LightSquared Disrupts 75% of GPS Connections In Government Test

Freddybear writes with this quote from BusinessWeek: "Philip Falcone's proposed LightSquared Inc. wireless service caused interference to 75 percent of global-positioning system receivers examined in a U.S. government test, according to a draft summary of results. ... The tests worked off an 'extraordinarily conservative' threshold and didn't show the devices' performance was affected, [LightSquared exec Martin Harriman said]. 'If we're affecting the performance of the device — my goodness, we'd like to be sure that doesn't happen,' Harriman said. The laboratory testing was performed for the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Systems Engineering Forum, an executive branch body that helps advise policy makers on issues around GPS. It found that 69 of 92, or 75 percent, of receivers tested 'experienced harmful interference' at the equivalent of 100 meters (109 yards) from a LightSquared base station."

Comments

Uncle diddles

[Anonymous Coward]

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Re:Uncle diddles

[Anonymous Coward]

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Re:Uncle diddles

[Anonymous Coward]

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Re:Uncle diddles

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I asked a nigger if he was gay, him and all his nigger buddies beat me up, tied me down, and took turns fucking my asshole without lube or protection. They also made me suck their dicks, covered with my own shit. It was 3 days before they untied me. I'd prefer they didn't beat me up first.

This is being whitewashed from the white house

[SuperKendall]

This story is bad enough until you find out the white house was pressuring people to hide issues related to LightSquared.

And Philip Falcone is a huge donor for the Democratic Party.

I'm not saying Republicans are angles or anything like that. I am saying this a very bad case of corporate ties directly to the whitehouse that is threatening to disrupt a major technology just to make some money...

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[ceoyoyo]

If it interfered with GPS, they'd get caught awfully fast and LOSE a lot of money. Interfering with GPS doesn't just mean that someone's turn by turn directions get messed up. A lot of things now depend on GPS, mostly for the time information.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[LtGordon]

I'm not saying Republicans are angles or anything like that.

You could, however, say they are quite obtuse.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Shadowruni]

But the Republicans are Right (angles)! Thank you ladies and gentlemen I'll be here all week. Try the fish!

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to mention that Phillip Falcone is under investigation by the SEC.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Surt]

I was just looking to see if someone else had posted a good reply like yours. :-)

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[DaHat]

Tis interesting that an Executive Branch office would make such a report to him so soon after this news was leaked... you'd think the White House would have better control over the SEC... the same way it does the NLRB, EPA, or DOJ (oh I look forward to Holder going over F&F (though he should have never been given the job)).

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[petteyg359]

Obtuse Anglos?

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[ILongForDarkness]

Obtuse Anglos was deported I thought.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[PopeRatzo]

I'm not saying Republicans are angles or anything like that.

Then you'll need to get your information somewhere besides hotair.com.

When a reputable news source reports this, it will mean a lot more.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Anonymous Coward]

That was acute joke.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[DigiShaman]

Politics + Money = Corruption. All of those consumer devices that use GPS? Pffffttttt, do you think any of those assholes in DC care? FUuuuuuuck noooooo!

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Anonymous Coward]

GPS disruptions will likely cause some not-so-nice feedback from the FCC and FAA, among other groups.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[drmofe]

That's acute pun.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[fnj]

The bureaucracy has a certain very real independence from the government. That can be a problem when the administration is trying to accomplish worthwhile things, but it can also serve as a check on corruption in the government, even if in turn corruption in the bureacracy is a huge problem in itself. Wheels within wheels.

It's a sad commentary when good things come from parts of the system working at cross purposes, but it works.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[TubeSteak]

Then you'll need to get your information somewhere besides hotair.com.

When a reputable news source reports this, it will mean a lot more.

TFA is from Business Week. The HotAir.com article only quotes from Business Week and includes other relevant facts that seem well sourced.
I'm not sure how the GP ended up talking about Republicans, but this was reported by a reputable news source.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not saying Republicans are angles or anything like that...

Oh, don't be so obtuse!

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Anonymous Coward]

On the upside, the Military has just found an new way to jam the GPS of enemies on the battlefield.

On a more serious note, WTF, that has to be some serious bleed over. Almost all of the frequencies used by GPS are reserved government frequencies. Light Squared will use 1525-1559 MHz according to what I have found. The nearest GPS freq is 1575.42 MHz but is the L1 freq explaining why so many receivers get jammed completely. Light Squared has a serious engineering problem, because they either produce nasty sub-carriers outside there assigned frequencies, or they just ignore their assigned frequency and use more bandwidth that they have be allocated.

This link is to the a great Freq. Allocation Chart for the US. While it says 2003, it still applies to this case.
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/files/ntia/publications/2003-allochrt.pdf

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[hedwards]

He's under investigation. The SEC opens many investigations that doesn't automatically result in charges being brought. Wake me up when there's actual charges.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[The Askylist]

My reading was that the GPS receivers were picking up the 1552-1559 MHz signal due to being made with cheap parts. That would correlate quite well with the finding that only 3/4 of the receivers were affected - if Light Squared were transmitting out of their assigned band, you'd expect 100% of the receivers to suffer interference.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[virb67]

I find it very odd that people believe that any criticism of the Obama administration has to be accompanied by a statement proclaiming that Republicans are bad, even when it's completely irrelevant to the topic being discussed. It's almost as if, for some weird reason, people think they have to apologize for making very valid and necessary criticisms against the terrible policies supported by this president. Not that I give a shit about Republicans, but I think the apologetic tone softens the criticism, which should be expressed as plainly and bluntly as possible. This president is not what he promised to be. We should't apologize for pointing out the fact that we were duped.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an electrical engineer. I did my doctorate in a GPS lab working on safety-of-life applications (landing planes and such). The LS issue has been a very hot topic of discussion in the technical community for most of the past year. At the annual ION GNSS conference this past September, there was a panel discussion on the preliminary test results described in TFA. Out of approximately 600 people in the room, there were exactly two who expressed opinions supporting LS's contention that the interference to GPS would be insignificant: one guy was the LS General Counsel, and the other was a guy who is claiming he has retrofit kits (RF notch filters) that will eliminate the interference. It should be noted that, when asked how his kits would be fitted to the millions of GPS receivers already in the field, the latter person had absolutely no answer.

It is not at all a stretch to say that very nearly 100% of the people who have done LS testing, or evaluated the results from an engineering perspective, conclude that the effects as proposed will be somewhere between "significant" and "catastrophic."

--Jake

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[sessamoid]

I'm not saying Republicans are angles or anything like that.

You could, however, say they are quite obtuse.

Following that logic, Republicans must, therefore, be wrong. Because you cannot be both obtuse and right.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Anonymous Coward]

If Republicans are angles then they are obtuse angles.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Anonymous Coward]

What did you just call me?

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[D'Sphitz]

And Philip Falcone is a huge donor for the Democratic Party.

According to Wikipedia

The Federal Election Commission has no record of Phil Falcone, a registered Republican, nor LightSquared Chairman and CEO Sanjiv Ahuja of having ever contributed to President Obama’s political campaigns.

Among the issues being raised is if political contributors received favorable treatment by the Obama administration. Since 2007, a key investor in LightSquared, Phil Falcone, has donated $85,500 to Republicans and $50,500 to Democrats.

Not what I'd call a "huge donor for the Democratic Party".

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Megane]

It's not that they're using "cheap parts". It's that the signal from those little solar-powered tin cans whizzing around in the sky is so weak that adding a notch filter to increase selectivity would significantly affect the ability to receive the signal at all. And they want to drop this elephant right next to it.

But hey, they paid their donations to the Party, right?

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Anonymous Coward]

Superkendall is quite conservative. I believe he was/is quite prolific on reddit and/or digg. He'll say anything to make the current administration look bad, whether it's true or not.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Ihmhi]

Too many Republicans are far right.

(Hey, I tried. I can't think of a good joke using "Isosceles". Anyone who does may be granted an Internets.)

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[dmomo]

Ok. This thread is starting to go off on a tangent.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Anonymous Coward]

republicans are obtuse angles

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[dmomo]

No that was his cosine.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[The Moof]

I'm not sure how the GP ended up talking about Republicans

According to the original Slashdot article, this was originally brought to the floor by a Republican.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[chromas]

Isosceles eaters circling the perimeter to sinus up for circumcisions—circumscriptions—to an irrational number of circulations.
Oh wait, you said good.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[evanism]

My cosine isn't acute. She's just attractive.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[digitig]

I'm not saying Republicans are angles or anything like that.

Well, some of them are quite acute, but mainly they're obtuse. It's rare for them to be right.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[KillAllNazis]

I propose a slight alteration: Politics = Money = Corruption.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[vlm]

The nearest GPS freq is 1575.42 MHz but is the L1 freq

Very close but not quite. The L1C signal is not a simple continuous carrier like the old transit sats from the 50s/60s. The data rate is somewhere around ten megabits and it modulation is BPSK. The exact answer requires more detail but the actual transmitted BW will end up maybe 10 megs higher and 10 megs lower than the center theoretical carrier. Which is getting uncomfortably close to the lightsquared signal.

So... that's 1565 or so, vs the interference at 1559. So you head over to minicircuits.com (a seller of many microwave components, including the high pass filter you are trying to purchase) and look for a coaxial filter with a curve showing almost 0 dB attenuation at 1565 and up to keep your noise figure usable, and at least 60 dB out of band attenuation at 1559. Then you realize why the EE types claim "its a law of physics" that this simply cannot be worked around. Oh and note the ones that don't even come close to making the grade are roughly the size weight and cost of a very small cell phone. Generically building a filter in that frequency range with those specs is impossible, but building the device to that exact frequency spec and stable over any temperature range makes it even more impossible.

