FCC Considering "all options" to Save LightSquared

I was over at my favorite hangout this morning (Ace of Spades HQ) and saw this link to another LightSquared article (from The Hill) posted by the indefatigable commenter and imaginary Intarwebz buddy, Vic.

Again, I must restate my support for the concept of a fast, public 4G wireless service, but as I've followed this story, I've seen sloppiness and a disregard for the safety not only of our military, but the public at large. Given who is involved, the anti-Christ George Soros among them, this is sadly not a surprise.

At least both parties are now considering something that should have been done from the beginning: moving the frequency away from the "quiet" GPS band, so there's that. I'm a layman, and ignorant in the ways of electronics, but common sense seems to have been missing from this endeavor from the outset. Anything that would have operated near the GPS frequency band should've been a non-starter.

Thanks, Vic.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Sunday programming.

LightSquared Files for Bankruptcy

As y'all know, I've covered the LightSquared story extensively here. Today, I have some good news: LightSquared has filed for bankruptcy in what is hopefully the death throes of this company and the crony socialism it represented.

LightSquared, based in Reston, Virginia, listed assets of $4.48 billion and debt of $2.29 billion as of Feb. 29 in a Chapter 11 filing yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. The filing followed intense negotiations with creditors, who had requested that the company’s backer, Philip Falcone, step aside. Falcone and the current management team will remain with the company, Terry Neal, a LightSquared spokesman, said yesterday.

Good riddance. And suck it, George Soros.

Sprint Bails Out of LightSquared Infrastructure Deal

As all eleven of you know, I've been following the LightSquared story for some time. While their idea of high-speed wireless transmission is a good one (and one I think will be realized soon), their tactic of encroaching upon the "quiet" space near the frequency used by the Global Positioning System is very dangerous to the military and the general public, something I've pointed out here and here.

Thankfully, LightSquared's plans to interfere with with the GPS band appears to be nearing its end. Cellular giant Sprint appears to pulling out of their agreement with LS to share their infrastructure.

That sound you hear is the top of a Guinness being opened in celebration. Cooler and more rational heads have prevailed. And this administration's crony socialism has been slowed somewhat.


And now for something completely different...

My Crimson Tide basketball team takes on Creighton today at 1:40 on TBS. I had a gig last night, and while unwinding this morning, B'Gal and I were watching ESPN's SportsCenter where one bracketologist (whose name escapes me) had Alabama advancing to the Final Four.

Bless him.

How Did LightSquared Get This Far Despite Bad Test Results?

I've been doing some of that exhaustive Interwebs research into LightSquared and the results are, well, I'll let you decide. I already made up my mind.

The original idea for LS is a good one, namely to provide broadband service without cables. As many in the wireless world will attest, it's far easier and cheaper to construct a cellular tower than to run cables to individual homes. But, in execution, the radio frequency that LS will use to bypass those cables gets perilously close to the band that our Global Positioning System uses, interfering in what has been called a "quiet neighborhood." This interference has some pretty nasty side effects.

LightSquared's plan would have the necessary towers located on the ground, and testing proved that these towers would prevent GPS signals from reaching users. While that might sound like a minor inconvenience, I doubt if you would think it was very minor if you called 911 in the middle of a heart attack and the first responders suddenly lost their ability to find you. Or if the airplane you were flying in was on approach to the runway and discovered it didn't know where it was.

And this administration thinks that won't be a problem.

In fact, the Federal Communications Commission issued a special waiver for just for LS so it could operate even after it was pretty much proven that their towers would interfere with ground reception of the GPS signal.

This is beyond incompetence and enters the realm I consider to be dangerous.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted this link to an FAA paper (thanks to a fellow Moron over at Ace's Place) that outlines the negative effect of LightSquared's interference with ground reception. It wasn't the only test.

Here's an overview of their plan from Computerworld.com.

The LightSquared interference debate is among the most heated in recent years in the U.S., pitting the critical and widely used GPS service against a new mobile data entrant with a new technology and business model.

Here's what Congress was told.

