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Senators Task FCC to Find Alternate Spectrum for LightSquared

Apr 11, 2012, 11:01 AM by Eric M. Zeman

The Federal Communications Commission needs to come up with an alternate spectrum plan for beleaguered LightSquared, say U.S. Senators John Kerry and Lindsey Graham. The two lawmakers sent a letter to FCC chairman Julius Genachowski saying, "We urge you to work with industry and the relevant federal agencies to find consensus on alternate spectrum for LightSquared's proposed network. Advancing LightSquared's network in a consensus manner would increase competition in the wireless broadband market and promote the public interest." The FCC has blocked LightSquared's plans to use L-Band spectrum for a terrestrial LTE 4G mobile broadband network due to GPS interference concerns. LightSquared has demanded that the FCC review its case and provide it with new spectrum. It has long claimed that the GPS industry is at fault, as GPS equipment encroaches on LightSquared's spectrum and not the other way around. "Others have rightly pointed out that this situation raises the question of whether the agency should create receiver standards so that license holders operate only in their licensed spectrum," said Kerry.

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Comments

This forum is closed.

This forum is closed.

Tofuchong

Apr 11, 2012, 9:38 PM

Kerry / Graham

If Kerry and Graham think that this is such a good idea, they should take care of this personally.

Yes. Instead of telling the FCC or "urging" as they said, they should actuially and personally DO something about this and not just write letters. Writing a letter and then doing nothing about the outcome is inaction, so I guess we should expect that from the government, right?

It Kerry is so hung up on this, HE should find lightsquared the spectrum they need.

JBlaze74

The only problem with that is authority. I am not sure which committees the senators are on or if any comittees they are assigned to actually give them the authority to "take care of this personally." No matter my personal opinion of these partcular...
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msteven3

Apr 11, 2012, 11:43 AM

There's spectrum for them

There's plenty of spectrum LightSquared can use. It's located in the 1700 MHz and 700 MHz bands. Oh, I forgot, they don't have any because they didn't participate in those spectrum auctions, since they got the spectrum they have on the cheap, figuring that they could convert it from satellite-based rtransmission to terrestrial use. So now that they got burned, they want a do-over. Essentially, they bought property on the outskirts of town that was zoned residential and tried to get it zoned commercial, but, since they didn't get it rezoned, they want to do an even swap for much more expensive property in the middle of downtown.

The only question I have is how much they had to pay Kerry and Graham to ask the FCC to find them new spectr...
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JBlaze74

I'm sure LS made a generous contribution to both Mr. Graham's and Mr. Kerry's reelection campaign. I'm certain it is totaly proper and above the boards and had absolutely no influence whatsoever on the senators' decision to speak to the FCC. LMAO

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mycool

Actually, from what I understand (using your analogy), is that they purchased a less expensive piece of property and when they went to go build on it they found out that neighboring businesses had built on part of the land in which they had purchased....
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jallath

Apr 14, 2012, 1:30 PM

Seriously?

This is like the BBB trying to force Cheverolet to replace the lemon Malibu I bought from the average Joe. It makes absolutely no sense. The government backs up Corporations way to much.

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