The chiefs of the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology
(OET) and International Bureaus plan to tell Congress Friday that the process
that resulted in the FCC's grant of a waiver to LightSquared was fact-based and
transparent, that they stand behind the work of their engineers and technical
experts, and that the GPS industry did not raise concerns about interference
until 2010, eight years or so into a decade-long proceeding.
That is according to the joint testimony of OET head Julius
Knapp and International Bureau chief Mindel De La Torre for a hearing Friday, Sept.
21, in the House Energy and Commerce Oversight subcommittee on the waiver
process.
After being granted a conditional waiver by the FCC to use
satellite spectrum for a planned wholesale 4G terrestrial mobile broadband net,
the FCC suspended the waiver temporarily -- and is in the process of
determining whether that should be permanent -- after GPS interference issues
could not be resolved.
Knapp and De La Torre say the FCC was attracted by
LightSquared's potential of "attracting new private investment, increasing
competition, bringing additional broadband service to rural and hard-to-reach
regions, and creating thousands of jobs," and that "during the decade
preceding the November 2010 waiver request, the GPS industry had numerous
opportunities...to inform the Commission of the receiver overload interference
issue ultimately raised in 2010," but "did not do so." Had they
raised any issue, they write, the FCC would have investigated it and tried to
resolve it.
Even in 2010, they say, the GPS industry was not complaining
about out-of-band emissions from LightSquared transmissions or authorized power
levels, but instead their own receivers potentially picking up the signals from
the adjacent band. That is the issue that eventually prompted the waiver to be
suspended since some of those receivers were used by the military and for
navigation and the GPS complaint was loud and long.
The FCC officials say the problem is with unfiltered or
poorly filtered legacy GPS devices and the FCC continues to study the issue as
it tries to free up more spectrum for flexible use. "The Commission staff
is currently reviewing the extensive record developed in response to that
Public Notice," they say. "At the current time, LightSquared cannot
deploy its service commercially because of the unresolved receiver overload
interference issue."
