Faced with increasingly strident opposition, LightSquared has agreed to alter its plans to build a high-speed broadband wireless network and use a different block of spectrum to avoid interfering with GPS networks. Tests of LightSquared's ground-based transmitters revealed interference issues that groups such as the Coalition to Save our GPS claimed would create GPS dead zones.
The concession to move away from potentially interfering airwaves "ensures that tens of millions of GPS users won't be affected by LightSquared's launch (and permits) LightSquared to move forward with the launch of a nationwide wireless network," Sanjiv Ahuja, the company's chairman-CEO said in a news release.
LightSquared, which is being viewed by some cable operators as a potential wireless wholesaler, isn't abandoning the spectrum; it's just moving away to facilitate its launch. The company's news release said that it will use the next several years to "work closely with the FCC and the NTIA as well as relevant U.S. government agencies and commercial GPS users to explore mitigation possibilities and operational alternatives."
For more:
- see this story
- and this news release
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