Before the sorta knowledgeable DSP types jump in, yes, you can get filter curves like that using DSP. However you need a analog input clean enough to do the DSP on it... So, again, you're screwed. Just plug your 60 dBm 3rd order IMD preamp into your 32 bit A/D 10 GHz A/D converter and then process it. This is technobable of the finest level, components with specs like that Might exist in just 50 years or so, but they sure don't now.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[vlm]

I'm an electrical engineer

Good

other was a guy who is claiming he has retrofit kits (RF notch filters) that will eliminate the interference. It should be noted that, when asked how his kits would be fitted to the millions of GPS receivers already in the field, the latter person had absolutely no answer.

Run the numbers on the Q factor required and the maximum possible passband attenuation to keep the noise figure of the front end usable... If you know what "snake oil" is WRT crypto it sounds like this guy's offering sounds suspiciously like "frequency grease" WRT RF.

Note that if the problem is front end overload, his snakeoil/freqgrease might be a simple 10 dB attenuator, probably being sold at an immense markup. If would be easier to duct tape aluminum foil to the existing antenna until the incoming signals are knocked down enough that the FE is not overloading but optimistically there is still enough RF signal left to decode.

This is assuming its not at the RF technology level of those stickers you put on cell phones to magically do things that sound good.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Dolphinzilla]

couldn't have said it better - excellent post ! If I had mod points they'd be yours parent !

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[PopeRatzo]

TFA is from Business Week.

I understand that, but the Business Week article doesn't say anything like the text SuperKendall used in his link to the HotAir article.

This is done all the time. Someone wants to make a political point. They link to some blog's hit piece article which links to a reputable article which does not make the same conclusion and then viola! a = c.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Anonymous Coward]

-- I think you've struck a chord there. Arc aren't think of any more.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm not saying Republicans are angles..."

That's good, because then we'd have to determine whether they're acute, obtuse, or right angles. I don't consider a straight angle to be an angle at all--sort of like a Republican, apparently.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Anonymous Coward]

Run the numbers on the Q factor required and the maximum possible passband attenuation to keep the noise figure of the front end usable... If you know what "snake oil" is WRT crypto it sounds like this guy's offering sounds suspiciously like "frequency grease" WRT RF.

Note that if the problem is front end overload, his snakeoil/freqgrease might be a simple 10 dB attenuator, probably being sold at an immense markup. If would be easier to duct tape aluminum foil to the existing antenna until the incoming signals are knocked down enough that the FE is not overloading but optimistically there is still enough RF signal left to decode.

This is assuming its not at the RF technology level of those stickers you put on cell phones to magically do things that sound good.

I am intimately familiar with the RF arguments. The proposed notch filter is indeed snake oil, but not for reasons of insufficiently steep stopband rolloff. Rather, it's a relatively bulky thing which will work just fine for the receivers produced by the guy's company (Javad), and maybe even other receivers that could be retrofitted. But it is totally unusable for most embedded receivers (handhelds, etc.) due to size (and cost), and there are a lot more of those deployed in the world. The "snake oil" part of the argument is that he is being spectacularly disingenuous about it: when asked how he intends to retrofit every TomTom, Garmin, GPS-enabled wristwatch, and mobile phone already out there in the field, he just waves his hands and says, "those devices won't be affected."

While I'm on the subject, people seem to be unaware of a further bit of deception on LS's part. Their initial proposal included two bands just below GPS (the so-called "Low 10" and "High 10"). When testing showed that the resulting interference would make the proposal a non-starter, LS submitted a modified proposal in which they would only the lower of the two bands (farther away from GPS), and at a lower broadcast power level. The thing is, LS never stated that this was their intended final configuration. Indeed, upon further discussion, it emerged that this revised proposal was intended only to placate objections in the short term, and that LS fully intends to use both bands and the higher power levels (as in their original proposal) eventually. In other words, the potential interference problem was never addressed, just kicked down the road a bit.

In short, the proposed filter was far more sophisticated than the bits of aluminum foil you might see for sale on QVC on channel 179 at three in the morning... but it's virtually meaningless in any practical sense.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[RogerWilco]

Excellent explanation. Thanks.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Insightfill]

I find it very odd that people believe that any criticism of the Obama administration has to be accompanied by a statement proclaiming that Republicans are bad, even when it's completely irrelevant to the topic being discussed.

I think that the GP post is preemptively trying to stop the tidal wave of "but the Republicans did THIS [bad thing]".

I'll admit it softens the tone, but it at least stops some of the noise that was sure to follow.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the word you are searching for is Obdurate: "To be pridefully and deliberately ignorant". Very much a hang over from the last administrations anti-science stance.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[garyebickford]

Good explanation, thanks. this makes me ponder whether Lightsquared might do better to go to an Ultra Wideband technology, which IIUC would eliminate nearly all interference problems, and would also provide nearly ultimate privacy protection against third parties snooping the signal. (Which might make the 'official' snooper-types uncomfortable.) It would certainly make Lightsquared a disruptive technology, a generation ahead of anyone else.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[currently_awake]

A notch filter on your IF stage (after the pre-amp) doesn't affect receive sensitivity. The front end filter is just there to block IF and outband frequencies that would add/subtract to get IF.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Thing 1]

It's a sad commentary when good things come from parts of the system working at cross purposes, but it works.

I don't know; I see it as similar to a RAID array: every drive I purchase will fail, but by arranging my activities correctly, I will never lose data. Similarly, corruption may be present in all areas of government, but by arranging it just right it has made it more than 200 years. Current trends seem to indicate it won't make it to 300.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe this joke has been protracted long enough.

(Ugh. Even I hate myself after that.)

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Bartles]

Eric Holder's career should have been finished after the Mark Rich fiasco.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[lophophore]

if you overload the RF amp, you're screwed. That's probably what's happening. The front ends on consumer GPS units were not engineered to deal with a high-power signal 25 MHz away. It is theoretically possible to engineer GPS receivers that can withstand that, but none have been built yet. So if LightSquared goes live, 75% of consumer (and possibly commercial) GPS units will have serious problems.

Still, this will go through like grass through a goose, the taxpayers will get screwed, and most existing GPS units will suffer serious degradation. Mark my words.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Anonymous Coward]

Light Squared has a serious engineering problem, ...

Another possibility, mentioned on Lightsquared's wikipedia page is the difference in signal strengths. GPS signals are weak, so the receivers can't do much filtering before the initial amplifier stage. Even if the lightsquared boxes put out 10e-6 of peak power at near-GPS frequencies, that's could still be big compared to the GPS design signal levels. Drive the pre-amplifier to the rails with an out-of-band signal and your GPS won't detect anything, even if there's no actual signal at 1575.42 MHz.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Anonymous Coward]

(Replying to myself, since I carelessly overlooked the following omissions when previewing...)

1) "LS submitted a modified proposal in which they would initially use only the lower of the two bands..."

2) The exact wording LS used in their revised proposal was "standstill." When asked if this was equivalent to "commitment to never use the High 10 band and/or to eventually increase the transmit power up to the (disruptive) levels in the original plan," they dissembled, and eventually admitted that their long-term plan indeed included both bands and the higher power levels.

3) I'm the same person that posted the comment at December 11, @01:32AM (but forgot to sign it). I really should register a /. account one of these days.

--Jake

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[SnowZero]

Well, they do often lie about being straight.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[AJWM]

GPS disruptions will likely cause some not-so-nice feedback from the FCC and FAA, among other groups.

Perhaps they'll piss off the DOD enough that the military will decide to use a few (appropriately frequency-modified) AGM-88 HARMs to take out the transmitters. ;)

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[guruevi]

I would like to sin with your cosine.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Anonymous Coward]

An alternate Internet or purchase a new GPS reciever. ..and we leave these decisions to legislators indebted to private campaign funding?

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[HiThere]

Were *you* duped? Then you weren't paying attention. While he was running for president he voted in favor of FISA. So you should have known all along that he was lying through his teeth. But he was probably still the best of two bad choices. (And don't talk about the third party candidates. The only plausible reason to vote for any of the ones I investigated was that they had no reasonable chance of being elected. Nobody sane will invest the time and effort required to run as a third party candidate. Actually, I doubt that anyone sane will even invest the time and effort required to run as a major party candidate, but at least there there's a measurable probability that you'll get elected.)

The system is thoroughly corrupt. But it's probably not bad enough that violent overthrow of the government would make things better. (It almost never does.)

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[ceoyoyo]

And the banks that depend on GPS time signals to timestamp transactions? Or the cell networks that (for some reason) depend on GPS time to synchronize their networks?

You didn't think GPS was only used by drivers who don't know where they're going, did you?

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[evanism]

you could, if you like round figures, but she's sometimes irrational. :)

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Man On Pink Corner]

Generically building a filter in that frequency range with those specs is impossible, but building the device to that exact frequency spec and stable over any temperature range makes it even more impossible

And that's a big part of the problem as well. GPS is first and foremost a precision timing application, and high-Q bandpass filters and phase stability/tempco do not mix.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Anonymous Coward]

And Philip Falcone is a huge donor for the Democratic Party.

