LightSquared gets at least some political attention
On 04/15/2011 07:00 PM, Pete Lancashire wrote:
For the first time in ages a broken page. Extracted text for those who
experience the same:
8<----
LightSquared GPS Interference Issue Flares Again in Senators' Letter
Posted In: Government | GPS | FirstNews
By Maisie Ramsay Friday, April 15, 2011
Senators Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) want the FCC to
stop LightSquared from deploying its LTE network until it proves its
service doesn't interfere with GPS services.
In an open letter released yesterday, the lawmakers asked their fellow
senators to call on the FCC to ensure that GPS service is not
compromised in any way by LightSquared's planned hybrid-satellite LTE
network.
LightSquared plans to deploy its services on spectrum directly adjacent
to GPS bands. The company has developed filters to stop its signal from
bleeding into GPS service, but major GPS stakeholders, including the
Defense Department, fear that widespread GPS "dead zones" are inevitable
if LightSquared's network goes live.
"The full Commission must be involved and require LightSquared to
objectively demonstrate non-interference as a condition prior to any
operation of its proposed service," the Senators wrote in their letter.
"Anything less is an unacceptable risk to public safety."
GPS systems are used by the military, public safety, aviation and
consumers. The technology is also used in critical applications across a
wide swath of U.S. industries, including agriculture and civil engineering.
LightSquared received a waiver from the FCC earlier this year to use
spectrum formerly reserved for satellite services for land-based LTE
services. The L-Band spectrum is located next to bandwidth used by
highly sensitive GPS receivers, which also use parts of the L-Band
spectrum to fine-tune their coordinates.
Many in the GPS industry say the signal sent out by LightSquared's
network of 40,000 base stations will create major interference problems
that will overwhelm GPS receivers.
"LightSquared is trying to define the potential for interference in a
very narrow way – if they filter it so none of the signals go out of
their band, that's all they have to do," says Jim Kirkland, general
counsel at Trimble. "They say we're eavesdropping on their band, but I
would say we can't help but hearing what they're doing in their band."
The FCC has said it will not allow LightSquared to launch commercial
services until the GPS interference issue is addressed, but that has
done little to assuage fears of the GPS industry.
SkyTerra, which later became part of LightSquared, first proposed
incorporating a land-based component into its L-Band satellite services
in 2003. The company also worked with the U.S. GPS Industry Council
(USGIC) at the time to manage interference posed by out of band emissions.
Manufacturers of GPS equipment continued building receivers that
listened in to portions of the L-Band after 2003, a practice Kirkland
says is for legitimate technical and business reasons.
Jeff Carlisle, head of government and regulatory affairs at
LightSquared, says GPS receivers should have been designed differently
after 2003. The FCC does not regulate receivers, only transmitters,
adding to the complexity of the issue.
"Even though our transmitter is doing exactly what it's supposed to do
and not sending any signal into GPS, the receiver is looking into our
spectrum either by accident or design," Carlisle said in an interview
conducted earlier this month. "There's no problem with that until the
receiver crosses the boundary into our area. After 2003, the receivers
should have been designed so they were protecting themselves from that
interference."
LightSquared says it spent $9 million to develop filters to minimize
interference issues and has formed an FCC-mandated technical working
group with the U.S. GPS Industry Council (USGIC) to study the issue.
LightSquared is set to file a new report from the technical working
group today.
Carlisle said in a statement that LightSquared is confident the
interference issues can be addressed, and reiterated the company's
intention to launch commercial operations only after the FCC is
satisfied with the review process.
"To ensure that the LightSquared network and the GPS systems can
coexist, we will continue to work collaboratively with federal agencies
and the GPS community, just as we have over the past ten years since the
proposed scope of LightSquared's terrestrial network was first publicly
announced," Carlisle said.
LightSquared has already signed up Best Buy and Cricket Communications
for its wholesale LTE service and plans to begin commercial operations
in the first quarter of next year. It is not clear whether the issues
with potential GPS interference could affect the company's launch plans.
---->8
Cheers,
Magnus
In keeping with its plan to re-purpose MSS spectrum (including the
L-Band MSS spectrum) to include terrestrial uses, the FCC recently
adopted a rule allowing "spectrum manager" leasing arrangements in
the MSS bands (see Report and
Order,
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-11-57A1.pdf).
This will make terrestrial operations all the more common, and is
just one more step in the FCC's march to allowing terrestrial uses of
the spectrum without any pretense of satellite operations.
Interestingly, Paragraph 28 of the Report and Order contains the following:
We emphasize that responsibility for protecting services rests not
only on new entrants but also on incumbent users themselves [i.e.,
in this case, GPS users], who must use receivers that reasonably
discriminate against reception of signals outside their allocated
spectrum. In the case of GPS, we note that extensive terrestrial
operations have been anticipated in the L-band for at least 8 years.
