominance of the 4 existing cellphone behemoths.

»www.forbes.com/profile/p ··· -falcone
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ha ··· _Capital
»www.reuters.com/article/ ··· 20110120

His hedge fund is struggling and it is very possible his cell service venture will die on its own without AT&T or Verizon having to do anything to kill it.

GPS is still new to consumers..... give me a break. ever hear of a map? Everyone should learn to use them. What happens when your GPS goes out in the middle of a trip??

You stop at the first electronics store you see and buy a new GPS!

Maybe, maybe not. GPS has a center carrier frequency of 1575.42MHz. Lightsquared has L-Band frequencies at 1525-1544MHz and 1545-1559MHz. If used for satellite communications, as the band was intended, there would not be an issue as all signals would be very low power here on Earth. However, the proposal to the FCC is to use those 1.5GHz frequencies for terrestrial communication meaning substantially higher power levels in that band when received here. As such, being near a tower transmitting on the 1545-1559MHz band could desense the sensitive receiver required to receive GPS signals and any other satellite signals adjacent to the Lightsquared allocation. Obviously laboratory tests of various satellite receiving equipment would be needed to verify this but I seriously doubt the current crop of civilian GPS receivers has the necessary bandpass filters to notch out everything except the GPS frequency allocation. To date there would not have been any point because all of the adjacent frequencies would also be satellite transmissions with signals no stronger than the GPS signal and as such would not overwhelm a receiver.

I suppose the solution could be to have everyone throw away every piece of existing civilian GPS equipment (GPS, iPhone's, Android's, fixed timing equipment, etc.) and replace it with newer equipment that has improved filtering. It would be a nice way to stimulate the electronics industry by forcing everyone to upgrade.

»news.yahoo.com/s/ap/2011 ··· ared_fcc

and like i said. you need to learn how to read a map. what happens if there isn't one anywhere around? You're screwed. People need to learn how to read maps. Stop depending on GPS.

I would pull my horse and buggy over to the side of the dirt road, get out my sextant and figure out a new course. Failing that, I would try to find the nearest telegraph station and send a telegram advising I will be late.

I can read a map and trained extensively in map reading with the army in the 1980's, including studying FM 21-26. I still carry a map atlas in my car but I am not a Luddite and I am willing to use newer technology. I have not pulled the atlas out in years as it has not been needed. You are certainly free to stick with paper maps and even connect to the Internet on an old 9600 kbps modem if you like.

Still FUD

GPS has many, many other uses besides replacing road maps. What will happen when my GPS synched wireless internet access points get borked by Lightsquared, or land surveyors, or (insert several dozen other borkable uses)?