According to Wikipedia

The Federal Election Commission has no record of Phil Falcone, a registered Republican, nor LightSquared Chairman and CEO Sanjiv Ahuja of having ever contributed to President Obama’s political campaigns.

They don't cancel your money out if you donate to the other side too. You still get favors

Among the issues being raised is if political contributors received favorable treatment by the Obama administration. Since 2007, a key investor in LightSquared, Phil Falcone, has donated $85,500 to Republicans and $50,500 to Democrats.

Not what I'd call a "huge donor for the Democratic Party".

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[HereIAmJH]

So if LightSquared goes live, 75% of consumer (and possibly commercial) GPS units will have serious problems.

If you had been following along, you would know that consumer GPS units are not affected. That has already been resolved when LightSquared agreed to hold off using the upper band for a period of time, allowing most consumer GPS units to be replaced by normal obsolescence. Their use of the lower band will only affect precision GPS units.

If I was in to conspiracy theories, I'd say that little fact is left out of news articles intentionally to rile up the general population against LightSquared.

Looking at it as someone who has been following this for months, and has no stake in the game either way, it looks more like this; precision GPS manufacturers didn't feel the need to filter a band in between two that they were using since it wasn't really being by anything with any power, and it could have cost them a few more pennies per unit. And then LightSquared managed to somehow get the FCC to consider opening the band to terrestrial transmitters. Now it's a multi-billion dollar pissing match. Nobody is completely right, and nobody is completely wrong.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[clanrat]

The front ends on consumer GPS units were not engineered to deal with a high-power signal 25 MHz away.

This is the largest part of the problem. No one envisioned terrestrial services of this nature in this band when GPS was being created.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Anonymous Coward]

According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]

The Federal Election Commission has no record of Phil Falcone, a registered Republican, nor LightSquared Chairman and CEO Sanjiv Ahuja of having ever contributed to President Obamaâ(TM)s political campaigns.

Honestly, he donate to both sides. Just look at the donations on OpenSecrets.org. Since you quoted wikipedia, it's only fair to include his article and a little quote as well " He has also attended fundraisers for Barack Obama,". But seriously, quoting wikipedia is kind of silly.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the test result for consumer GPS devices with the new LS configuration. The test for high precision receivers isn't until next year.

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[SolusSD]

"I'm not saying Republicans are angles or anything like that. " Oh they're angles alright... RIGHT angles!

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[bluefoxlucid]

Isn't this the issue from a week or two ago where some senator stepped up to choke it off because he thought it would cause GPS interference, and 80% of the Slashdot comments were, "I don't get it, he's in the Healthcare Industry's deep pockets, why is he bothering himself with the communications industry?"

Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house

[lophophore]

That's not what TFA said. TFA said 75% of tested units. Trimble and Garmin and OnStar. The "precision" GPS units have not been tested yet.

If you had been following along, and perhaps read TFA, you might have seen this.

LightSquared "volunteered" to not use the offending spectrum... until 2012. Which is next month.

I smell a rat.

sohbet

[Anonymous Coward]

asdasfasda

You don't understand how this works do you.

[SuperKendall]

Solyndria (another company propped up by the white house despite many reports saying the company was not financial viable) was given a ton of money, which the founders (also heavy donors to the Democratic party) got a lot of, then the company went bankrupt but they left with a few million dollar paychecks.

It doesn't matter if the company folds. Just that Philip Falcone makes money in the process, which he will.

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[fnj]

Parent is goddam right. Moderators have a problem with the truth? Corruption is corruption.

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[fnj]

Yeah, FUCK YOU, moderators. Talk about corruption.

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[BitZtream]

I'm fairly certain you don't know what the word corruption means.

Being that its fairly obvious MOST mods are not related to the companies or governments involved, calling it corruption shows you have no idea what the word means.

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[Anonymous Coward]

I do not think it means what you think it means.

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[Elbereth]

The strange thing is that he's got a userid number around mine, which says that he's been here at least ten years. How can you go use a website for over ten years, without picking up that the moderation system is capricious, random, and certainly grounded in groupthink -- but corrupt? "Corrupt" is one of the few negative terms I wouldn't use to describe Slashdot's moderation system. One of the few actual advantages that it does have is that it's not corrupt. Even if Apple or Microsoft started paying people to mod up comments that praised them, there'd be outraged people downmodding those comments just as quickly.

I think people attach too much significance to karma and moderation, anyways. It's pathetically easy to game the system (just pander to whatever the prevailing groupthink is on a subject... or brazenly challenge the prevailing groupthink and say, "I'll probably get modded down for this, but..."). When I first started on Slashdot, I was an unrepentant karma whore, just to see how high I could get my karma. Then they hid the number, which killed that game. I've never had a (Score 5: Troll) comment, though, and I've always wanted one of those. Maybe some day... a boy can dream.

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[konohitowa]

Well, what he said was that the moderators can't handle the truth. Then, in the next sentence he mentioned corruption which I inferred to mean that whether the corruption is in the DNC or the RNC, it shouldn't matter to the moderators.

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[Anonymous Coward]

The strange thing is that he's got a userid number around mine, which says that he's been here at least ten years. How can you go use a website for over ten years, without picking up that the moderation system is capricious, random, and certainly grounded in groupthink -- but corrupt? "Corrupt" is one of the few negative terms I wouldn't use to describe Slashdot's moderation system. One of the few actual advantages that it does have is that it's not corrupt. Even if Apple or Microsoft started paying people to mod up comments that praised them, there'd be outraged people downmodding those comments just as quickly.

I think people attach too much significance to karma and moderation, anyways. It's pathetically easy to game the system (just pander to whatever the prevailing groupthink is on a subject... or brazenly challenge the prevailing groupthink and say, "I'll probably get modded down for this, but..."). When I first started on Slashdot, I was an unrepentant karma whore, just to see how high I could get my karma. Then they hid the number, which killed that game. I've never had a (Score 5: Troll) comment, though, and I've always wanted one of those. Maybe some day... a boy can dream.

They are as corrupt as you can hope to get plus they are continually high on some shit or another

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[Talence]

Wow, you have a rather high userID ;-)

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[drinkypoo]

"Corrupt" is one of the few negative terms I wouldn't use to describe Slashdot's moderation system. One of the few actual advantages that it does have is that it's not corrupt.

How would you know? There's no way to tell if the moderation is done by an editor or by a member of the community.

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[Anonymous Coward]

To recap:

Person points out that the Democrats are fucking completely corrupt. Democrat fanboys downmod the post.

Then you come along and dont even fucking get it, because apparently in your world it must be impossible for the Democrats to be corrupt or something.

You are unable to grasp even the simplest things due to your blind devotion to the Democrats. The Democrats are MORE corrupt than the Republicans, as has been shown time and time again, but you never see the evidence because you dont get it... in your world the Democrats can't possibly be corrupt... the person must have been talking about the slashdot moderators instead of the fucking evidence you just refused to see.

YOU REFUSED TO SEE THE EVIDENCE which is all the evidence we need to know that you blindly suck the Democrat cock. I guess they keep telling you what you want to hear. You must be the ignorant 99% that thinks the problem in Washington is the tax rates on the rich, instead of the fucking billions they give away to their corporate goons.

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is incorrect. They were financially viable, until the economy collapsed and with it the price of silicon. Blame Bush for destroying the economy and therefore american jobs....er, I mean this company?

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[lightknight]

Now, now, the party of purple is equally corrupt in both its left and right branches. They only differ on what kind of corruption they specialize in.

But don't worry, come 2012, you'll get to pick which candidate from the party of purple you prefer, then spend the next 4 years crying yourself to sleep at night, because you know that no matter who is elected, it will be more of the same. And it will be same for your children, and your grand-children, and your great grand-children, who will work for less money that you earn on a Friday afternoon right now, and have less throughout their lives.

Remember to eat your bread and visit the circus on your way home. It's good bread, if a little stale, and the circus has giraffes. Repeat after me: "I live in the greatest country in the world! I worship authority! If I am struck, I will not strike back! The wiretaps are there for my freedoms, which everyone else on the planet is jealous of, and wants to take from me! USA! USA! USA! USA!"

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[Anonymous Coward]

here we go with that user id bullshit again. fuck off.

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[Anonymous Coward]

You first.

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[gonk]

I laugh at your ID. :)

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[Gideon Wells]

Off topic, but I can explain as I didn't have mod points for a few years. I forget when I made this userid, but it was 5-3 years ago. I got mod points starting 1.5 months ago.

Never comment. I voted a few times. Made one or two comments, but really I just read the posted articles and skimmed the comments. The name might as well been useless.

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't like the single-party system why don't you register as a republican and vote for Ron Paul in the primary?

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dumbass liberals....

Solyndra was given their Obama blood money, also known as the souls of tax payers, in fucking 2009... You want to blame it on Bush and the Republicans.. but the loan was given under Obama, after the DoE filed a report frowning on the loan predicting that Solyndra would be out of money in September 2011.

..and in September 2011, what the fuck happened?

You dumb ass Democrat cock suckers just love to give money to corporate scumbags.. but instead of accepting responsibility for being the thieving shitbag corporate shills that you are, you blame the theft of tax payer money, by Democrats and given to corporate douche bags, on the Republicans.

Suck some more democrat cock, you ignorant moron.

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[mea_culpa]

Even if Apple or Microsoft started paying people to mod up comments that praised them, there'd be outraged people downmodding those comments just as quickly.