LightSquared’s intended deployment of their high-power terrestrial broadband system should not be allowed to commence commercial operations until the identified problems are resolved,” said Anthony Russo, director of the federal National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing.

The FCC was informed.

The document describing the testing states that the Lightsquared initiative “will have a severe impact on the GPS band” and “will create a disastrous interference problem for GPS receiver operation to the point where GPS receivers will cease to operate (complete loss of fix) when in the vicinity of these transmitters.”

The Aircraft Owners and Pilot's Association had this to say...

Subsequent testing confirmed concerns of aviation and other GPS users that low-powered GPS signals are overwhelmed by the strong signals from LightSquared’s ground transmitters.

Feel safe yet? Feel like the federal government is acting in your best interests and that of the public?

Michelle Malkin digs a bit deeper.

Despite industry-wide protests, the firm somehow received fast-track approval for a special FCC waiver that grants LightSquared the right to use wireless spectrum to build out a national 4G wireless network on the cheap. Ken Boehm, of the conservative watchdog National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) in Washington, D.C., summed up the deal earlier this year: “LightSquared will get the spectrum for a song, while its competitors (e.g., AT&T and Verizon) have to spend billions.”



The current “fix” LightSquared proposes to address the interference problems is a costly, conceptual pipe dream that could require massive retrofitting of millions of handheld GPS devices. GPS expert Eric Gakstatter scoffs: “I’ve been pretty open-minded about LightSquared proposing a solution, but this really insults our intelligence. (A)s we’ve seen previously with LightSquared, it’s not about finding a practical solution for the GPS user community; it’s all about selling an idea to the FCC. The problem is that the FCC doesn’t have to live with LightSquared’s half-baked ‘solution’; we do.”

So, how did this happen? President Obama was an early investor.

And you'll never guess in a million years who else is involved in this danger to the public safety. None other than your fiend and mine, the anti-Christ, George Soros.

As Republican lawmakers begin to dig into the White House's cozy relationship with a startup wireless company and the wealthy Democratic donor who owns it, a new character has appeared on the story's edges: liberal superdonor, conservative bete noire and controversial investor George Soros.



Soros reportedly invested in the telecom company LightSquared through a hedge fund, and many of the nonprofits he finances have backed LightSquared in regulatory and policy disputes.

I propose one more test for LightSquared and it's a very simple one: how long will it take for everyone responsible for this to rot in a jail cell?

LightSquared is a National Defense Disaster for the US

If you havent gotten up to speed on this issue yet, I have some very disturbing news for you. I really don't know any other way to put it: if LightSquared is allowed to implement its plans for wireless broadband service, it will disrupt our GPS system.

Disruption of our GPS system of navigation would be very bad for our country.

I'm not going to get into the political implications of this issue, there are other folks who can cover that aspect, probably better than I can. It appears this issue, at first glance, has much in common with Solyndra.

Where it differs is the technological damage it would cause to the nation. There would be an awful lot of it.

While I was over at Ace's place yesterday (my favorite Interwebs hangout, as you all know), one of the commenters posted this link to a PDF from the Federal Aviation Authority entitled LightSquared Aviation Impacts. The document is a reply to a body of GPS experts that helps coordinate the nations GPS system.  I only had time to read the first few pages, but what it contains should concern you greatly.

I'll spare you a lot of geek-speak and just say that this plan, while it may sound good, would be devastating to commercial and military aviation that depends on our GPS system for safe navigation.

The effects of LightSquared deployment would be far-reaching and potentially devastating to aviation. Proposed LightSquared operations would severely impact the efficiency and modernization of the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world. LightSquared operations would bring numerous curent and planned safety, efficiency, environmental improvements to a halt- jeopardizing U.S. leadership in the modemization of the global airspace system.

 

Our current GPS system is to be the foundation for an upgrade in navigation technology, something that the LightSquared plan would jeopardize in a big way.

I strongly recommend you pour yourself a shot of something very strong before you read the FAA letter. The ramifications of this plan would have a devastating effect on our GPS capabilities while costing us billions in unnecessary expense. Even worse, it would put the traveling public in real danger from crashes.