The situation with two other adjacent services, DARS (satellite
radio) and WCS (Wireless Communications Service, one more service to
be used for mobile broadband delivery) is quite similar, although in
that case the interference is expected to be bilateral (DARS
terrestrial repeaters into WCS mobiles, and WCS mobiles into DARS
receivers). For the moment, the FCC has afforded some protection to
DARS legacy receivers, but it said it expects future DARS receivers
to have better front ends (although it has not said that it would
relax any of the constraints on WCS mobile transmitters when that happens).
Best regards,
Charles
Sorry for the rant, but
In my opinion, if the FCC is going to allow high power terrestrial transmitters
in frequency bands adjacent to those used for receiving weak satellite signals
it would be helpful if they would provide some specific guidance in terms of the
field strength levels that receivers and their antennas will be expected to
tolerate. It would be even better if the FCC would deem field strength levels
in excess of this amount to be harmful interference, and require the terrestrial
service providers not to exceed this field strength beyond the boundaries of
their transmitter sites.
Setting the field strengths levels in accordance with sound engineering
practices, getting input from stake holders and providing a multi year phase in
period would be nice as well (:
Mark SpencerRegards
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Mark wrote:
if the FCC is going to allow high power terrestrial transmitters
in frequency bands adjacent to those used for receiving weak
satellite signals
it would be helpful if they would provide some specific guidance in
terms of the
field strength levels that receivers and their antennas will be expected to
tolerate.
They will, when they publish final technical rules for the new
terrestrial services. In keeping with the modern FCC trend, it will
presumably be in the form of an "emissions mask" that the terrestrial
transmitters must meet. I assume that any transmitters installed
pursuant to the ATC rules are govered by an emissions mask that was
already adopted by the FCC in one of the ATC orders, which may simply
be re-adopted in the terrestrial proceeding.
It would be even better if the FCC would deem field strength levels
in excess of this amount to be harmful interference
That will be the case when the technical rules for the terrestrial
services are adopted, and I presume it is the case with respect to
any transmitters installed pursuant to the ATC rules.
Setting the field strengths levels in accordance with sound engineering
practices, getting input from stake holders and providing a multi
year phase in
period would be nice as well (:
Well, whenever satellite services operate adjacent to terrestrial
services, one person's sound engineering is another's unmitigated
disaster. I refer you to the voluminous record in the WCS/SDARS
proceeding for confirmation of this. (Go to
http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/ecfs/comment_search/ and search for
Proceeding Numbers 07-293 and 95-91. Look at filings by the WCS
Coalition, the several largest telecommunications companies, and the
SDARS licensees Sirius and XM (now merged)) The FCC is getting input
from stakeholders, but understand that a bunch of folks in and out of
government think mobile broadband is the primary key to national
innovation and competiveness going forward, and they are all scared
spitless. The FCC sees the US becoming a third-world country with
respect to broadband (particularly, mobile broadband) and is in a
full-on panic about it.
Now, I'm not sure I agree with them -- but then I have a hate-hate
relationship with my cell phone and probably don't use 100 minutes of
air time annually, (though I do use a PDA for work e-mail quite a
lot, but I've never once used it to view a web site, IM, Twit, or
whatever). They may be right, or they may be wrong, but (like
Pascal's Wager) many people will be so scared of the possibility that
they will feel the need to go that way even if they don't really
believe in it. So, the reality is that we will be getting as much
additional wireless spectrum as the FCC can, in its panic, find and
reallocate. (All of that would be true just on policy grounds
alone. In reality, all of the policy considerations have a fierce
tailwind in the form of an extremely well-funded and
politically-savvy telecommunications industry, which stands to make $
trillions over the next 20 or 30 years.) The FCC is rushing to
implement a 5-year plan (with a 3-year sub-plan), so that is about
the most phase-in we are going to get.
Best regards,
Charles
The CEA is petitioning to have terrestrial TV refarmed to free up some spectrum. The wireless companies will both pay the government and the broadcasters to get the spectrum.
Though I liked Clinton/Gore, the HDTV plan was boned headed beyond belief. They should have never allowed HDTV in VHF, but stationed wanted parity with their analog status.
We have one HDTV station with a dozen channels. It is so multiplexed it doesn't even look like SDTV.
Trust me, I could rant on for pages on this.
-----Original Message-----
From: "Charles P. Steinmetz" charles_steinmetz@lavabit.com
Sender: time-nuts-bounces@febo.com
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2011 19:23:22
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurementtime-nuts@febo.com
Reply-To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
time-nuts@febo.com
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] LightSquared gets at least some political attention
Mark wrote:
if the FCC is going to allow high power terrestrial transmitters
in frequency bands adjacent to those used for receiving weak
satellite signals
it would be helpful if they would provide some specific guidance in
terms of the
field strength levels that receivers and their antennas will be expected to
tolerate.