I don't know about that, downmodding can be suicide. I used to receive mod points almost every two weeks until I downmodded an obvious WP7 astroturf and got bitchslapped by the moderation system and haven't seen points in over a year. The moderation system may not be corrupt but it is badly broken.

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[Qzukk]

Because then the wrong lizard will get in.

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[synaptic]

The end of the line is *points* back there...

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[Anonymous Coward]

More like because Ron Paul is an idiot who would destroy our economy while also making the 99% even wealthier instead?

Seriously, you'd have to be a complete fool to vote for that pseudo-libertarian moron.

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

And please explain to me how the millions that were given to Solyndra come close to comparing to the billions that Bush and his Republican mates gave to the contractors to carry out the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. At least Solyndra did not result in thousands of dead Iraqi and Afghani along with burning through the good will we might have had from the rest of the world after 9-11.

Remember that the Democrats and Republicans actually cooperated on a few things in the 90s, created a pretty good economy and had us showing a surplus paying down the debt, then Bush came in and all the changed. Bush even insisted that the entire Iraq war was and emergency that shouldn't show up in the normal budget, kind of disingenuous don't you think.

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[ChrisMaple]

You are ignorant either of Ron Paul or economics.

A Ron Paul presidency would create the largest, most widespread economic boom in world history. It would last until the power vacuum caused by his Pollyanna foreign policy brought about a huge war.

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[ChrisMaple]

Killing Iraqis and Afghanis is a good thing, if you support civilization, which is incompatible with Islam. Bush was not wrong in fighting the war, but in how he fought it. The US should have destroyed the government and all modern productive capabilities of both countries, and left. The war should have lasted a month or less.

Whatever his deficiencies as President, Bush did not send money to "politically correct" companies for the primary purpose of funding political campaigns and lining his own pocket.

Re:You don't understand how this works do you.

[AF_Cheddar_Head]

No he lined the pockets of his buddy contractors. To the tune of billions. And all of it as emergency appropriations not as part of the regular budget. Republicans didn't have a problem with the deficit when the money was going to their buddies.

Farm GPS, airplanes, and who owns the bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the big issues is that those giant combines and harvesters on farms use GPS, so the farming industry is upset http://westernfarmpress.com/government/lightsquared-threat-gps-even-filters Lightspeed owns the bandwidth adjacent to GPS, but the GPS devices are still affected by transmission on lightspeed's bandwidth. So it isn't really "lightspeed zmog destroy teh GPS" by doing some dastardly deeds, it is them trying to use the bandwidth they purchased and older GPS devices not able to handle the interference (even tho they are class B and must not create interference and must accept interference). Airplanes are another issue with interference. http://macsblog.com/2011/02/should-i-worry-about-gps-jamming/ really, though, just a clash of the lobbyists in washington on who has to pay extra to make lightspeed able to use their bandwidth

Re:Farm GPS, airplanes, and who owns the bandwidth

[edibobb]

If lightspeed transmitters bleed over onto GPS frequencies, even a little bit, then that is a major problem. GPS receivers are incredibly sensitive in order to receive low power signals from satellites. If lightspeed owns an adjacent bandwidth, that's one thing. If they infringe on the GPS band even slightly, they are out of bounds.

Re:Farm GPS, airplanes, and who owns the bandwidth

[jchernia]

Yes, but the towers are broadcasting signals that are orders of magnitude more powerful to ground receivers than the gps satellites. If Lightspeed was a satellite phone system (so if it was another satellite system producing the crosstalk), it would not interfere even if the frequencies were directly adjacent.

Re:Farm GPS, airplanes, and who owns the bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not an expert, but read some back issues of GPS World. Lightsquared is doing dastardly deeds - this frequency was never intended for terrestrial broadcasting. They pulled a fast one and got this for a steal. The FCC screwed up big time - either incompetence or someone was asked to do a favor or paid off. There's a lot of FUD - Lightsquared has been planting stories claiming that the GPS devices won't work do to shoddy engineering. The facts are that they should be building terrestrial base stations that broadcast near GPS frequencies and not have to at least go through a thorough review and pay what this spectrum is really worth.

You don't see consumer electronics or their suppliers companies publicly complaining because it's not in their best interest to show a weakness at this time. e.g. if company A says that this will impact them, then company B can use that statement when they pay a visit or market to A's customers.

Fortunately this only impacts the good old USA. The rest of the world can continue to reap the benefits of GPS while they ramp up their systems. (Glonass has been on the rise. Galileo is finally making progress. Compass is on its way and hopefully they will eventually publish their ICD.)

Re:Farm GPS, airplanes, and who owns the bandwidth

[dbc]

It's very unlikely to be lightspeed signal bleeding over out of their channel. That is reasonably easy to control, and it would show up in 100% of tested receivers. More likely, this is "adjacent channel interference". It is much harder to get a receiver to reject signals in adjacent channels. It takes a difficult/expensive to construct filter. If you go back to the old days of television, you'll note that you don't find adjacent channels allocated in major markets, for instance, because in the early days it was essentially impossible to build a receiver that could reject a strong signal on an adjacent channel. So here we have a case of a receiver looking for a very weak signal, and on an adjacent channel there is a strong local transmitter that you are trying to reject. I'm no surprised that there are issues. Also, because GPS has up till now not had strong nearby, adjacent signals to reject, it could actually be that the first mixer is getting overloaded, so the damage is done before you even get to the first IF filter.

Re:Farm GPS, airplanes, and who owns the bandwidth

[TubeSteak]

It is much harder to get a receiver to reject signals in adjacent channels. It takes a difficult/expensive to construct filter. If you go back to the old days of television, you'll note that you don't find adjacent channels allocated in major markets, for instance, because in the early days it was essentially impossible to build a receiver that could reject a strong signal on an adjacent channel.

If these frequency channels have been defined and allocated since before good filters existed,
how come the channels were never adjusted to reflect the reality in the air?

It just seems like a very basic concept to space/allocate the channels in such a way
as to completely eliminate any adjacent channel interference, even if it means not-using
significant amounts of frequency (not that they were going to be used anyways)
/pardon my ignorance

Re:Farm GPS, airplanes, and who owns the bandwidth

[DeadCatX2]

It's not so much that the nearby frequencies need to be silent. I believe it was actually the case that those frequencies were originally licensed for low-power signals. So when the hardware engineer was designing his GPS receiver circuit, he would use the expected max power that could be licensed for that band in his calculation for determining how many -dB/Octave his filter needs. Now LS comes in and wants to relicense that spectrum for signals of many orders of magnitude more power; the circuits were simply not designed to handle this because such signals were illegal at the time of manufacture.

It's not the hardware engineer's fault that the adjacent bands were "zoned" to be residential and now LS wants to come in and build an airport.

Re:Farm GPS, airplanes, and who owns the bandwidth

[sillivalley]

Nope, it's not adjacent channel interference -- the precision positioning people use a correction signal (from a satellite) in L band, below the GPS L1 signal, that is completely swamped by the LightSquared system -- these precision positioning systems, which are also used in highway construction and other large developments as well as in large scale agriculture, are among the systems that the study identified as impossible to make work even with a redesign -- these bands were meant for weak signal reception of satellite signals, NOT for multi-kilowatt ground stations.

And when you talk about adjacent channel, remember that GPS boxes aren't so much receivers as correlators -- and they are working with signals that are effectively below the noise floor -- that's why correlation techniques have to be used. What might be acceptable as adjacent channel in other modes is devastating to correlator-based designs.

See for example the FAA report at:

http://scpnt.stanford.edu/pnt/PNT11/2011_presentation_files/09_Bunce-PNT2011.pdf

Re:Farm GPS, airplanes, and who owns the bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

Read more of those issues, or read Inside GNSS: this does indeed impact Galileo and it impacts anything within 600 miles of US borders, which means it impacts intercontinental aviation.

In a letter filed yesterday (July 19, 2011), Heinz Zourek, director-general for enterprise and industry, wrote to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski that if LightSquared is allowed to begin broadcasting in the band, “What are now neighbour MSS [mobile satellite service space-to-Earth] transmissions at similar receive powers to RNSS [radionavigation satellite service such as GPS and Galileo] would in future be many orders of magnitude higher and with the potential to severely disrupt reception of RNSS signals.”

He cited analysis — including ESA studies —carried out in Europe that showed interference effects to Galileo equipment would occur from 100 meters to almost 1,000 kilometers (620 miles), “depending on the type of receiver being used.”

Emphasis mine. Source: "EC Official Adds Galileo, EGNOS Worries to FCC’s LightSquared-GPS Deliberations,"Inside GNSS, July 20, 2011. That's right, July. The Europeans knew this was going to interfere with GPS/Galileo for aviation back in July. They had tested it, and they had numbers showing how far the interference would spread.

I'll leave it to the tin-foil crowd to speculate on why the FCC is only getting around to publishing its findings now. I'd suggest, though, that what they come up with might not be so paranoid after all in this case. Those who want to dig through some glaring evidence of bipartisan corruption will find it without looking too hard into this story, because the shady deals were conducted practically in the open on this one, from the SkyTerra days on through the past week. The Republicans are already working overtime on trying to assemble a timeline of Falcone's dealings with Obama: if the Democrats were smart, they'd have a team doing the same to show Republican connections, because they are there too (SkyTerra got permission for this back in the Bush era).

The fact that this story is dying in the back pages while Lindsey Lohan's Playboy spread and the circus clowns that have hijacked the Republican nomination get near-orgasmic coverage is a sad comment on how useless journalism has become.