There's much more research to do. Here's the Wikipedia link, which is where I'll be spending my weekend reading.

It appears that the White House is supporting this project. I find it unusual that there would be the highest support for a plan that would harm the nation in so many ways. It's expensive, it's dangerous, and it never should have been considered unless there was another way to implement it in another frequency range that was safely away from the frequency range where GPS operates. This is beyond incompetance, this is a blatant disregard for the safety and security not only of the flying public, but the military too. It will make us very vulnerable to attack and greatly reduce our military advantage in that event. It is a national security issue of the highest order.

I'm still struggling to find the words to describe my feelings about that. The one word that keeps coming to mind, I'm rather reluctant to type, as you might understand.

Treason.

Obama Administration Seeks to Tax and Track Drivers with GPS Box

While the White House continues to change its story on the successful operation that took out OBL, this administration’s efforts to raise taxes and infringe upon your privacy proceed apace.
You’re gonna love this.

Under this plan, a study group would be established that would evaluate the feasibility of taxing drivers using the number of miles driven. And you’ll never guess how they plan to do it. Go on, guess. I’ll wait.

If you guessed they want to put a GPS device on your vehicle to track where you’ve been and when, then, Don Pardo, tell them what they’ve won!

Never mind that we’re already taxed for each mile we drive. That’s done through the taxes that the federal government and state and local municipalities impose on every gallon of gas we buy. Now, they want to install a GPS device in order to track the number of miles you drive. And if you think that’s all the information that will be gleaned from that little black box in your car, then, by all means, let them install one on your vehicle.

I’d rather not.

It’s crystal clear to me why the feds want to do this, as it should be to you. This is yet another of the ways the hoax of man-made global warming is being used as a political tool for the government to remove your Constitutional freedom of movement and your God-given right to privacy.

Pardon me, but I don’t remember telling any of my elected representatives that I wanted this done. And I can’t find anything horribly deficient with the current method of taxation. They seem to be able to collect a fair amount of money from us every day. What’s really funny is how this administration points to the eight cents of profit that the big, eeevilll oil companies make on every gallon as if that number is somehow outrageously high, but neglect to tell you how much money they make from that sale: an average of forty-one cents per gallon. And that’s without any of the overhead that the big, eeevilll oil companies incur in bringing that product to you.

So, pardon me once again. I fail to grasp why this is even being considered.

I can do some educated guessing, though. I can recall a time when we had enough money for what’s now called “infrastructure maintenance.” Of course, that was before the era of big public sector unions and their leech-like effect upon taxpayers. Where once we didn’t have the financial burden of paying outrageous union benefits with our tax monies, increasingly we’re seeing the decidedly negative impact of these union contracts as our roads and bridges fall into disrepair because of the sky-high benefits that the unions have extracted from the pockets of taxpayers. We used to pay taxes for road repair, but now all that money is going to fund lavish lifestyles for union members.

And I seem to recall all of the Stimulus money that was promised to trickle down to the local level in the form of infrastructure spending to do what used to be done with transportation tax money. Funny, I haven’t seen one new road or bridge being built, or even a road being repaved with any of that $800B dollars I was told about, have you?

I can also guess that someone in a cubicle somewhere in the bowels of the Transportation Department crunched the numbers on the reduced amount of tax revenue the government would realize as a result of encouraging us to purchase more fuel-efficient vehicles and use public transportation and other modes of getting around.

So, why not just raise the gas tax? Why go through the trouble and expense of outfitting every vehicle in the US with a GPS device to track our driving habits? I wonder who would benefit from the contract for such an expensive undertaking. GE maybe? Or another of Obama’s corporate cronies with strong union ties? The public-sector unions who would doubtless people the new departments(s) required for this massive new program and their Democrat supporters?

Regardless of who benefits, this is an idea that should be squashed right now. There is no compelling need for this at all. Our travels are our private business and no one else’s. And we're taxed enough already.

This administration just might find a bit of resistance to this program.

Just a bit.