They will, when they publish final technical rules for the new
terrestrial services. In keeping with the modern FCC trend, it will
presumably be in the form of an "emissions mask" that the terrestrial
transmitters must meet. I assume that any transmitters installed
pursuant to the ATC rules are govered by an emissions mask that was
already adopted by the FCC in one of the ATC orders, which may simply
be re-adopted in the terrestrial proceeding.
It would be even better if the FCC would deem field strength levels
in excess of this amount to be harmful interference
That will be the case when the technical rules for the terrestrial
services are adopted, and I presume it is the case with respect to
any transmitters installed pursuant to the ATC rules.
Setting the field strengths levels in accordance with sound engineering
practices, getting input from stake holders and providing a multi
year phase in
period would be nice as well (:
Well, whenever satellite services operate adjacent to terrestrial
services, one person's sound engineering is another's unmitigated
disaster. I refer you to the voluminous record in the WCS/SDARS
proceeding for confirmation of this. (Go to
http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/ecfs/comment_search/ and search for
Proceeding Numbers 07-293 and 95-91. Look at filings by the WCS
Coalition, the several largest telecommunications companies, and the
SDARS licensees Sirius and XM (now merged)) The FCC is getting input
from stakeholders, but understand that a bunch of folks in and out of
government think mobile broadband is the primary key to national
innovation and competiveness going forward, and they are all scared
spitless. The FCC sees the US becoming a third-world country with
respect to broadband (particularly, mobile broadband) and is in a
full-on panic about it.
Now, I'm not sure I agree with them -- but then I have a hate-hate
relationship with my cell phone and probably don't use 100 minutes of
air time annually, (though I do use a PDA for work e-mail quite a
lot, but I've never once used it to view a web site, IM, Twit, or
whatever). They may be right, or they may be wrong, but (like
Pascal's Wager) many people will be so scared of the possibility that
they will feel the need to go that way even if they don't really
believe in it. So, the reality is that we will be getting as much
additional wireless spectrum as the FCC can, in its panic, find and
reallocate. (All of that would be true just on policy grounds
alone. In reality, all of the policy considerations have a fierce
tailwind in the form of an extremely well-funded and
politically-savvy telecommunications industry, which stands to make $
trillions over the next 20 or 30 years.) The FCC is rushing to
implement a 5-year plan (with a 3-year sub-plan), so that is about
the most phase-in we are going to get.
Best regards,
Charles
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.
On 04/16/2011 01:44 AM, lists@lazygranch.com wrote:
The CEA is petitioning to have terrestrial TV refarmed to free up some spectrum. The wireless companies will both pay the government and the broadcasters to get the spectrum.
Though I liked Clinton/Gore, the HDTV plan was boned headed beyond belief. They should have never allowed HDTV in VHF, but stationed wanted parity with their analog status.
We have one HDTV station with a dozen channels. It is so multiplexed it doesn't even look like SDTV.
Trust me, I could rant on for pages on this.
But have you gone SFN? That would compact the frequency needs such that
LTE style broadband could be done in UHF instead of breaking up the GPS
signal. SFN requires sufficiently good timing... but last time I looked
at the ATSC SFN spec they got the fundamentals completely wrong, doable
but overspeced due to the missunderstandings.
Cheers,
Magnus
8VSB was chosen because it allowed conventional translators top be used. Reality, who knows. In any event, the jury is still out on SFN working with 8VSB.
Broadcasting is more about politics than engineering. IBOC and BPL are proof of that.
-----Original Message-----
From: Magnus Danielson magnus@rubidium.dyndns.org
Sender: time-nuts-bounces@febo.com
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 01:56:27
To: time-nuts@febo.com
Reply-To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
time-nuts@febo.com
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] LightSquared gets at least some political attention
On 04/16/2011 01:44 AM, lists@lazygranch.com wrote:
The CEA is petitioning to have terrestrial TV refarmed to free up some spectrum. The wireless companies will both pay the government and the broadcasters to get the spectrum.
Though I liked Clinton/Gore, the HDTV plan was boned headed beyond belief. They should have never allowed HDTV in VHF, but stationed wanted parity with their analog status.
We have one HDTV station with a dozen channels. It is so multiplexed it doesn't even look like SDTV.
Trust me, I could rant on for pages on this.
But have you gone SFN? That would compact the frequency needs such that
LTE style broadband could be done in UHF instead of breaking up the GPS
signal. SFN requires sufficiently good timing... but last time I looked
at the ATSC SFN spec they got the fundamentals completely wrong, doable
but overspeced due to the missunderstandings.
Cheers,
Magnus
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.