Re:Farm GPS, airplanes, and who owns the bandwidth

[dbc]

OK, I quickly looked over the excellent presentation that you link to. I don't see where it shows a GPS precision-enhancing signal in L-band getting swamped. It *does* show 15 kW (!) terrestrial base stations very near the GPS L1 band having the potential to get past the roofing filter in a GPS, as my previous post was attempting to yak about.

I was under the impression that differential GPS used short-range terrestrial VHF for a localization signal from another GPS receiver looking at the normal GPS signal -- is my understanding stale? Has something new come along when I wasn't looking?

But holey schmoley, 15KW at 1.5 GHZ? That's manly. That takes a moderate amount of effort. It also raises some RF safety issues -- what kind of antennas are they using with this? What is the EIRP?

Anyway, for whatever reason, my previous post has been generously modded "+5 insightful" at the moment, when it's really just speculation based on "here's how radios work in general"... I'm not a GPS expert. "+/-? Plausible BS" is probably a more accurate mod score.

Re:Farm GPS, airplanes, and who owns the bandwidth

[cheeks5965]

yeah, but have you seen the LiLo pics? ugly ass ho! much more interesting than this lightscared or whatever.

Re:Farm GPS, airplanes, and who owns the bandwidth

[Dolphinzilla]

yup, a little stale - there several different ways that is done now

omnistar, egnos, and Starfire are all satellite based augmentation systems that allow increased GPS accuracy

Re:Farm GPS, airplanes, and who owns the bandwidth

[sillivalley]

Sorry, also look at the Parkinson presentation from the same Stanford Precision Time and Position Conference --

http://scpnt.stanford.edu/pnt/PNT11/2011_presentation_files/01_Parkinson-PNT2011.pdf

He gives a very nice spectrum on slide 4 -- note the little bump at the bottom labeled "Starfire/Omnistar" -- that's the correction signal used by the John Deere precision GPS system, and others, broadcast by Inmarsat III. It's f*ing buried under the proposed LightSquared 10H signal at 1550.2, and still under the skirts of their 10L signal at 1531!

You can't design around that!

ANYTHING carried by Inmarsat III in that band just below GPS L1 is so screwed if LightSquared uses those frequencies!

this is also a pretty clear indication that FCC was bought off at a high level, and their technical types didn't get to look at it -- they would have screamed.

Re:Farm GPS, airplanes, and who owns the bandwidth

[dbc]

Sorry, also look at the Parkinson presentation from the same Stanford Precision Time and Position Conference --

http://scpnt.stanford.edu/pnt/PNT11/2011_presentation_files/01_Parkinson-PNT2011.pdf

He gives a very nice spectrum on slide 4 -- note the little bump at the bottom labeled "Starfire/Omnistar" -- that's the correction signal used by the John Deere precision GPS system, and others, broadcast by Inmarsat III. It's f*ing buried under the proposed LightSquared 10H signal at 1550.2, and still under the skirts of their 10L signal at 1531!

Yup, that has a nice picture illustrating the problem.

ANYTHING carried by Inmarsat III in that band just below GPS L1 is so screwed if LightSquared uses those frequencies!

this is also a pretty clear indication that FCC was bought off at a high level, and their technical types didn't get to look at it -- they would have screamed.

Yes, that seems to be happening a lot lately. Good, bottom-up technical analysis from FCC engineers get overridden by political concerns. Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) is another egregious example of politics forcing idiotic technical decisions. Spectrum sharing compatibility analysis seems to have been left back in the last millennium some how.

Re:Farm GPS, airplanes, and who owns the bandwidth

[im_thatoneguy]

There doesn't seem to be any corruption here on either side. Most of Falcone's money went to Chris Dodd and Guiliani in 2008. He didn't donate to the Obama campaign.

This looks like a case where a corporation and a politician's motives align. Obama wants nation wide broadband and he doesn't want to spend any money on it. If Lightsquared could deliver 10mbps to every corner of the country then he could accomplish his goals.

It looks less and less likely that this'll work but this seems more like a case of optimism trumping realism than Quid Pro Quo corruption.

Re:Farm GPS, airplanes, and who owns the bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

"But holey schmoley, 15KW at 1.5 GHZ? That's manly."

No, 15 Kelvin-Watts is damn cold. Your manly bits will be anything but.

More Context

[Anonymous Coward]

This came out during the week, but was overshadowed by the news that Falcone And Friends got Wells Letters, SEC notices that are basically game-over. Investors in Harbinger Capital Partners, Falcone's hedge fund, are likely to flee, but they'll be limited in their ability to withdraw funds. This has happened before to Harbinger in 2009, and Goldman Sachs seems to have gotten preferential treatment in exiting.

The LightSquared bit is juicier, though, because of the hints of corruption that have squeaked out through the press. Air Force General William Shelton, testifying before Congress about LightSquared and the interference that its plans could cause GPS, complained that the White House had told him to change his testimony to make it seem that he was less opposed to LightSquared's plans. There are also allegations of $30,400 donations being given to the Democratic Party by Falcone and LightSquared's CEO on the days of meetings and on days when meetings were arranged.

BUT WHERE IS THE MASS ?? WHERE IS THE MASS ??

[Anonymous Coward]

Onward christian soldiers !!

That's the start of my new song !! Like it ??

These c^2 workers need people in high places. I hear Gingrich is for sale !! Ain't he the guy whole stole christmas ?? Hence, onward christian soldiers !!

FUD Detected.

[Anonymous Coward]

FUD Detected captain, shields up and holding.

they're coming around for another pass!

someone find a link to the actual report.

someone else, point out that being within 100 yards of many military transmitters while in the beam path will COOK you.

Yet another someone else, point out that 100 yards cubed, x 40,000 transmitters isn't all that much space that it isn't "safe" to be in, with a GPS. and that it'd take very little design sense to keep them out of flight paths, and off the runways at an airport, which'd be the place they'd actually matter. when's the last time a jet buzzed your house under 300 feet of altitude?

Ensign red shirt, go down to the transporter room and await the peace delegation from the FUD ship.

Re:FUD Detected.

[Anonymous Coward]

hey idiot - how about we just make lightsquared bankrupt and avoid all that ?

Re:FUD Detected.

[ceoyoyo]

GPS is used mostly for things OTHER than navigation.

Re:FUD Detected.

[fnj]

Yeah, fud you, you blind cowardly asshole.

too bad

[khipu]

A quick look at their service suggests that they might have been a nice addition to the existing wireless services. We really do need more providers and new technologies. But even a small chance of interfering with GPS is too much.

Maybe one could swap some rarely used military spectrum further from GPS against military spectrum close to GPS. Given that the military complains the loudest and sits on a lot of spectrum, I think it's reasonable to ask them to contribute to a solution.

Not a surprise

[gnu-sucks]

It's not surprising that an RF signal can be interfered with remotely. Whether the signal was for a baby monitor, an emergency room health computer system, remote aircraft control, etc, people will always be astonished that they were susceptible to interference.

But honestly, it's an RF signal. Blocking the signal is about the same for any given service. Some are a little more robust than others, but it's the same mathematical game.

Let's get over the sensationalism and realize the real problem: We had false expectations of GPS and therefore should not have depended on this technology in defense systems.

Re:Not a surprise

[fnj]

How about we deal with the actual problem the best we can and not let anyone interfere unduly and systematically with GPS.

Re:Not a surprise

[ColdWetDog]

Let's get over the sensationalism and realize the real problem: We had false expectations of GPS and therefore should not have depended on this technology in defense systems.

You do realize that the US military owns the GPS system. It seems to have worked out pretty well for them. Of course, no tech is perfect but I don't understand what you're whining about. It's not like Lightspeed is going to put transmitters in Afghanistan and if some nefarious persons try to block GPS signals with a transmitter well, the military has some nice little tools to solve that problem.

Re:Not a surprise

[gnu-sucks]

Here's the problem: You can block "Lightspeed" from deploying devices known to cause harmful interference to GPS signals. Big deal. What you can't do is make it "illegal" to jam GPS. Well, you can make it illegal, but it's a matter of enforcement. Expecting it to work 100%, especially in a battle field, is stupid. Your enemy will build GPS jammers by the dozen and hide them all over the place once they realize this is how you guide your missiles.

All I'm saying, is that this is a symptom of a larger problem: depending on easily jammed GPS.

I realize the military will just triangulate and find the jammers. But a jammer just has to hide their equipment in nearby hospitals and grocery stores, and use intelligent timing and antenna arrangements.... they can make triangulation a very difficult and time-consuming operation. And once the devices are found and destroyed, it's another $15 to deploy another one somewhere else.

I think it's a good idea to try and prevent what you can, such as by not certifying equipment that causes harmful interference. But let's not think this is the real problem with GPS...

Re:Not a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

GPS being Jammed? Switch to radiation seeking missiles. Shortly there-after, GPS is no longer being jammed. Return to using GPS. If you're broadcasting a jamming signal, you're going to be really easy to find.

Re:Not a surprise

[AK Marc]

Actually, it works out pretty well. They jam GPS, and you have piles of missiles that home in on GPS jammers. It's not practical to jam the US military's GPS because you'll run out of jammers (And people willing to turn them on) before the US military runs out of resources.

I realize the military will just triangulate and find the jammers. But a jammer just has to hide their equipment in nearby hospitals and grocery stores, and use intelligent timing and antenna arrangements.... they can make triangulation a very difficult and time-consuming operation.

No, that's not the way it works. "intelligent timing and antenna arrangements" greatly impede the ability to jam, and triangulation is not necessary to destroy it unless you are shooting at it with artillery. As for someone turning a hospital into a location from which a military offensive is launched from, the person turning on the jammer is in the wrong, not the people retaliating against attack.

Re:Not a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's not the way it works. "intelligent timing and antenna arrangements" greatly impede the ability to jam, and triangulation is not necessary to destroy it unless you are shooting at it with artillery. As for someone turning a hospital into a location from which a military offensive is launched from, the person turning on the jammer is in the wrong, not the people retaliating against attack.

That would be true on US soil but usually the jammer tries to interfere with the GPS signals of drones in their country. It isn't nice to hide behind civilians, but jamming CIA drones isn't more of an attack as the drones themselves.

Re:Not a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

As for someone turning a hospital into a location from which a military offensive is launched

I don't think emmiting RF signals in your own country is called a "military offensive". At worst it's a defence against the offensive actions of an attacker.

Re:Not a surprise

[russotto]

Let's get over the sensationalism and realize the real problem: We had false expectations of GPS and therefore should not have depended on this technology in defense systems.

Defense systems have had direct P(Y)/L3 acquisition for a while. On a battlefield, they can also eliminate the interference with a HARM if they so choose. And they have inertial guidance and other backup systems for when GPS is being jammed. This isn't about defense; this is about civilian GPS use.

Re:Not a surprise

[AK Marc]

You obviously haven't listened to anything the US military says regarding the wars they are currently involved in.

Re:Not a surprise

[AK Marc]

The jammer is an attack against the US military. What is or isn't "more" of an attack won't change the fact that they are deliberately targeting US military equipment for attack.

Worse than BPL

[n1ywb]

This is the worst idea yet. Worse than broadband over power lines, worse than that idea about using gas pipes. I thought the whole point to discontinuing analog TV service and freeing up that bandwidth was to provided wide area Internet. *facepalm*

Re:Worse than BPL

[seeker_1us]

I thought the whole point to discontinuing analog TV service and freeing up that bandwidth was to provided wide area Internet. *facepalm*

The point to discontinuing analog TV service was to be able to sell off bandwidth to private companies who wanted it and were lobbying for it. Just another case of Americans being sold out again by their government.

Re:BUT WHERE IS THE MASS ?? WHERE IS THE MASS ??

[fnj]

They are all for sale. Everyone in the System. Corruption is the one thing which is impossible to design out, because by definition corruption *IS* the undermining of the system. Hari Seldon's Foundation is the only way to fight it, and it can't win by fixing the system. The only way is to tear down the old system and build a new one, like the 1992 revolution in the Soviet Union. It's really sad that human nature is the thing that dooms all efforts at effective governing.

Farm GPS, airplanes, and who owns the borders.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fortunately this only impacts the good old USA. The rest of the world can continue to reap the benefits of GPS while they ramp up their systems. (Glonass has been on the rise. Galileo is finally making progress. Compass is on its way and hopefully they will eventually publish their ICD.)

Foreign companies that make GPS dependent equipment for the US, Canada, and Mexico will be affected. GPS in those three countries will also be affected (remember signals don't respect borders). Course that's depending if the whole Lightspeed idea goes nationwide.

and now, china will make use of this

[WindBourne]

Seriously, if this hurts GPS, then China will likely deploy this so as to interfere with local GPS.

Re:and now, china will make use of this

[Anonymous Coward]

Not likely, China is one the biggest markets for high-precision GPS receivers and their new COMPASS satellite navigation system uses essentially the same frequency band as GPS L1.

Re:and now, china will make use of this

[Anonymous Coward]

This mostly only affects civilian GPS.

Military GPS uses another encrypted channel along with the main channel to reject most jamming.

The GPS 3 has the ability to create spot beams that are high power so the military could steer a beam to an area and force a jammer to use so much power we could track it down and delete it from the planet.

Re:and now, china will make use of this

[BitZtream]

Uhm, blocking GPS functionality is extremely trivial. I assure you, every home in america (and probably most of the first world) has devices that are more than capable of knocking out GPS with only minor trivial changes than ANY RF engineer or EE could do.

It was never designed to be interference free, thats a silly notion in the first place. It is rather impractical to try and block it however, as it takes massive infrastructure to do it over a large area ... and well, its basically cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Its more useful to the Chinese to have it working when they invade than it is for them to break it.

possible to solve that issue

[WindBourne]

RootStrikers.org

Re:BUT WHERE IS THE MASS ?? WHERE IS THE MASS ??

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah that 1992 thing went reeeal well. Oh well it's "OK" to protest a bit in the streets. Have to look good on the CNN.

Sister Moonshine

What the fuck is LightSquared?

[ArchieBunker]

Would a wikipedia link in the article be too much to ask for you dumbshit moderators?

Re:What the fuck is LightSquared?

[Dan541]

http://skep.li/LightSquare Because we could never find out otherwise.

Re:What the fuck is LightSquared?

[BlackSupra]

Here is something visual. http://i.imgur.com/HgpdX.jpg

U.S. Frequency Allocation Chart

Re:What the fuck is LightSquared?

[BlackSupra]

PDF -- 2003 U.S. Frequency Allocation Chart http://www.ntia.doc.gov/files/ntia/publications/2003-allochrt.pdf

Re:What the fuck is LightSquared?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would a wikipedia link in the article be too much to ask for you dumbshit moderators?

Yeah, cus' it's like, ya know, really hard to type "lightsqured" into a wikipedia search box.

Stanford Symposium held 2011/11/17

[sillivalley]

Look at the docs posted for the recent symposium at Stanford:

http://scpnt.stanford.edu/pnt/

Opening comments on how LightSquared destroys GPS:

http://scpnt.stanford.edu/pnt/PNT11/2011_presentation_files/01_Parkinson-PNT2011.pdf

the FAA report on testing:

http://scpnt.stanford.edu/pnt/PNT11/2011_presentation_files/09_Bunce-PNT2011.pdf

The LightSquared idea is a good one, but not on the frequencies they've selected!

The problem is, who else makes this link?

[SuperKendall]

Then you'll need to get your information somewhere besides hotair.com.

I knew someone would get all huffy about that.

See, here is the issue. I would love to link to a more "reputable" source than HotAir, because some predjudiced people cannot look beyond a name at facts. But that leads us to a HUGE problem:

There isn't another source, even though there SHOULD be.

The facts of the matter are very clear are they not? The interference with the GPS, proven. The donations of Philip Falcone to the Democratic Party, well documented and public.

And yet WHO in the "reputable" media made this very easy and very pertinent connection for us? Is that not in fact the very role it is vital for the media to play, as watchdog for just this kind of ultra-slimy influence peddling? This is the easiest story in the world to find evidence to show to us all, and yet only Hot Air and other "fringe" media bothers to make the simplest of connection.

The real problem is that the "reputable" media is utterly lost to partisan concerns, death afraid that "their side" may lose something. I truly respect the role the media plays in shining light on the doings of politicians everywhere, and welcome weeding out corruption. But you cannot weed only looking at half the garden.

So until the point when the "real" media decides to start acting like JOURNALISTS again, I'm afraid you'll have to suffice with information from reputable sources linked together by media you obviously despise - because no-one else is doing that job. I would argue you should probably look at the facts of the matter rather than who is pointing them out; I can discern truth both on HotAir and on HuffingtonPost as required. If you were smart you would seek to do the same rather than get lost in the echo chamber.

Re:The problem is, who else makes this link?

[im_thatoneguy]

Yeah but that was 2010.

It's true that the Democratic party received about $20k from Falcone in 2010. But the Republican Party received nearly $50k in 2008.

If you go through his political contributions he tended to shotgun across party lines. And none of the money in 08 was for Obama. It was almost exclusively for Senatorial candidates and Giuliani and Chris Dodd.
http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/philip-falcone.asp?cycle=08

I have no political ties to LightSquared but considering they're trying to blanket the nation in broadband... I'm really hoping they resolve these interference issues as well. Not because I voted for Obama but because I want to see technology succeed. I also want to see white-space succeed which is another initiative the Obama white-house has advocated for. Again, not because of my voting registration but because I agree with their stated agenda of increasing access to highspeed internet.

Re:The problem is, who else makes this link?

[PopeRatzo]

See, here is the issue. I would love to link to a more "reputable" source than HotAir, because some predjudiced people cannot look beyond a name at facts.

Please. Hotair was the "news source" that broke the story that the President's birth certificate was a phoney because the PDF file had layers. Let me think...oh, they broke the story about how there's a secret tape of Michelle Obama using the word "whitey" (well, they didn't actually break the story, but they rode it hard over the course of about a year). You see a pattern here?

The donations of Philip Falcone to the Democratic Party, well documented and public.

Falcone donated even more to the Republicans. That's how these guys work, they bet on both sides and always win.

And yet WHO in the "reputable" media made this very easy and very pertinent connection for us?

Have you seen a newspaper in the past two years? You really believe that the Wall Street Journal wouldn't run a story critical of Obama? The Chicago Tribune? Any of the Murdoch-owned papers? Fox News?

No interference

[stooo]

They might be allocated the bandwidth, but this means they are responsible for interference. Of course they probably respect the FCC requirements, but they still need to consider interference, aqnd this one is an obvious case. Transmitting 42 dBm or so a few MHz away from a band such as GPS, and that on the scale of a nation IS a bad case of interference.

I expect the project to fail anyway because the handset manufacturers have no way to implement that band in a suitable phone with GPS.
This means expensive hardware in each compatible phone. Did you look at the RF HW of a typical phone ? it's a spagetti of PAs and filters. This band would mean passing from 2 RF paths to 3, 50% price increase. Furthermore, putting another antenna is hopeless, and the phone will jam it's own GPS, if available. Nobody in the industry wants such a monster, except Lightsquared.

For civilian GPS receiver, who are more sensitive due to a design nore vulnerable to interference (first LNA before the first filter), they will be affected. GPS performance will be unacceptable in some places close to antennas, and probably compatible handsets operating in the vincinity will affect them also.

Re:No interference

[jwdb]

Of course they probably respect the FCC requirements, ...

The point is, they're not by any reasonable standard. The spectrum LS bought is zoned for satellite use and only allows a limited deployment of backup ground-based stations. LS is trying to pull a fast one by building a huge network of "backup" stations and then using these as the primary system, never actually putting a single satellite into orbit.

It's possible that they're not violating the letter of the regulation, but they're definitely misusing the spectrum by trying to repurpose it.

Re:No interference

[badkarmadayaccount]

Spectrum is property of the people, not the military. Short range VHF terrestrial localization will be used in cities. The base stations will be far away other places.

take advantage

[infashion2011]

take advantage of the competitive christmas gifts deals on offer http://www.enjoycheap.com/

Obama Scandals: From Waste to Death

[Nova Express]

It was bad enough when the Obama Administration was just wasting taxpayer dollars on well-connected business cronies like Solyandra. However, Fast and Furious has helped kill hundreds of Mexicans and at least one U.S. citizen, U.S. border patrol agent Brian Terry, all for the the purpose of promoting gun control. Now the Obama Administration is trying to help another batch of well-connected Democratic cronies at LightSquared, and if they get their way, the results could easily be hundreds dead. All it takes is for one LightSqyared signal to interfere enough with GPS during a single airliner landing. And it might not just be one airliner, because there's no guarantee the accident investigation would find the cause quick enough to prevent a re-occurrence.

Remember how the Bush Administration was forced to appoint a special prosecutor for "Plamegate"? Both Fast and Furious are far more serious scandals, and the Obama Administration is clearly stonewalling the investigation on one.

I would think that even the most fervent liberal would draw the line at a corrupt cronyism that result in the direct deaths of innocent American citizens.

Who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Wireless broadband is way more important than some idiots who can't use maps getting lost because their GPS doesn't work 100m within a cell tower.

Oops ... OOPS!!! Slashdot: turn off the TV!!

[Anonymous Coward]

What?! Obama's administration has claims of corruption and cronyism swirling about it? Oops! Oh God, turn off the TV... OOPS, this could look bad, this is really shocking... corruption and tech in one story??? this is bad, this hits home...

Okay, where's the spin machine?? Someone on Morning Joe spin this into a right wing conspiracy right away! It's almost an election year, and we just HAVE to have another four years of Obama.

Can't people see that we've got Teddy Roosevelt in the white house? TR! Practically a Republican: everyone can vote for him. If you vote against Obama, you are a damned filthy scum racist who needs rounding up for some re-education. >:)

Let's all just pinky swear to never never never hold Obama accountable for any crimes, misdemeanors, or complete absence of leadership because he is our finest creation. Barack Obama: our vessel of awesome good vibes. We are, after all, the ones we've been waiting for, right? Aren't we just precious, aren't we just SO brilliant?

SLASHDOT: TURN OFF THE TV, DON'T LET THIS LATEST NEWS PANIC YOU!

Ooh, aren't those 2012 stickers with the Obama 'O' for the 0 delicious? How clever are we? We are the greatest, and we're definitely never wrong.

Who should care: People who don't want to DIE

[Nova Express]

If you fly on airplanes, or live near an airport, you should care:

Imagine a Boeing 787 Dreamliner conducting an nighttime instrument approach to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport when the GPS signal is overwhelmed at a critical phase. Now imagine that same Boeing 787 Dreamliner plowing into downtown Arlington, Virginia at 150 miles per hour, leaving a wake of bloody body parts and burning jetfuel for a quarter-mile.

That’s the worst that could happen.

Re:Who should care: People who don't want to DIE

[segin]

Then said airlines need to to invest in proper GPS equipment, instead of shit-ass receivers that don't know what the fuck 1575.42 MHz means. LightSquared's licensed spectrum is 1525-1559 MHz, and GPS L1 is 1575.42 MHz. Now, unless you can point to some solid evidence that LightSquared is broadcasting outside their spectrum, or that LTE is susceptible to causing interference a full 16MHz outside the (multi-)carrier signals' spectrum. And due to the use of OFDMA in LTE, I don't even want to hear a fucking bit about how they should use WiMAX (802.16m) instead, as it's also based on OFDMA.

I'll probably get modded "-1, Troll", or more likely, "-1, Flamebait", for the strong language, but this whole LightSquared vs. GPS mess seems like a total crock of badly-designed GPS crapola to me. Especially since some GPS equipment has zero issues what-so-fucking-ever even if you tape the damn GPS receiver to the LTE transceiver antenna up top the mast (and therefore reducing the distance to point-blank zero meters for interference testing).

Maybe it's worth noting that this "Lawrence Person" guy is a self-promoting hack, and that the article he linked in the parent is one he wrote himself, with enough political bias to make Fox News looks like it might be "fair and balanced" after all. It's probably a SEO ploy, after all, because he turns around and links right back to this very Slashdot story! And as for his claimed credentials on GPS tech... He simply claims he has them, but fails to provide any detail as to what they are. This guy's as trustworthy on the subject of GPS as Stephen Wolfram is on the scientific method.

Re:Who should care: People who don't want to DIE

[Anonymous Coward]

You are ignorant of the history of the L1 band that GPS and a number of other satellite services occupy. GPS equipment (and their front-end filters in particular) has been designed under the assumption that the surrounding spectrum would only be occupied by satellite communications which have output power many orders of magnitude less than what LightSquared is proposing. It is not the fault of GPS manufacturers that spectrum that has traditionally been used for satellite communications (and it should be considering the propagation properties through the atmosphere at these wavelengths) was sold in an underhanded way and without proper oversight to the effects on surrounding users.

Re:Who should care: People who don't want to DIE

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just scaremongering. GPS is still not allowed to be used as sole (or primary) means of navigation precisely because GPS has not been shown to be resistant to interference. GPS is allowed to be used for reducing RNP (Required Navigation Perfomance) for closer approaches.

Re:Who should care: People who don't want to DIE

[Anonymous Coward]

GPS is *designed* to listen to frequencies outside it's transmission frequency. Ya know why? These satellites are zooming around the earth, causing the received signal on the ground to be different. It's called the Doppler Effect. It's somewhat of an important rule in physics.

LightSquared's spectrum is only licensed for satellite transmission, which is why they were able to buy it so cheaply. And if they used it as such, there would be absolutely no problem! Now they want to use it on the ground at much higher power, which will cripple ALL GPS devices. It's like trying to hear someone whispering in one ear while someone else is yelling in the other.

It has nothing to do with shoddy GPS engineering and everything to do with LS trying to use their spectrum completely inappropriately, then lying and saying they can fix it when the only fix is to change the laws of physics.

Re:Who should care: People who don't want to DIE

[makomk]

Then said airlines need to to invest in proper GPS equipment, instead of shit-ass receivers that don't know what the fuck 1575.42 MHz [wikipedia.org] means. LightSquared's licensed spectrum is 1525-1559 MHz, and GPS L1 is 1575.42 MHz.

The trouble is that there's no such thing as a perfect filter - they don't actually cut off all frequencies at the cut-off point, instead their attenuation increases as you get further from it. The unwanted LightSquared signal is so much more powerful than the GPS signals the receivers are trying to pick up that apparently at that distance it's pretty much impossible to filter it out enough to stop the remnant from overwhelming their input stages and interfering with GPS reception.

Re:Who should care: People who don't want to DIE

[Anonymous Coward]

The frequency band they're using (L1) is intended for satellite downlink, which means a fairly low-power transmitter hundreds or thousands of miles away. Unfortunately, LSQ intends to use fairly high-powered terrestrial transmitters on the band that no receiver was even built to expect.

For a point of comparison, according to Wikipedia, GPS satellites transmit 27W from a distance of about 10,000 miles, resulting in signal strengths on the order of 10^-16W at the receiver! The FCC tests involved a 15kW base station transmitting at something like 1 mile away. In other words, the LSQ signal is a billion times stronger than the nearby signal that the GPS receivers are trying to decode. I don't think the problem is interference so much as that the amplifiers on the GPS devices can't help but pick up the LSQ signal and get overloaded by it.

dom

Re:Who should care: People who don't want to DIE

[WaffleMonster]

Imagine a Boeing 787 Dreamliner conducting an nighttime instrument approach to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport when the GPS signal is overwhelmed at a critical phase. Now imagine that same Boeing 787 Dreamliner plowing into downtown Arlington, Virginia at 150 miles per hour, leaving a wake of bloody body parts and burning jetfuel for a quarter-mile.

Thatâ(TM)s the worst that could happen.

Written by someone who has no clue how an instrumented landing actually works.

I'm all for bashing LS about real interference issues and their associated power play to avoid paying fair market value for that type of nationally scoped allocation like everyone else.

There are plenty of life safety arguments one can honestly make about LS interference. And it is all not just about inability to figure out where exactly to send help when shit goes wrong.

Precision timing is critial for self organizing communication networks intended to prevent accidents from occuring in the first place. Utilities often use GPS based clocking sources for silly unimportant things like phase management. Things you would think would have nothing to do with GPS turn out to have important dependancies.

If GPS were gone for a day I wouldn't be surprised to see lots of instances of breakdown of systems where usable albit degraded backups were avaliable but people had no clue or practice in operating properly.

If anything good comes out of LS it will be some hedging against the real problem of overdependance on GPS.

Re:Who should care: People who don't want to DIE

[WaffleMonster]

Then said airlines need to to invest in proper GPS equipment, instead of shit-ass receivers that don't know what the fuck 1575.42 MHz means. LightSquared's licensed spectrum is 1525-1559 MHz, and GPS L1 is 1575.42 MHz. Now, unless you can point to some solid evidence that LightSquared is broadcasting outside their spectrum

Unfortunatly an allocation does not give you free reign to use your band however you would like. There is (lots of) fine print involved.

Current LS allocation to which you refer is subject to the FCCs ATC integrated services rule where boundless proliferation of ground stations is NOT permitted within said bands.

I'll probably get modded "-1, Troll", or more likely, "-1, Flamebait", for the strong language, but this whole LightSquared vs. GPS mess seems like a total crock of badly-designed GPS crapola to me.

If only RF were that simple.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermodulation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift

Re:Who should care: People who don't want to DIE

[segin]

So it's clear you don't know the way the Doppler effect works. It works both ways - both shifting up AND down. LightSquared only has spectrum downwards of GPS, so what does that have to do with all the GPS signals that get blueshifted?

Re:Who should care: People who don't want to DIE

[segin]

What's the bandwidth of a GPS signal? What's the bandwidth of LightSquared's LTE deployment? What's the power-per-Hz once you factor it all together?

Re:Who should care: People who don't want to DIE

[segin]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueshift Added that for you.

Re:Who should care: People who don't want to DIE

[segin]

Additionally, I would like to see the exact fine print involved, and until then, [citation needed]

Obligatory XKCD

[Anonymous Coward]

http://xkcd.com/865/

Let us see the data already...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd really like to see the data. It's impossible to come to any sort of conclusions without it. If LS is radiating outside of the bandwidth they've been given, then they've got serious problems and need to deal with it. However, if this is just an issue with cheap GPS receivers not rejecting frequencies that are outside of the GPS band, then I'm personally inclined to tell the manufacturers of these receivers to fuck off.

In related news...

[segin]

Government testing reveals 75% of GPS receivers don't know to keep their nose out of spectrum GPS doesn't operate in.

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

But THIS news is about HOW they actually got the FCC to switch the space based spectrum adjacent to GPS to be used for a terrestrial based spectrum. The FCC rules were setup to not have a large power ground based spectrum next to a weak space based spectrum. Somehow Lightsquared 'convinced' them to change the rules. So this would be like a race track owner bribing city hall to rezone the houses on the other side of your street to let him put in a drag strip. If you have a problem with the noise of the open header cars screaming down the track it's your fault because all you need to do is soundproof your house to not let in the sound of racing cars into your house.
Remember that the Lightsquared signals will still be hitting the GPS receivers, it becomes the GPS receiver's problem to somehow filter them out. A tough thing to do when loud noise is next to quiet GPS signals from satellites. And nearly impossible to retro fit the millions of GPS receivers already in use.

DONT BLAME Philip Falcone !

[Anonymous Coward]

This is 100% the ineptness of the FCC.

The FCC have destroyed their "original mission statement." Now the FCC's engineers mission is a fascist one helping motherfuckers profit, instead of "regulating power and frequency in the public interest." Some pointed out the head of the FCC is a presidential appointee. I'm sure even the stupidest motherfucker can put together the links here of why this is another failed government agency. Commercial Interests own 98% of the public spectrum (instead of the public owning it, this is the opposite of their original mission statement) With the FCC's engineers now busy running around doing fascist business instead of trying to get everything to work together, this is what you get, a bunch of squished signals regardless of the emission. They did this with Broadband over Power also.

What has to happen here folks is this FCC needs to be controlled by the VOTERS not the President. How to do that, fuck if I know. But it's the only thing that will put it back into the non fascist box, is to have the public run it, and provide oversight. Another benefit of this is the public can decide to spank commercial broadcasters, instead of a presidential appointee (e.g. the Establishment) giving a pass to stations who tow the current administration's line. You could fill their public file up with complaints but as long as the War On Terror continues the FCC will rubber stamp their Station ID and frequency allocation. The FCC needs a TOP to BOTTOM overhaul, now at a financially, and monetarily inconvenient time, but I'll bet this is yet more of the NWO globalists (Banksters) plan.

IT's past time to start locking up these banksters and their enablers in our government!!!
Come on Slashdot wake the fuck up.

GPS is not a connection-based service

[EmagGeek]

How can LightSquared disrupt 75% of connections that don't exist? GPS does not have connections.

Re:GPS is not a connection-based service

[pz]

How can LightSquared disrupt 75% of connections that don't exist? GPS does not have connections.

Chalk that up to poor editing in the guise of inept headline writing.

Re:GPS is not a connection-based service

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you have a wifi connection?
In this case the 'wireless' connections would be in one direction only, from the satellites to the GPS receiver.

GPS Receivers are Part 15 Devices

[Anonymous Coward]

That's all there is to it. They deserve no protection other than what the designers integrate into the units. That they decided to make consumer GPS units cheap and susceptible is not LightSquared's fault.

Part 15 units must accept interference, even that which causes undesired operation. It is now incumbent upon GPS receiver manufacturers to use better filters to reject the adjacent band interference.

This is not Obama's fault. This is not LightSquared's fault. This is solely the fault of the "spreadsheet guys" and bean counters that run Garmin, Magellan, and other consumer GPS manufacturers.

you mean Dr. Javad Ashjaee

[Anonymous Coward]

You are probably referring to Javad Ashjaee. The guy is a GPS authority, with a long track in contributions to the community. He founded a few companies, the latest one Javad, which creates high quality precision receivers. He is someone who until two months ago, I would have never doubted. But then he started contradicting himself with his message. First, he started to complain how lightsquare does affect his receivers. Then he proposed ending the P-code as a way to mitigate for this (http://www.gpsworld.com/gnss-system/news/to-solve-lightsquared-issue-javad-ashjaee-calls-end-p-code-encryption-11887). The P-code is the encrypted signal that only military has access to. And now, he claims that there are no problems. While I kind of follow his reasoning, he needs to be more coherent in his message.

I mean, he first claims that something is wrong and proposes one crazy solution (ending P-code), and then another solution. So it is kind of like saying "they are messing up the signal, but this is great because now I can sell filters and maybe get some money from Lightsquare for supporting them".

The guys is still a smart dude and I wish him all best with his business. But my employer bought a receiver from his company for 15k and don't feel like spending a single cent more for fixing something that someone else broke. Lightsqaure is a good thing however. For precision receivers, this allows better availability of correction data for RTK measurements in cm-precise positioning.

So here is my opinion here: what Javad is saying *does* make sense in general. Please ignore his bad way of expressing this in the media, his apparent contradictions, his strong wordings that sound often arrogant, and let's try to understand his points, which are not that crazy after all.

Re:you mean Dr. Javad Ashjaee

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the person I mentioned is Dr. Ashjaee. He is knowledgeable and very well-known in GPS circles, and has been for quite a while (Magellan, Ashtech, Topcon, and now Javad).

He is also a relentless, highly opportunistic (and some would say over-the-top) marketeer. Every year he has one of the largest booths at ION GNSS (always front and center of the exhibit hall); runs splashy, glossy, multi-page ads in various trade magazines; and is generally prone to making bombastic statements about his products. In this case, it was pretty clear to me that he made a conscious business calculation to swim against the tide and, at a time when practically every other technically knowledgeable person in the GPS industry sees LS as a serious problem, is milking his controversial stand for all the marketing and publicity it's worth.

So here is my opinion here: what Javad is saying *does* make sense in general. Please ignore his bad way of expressing this in the media, his apparent contradictions, his strong wordings that sound often arrogant, and let's try to understand his points, which are not that crazy after all.

Going forward, and for certain types of receivers (specifically ones that are physically large enough; have enough electrical and computational power to burn to overcome the added C/N0 degradation due to the filter's insertion loss; and most importantly, haven't been built yet), it is certainly possible to design around the interference to some extent. But most of the tens or hundreds of millions of fielded receivers simply cannot be retrofitted in any practical way, no matter what Javad's marketing hype says. That's really the main problem.

--Jake

Re:you mean Dr. Javad Ashjaee

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess he's desperately trying to get extremely rich.

same thing as the hedge fund funding LS.

looks like either LS didn't do its homework properly, or else just made a real bad call - there's simply no way they're gonna be allowed to break basically every GPS already deployed. The politicians they paid for are gonna just shrug and say "too bad" (and won't return the money). Falcone's fund seems to have gone all-in on LS, no? looks like another billionaire's on the way to becoming just a millionaire?

How is this not an impeachable offense?

[schwit1]

Somebody in the White House compromised national security to help a political donor.

Re:How is this not an impeachable offense?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comment is typical of paid pro-GOP astro-turfng on Slashdot.

Falcone is a registered REPUBLICAN and there is no record of any donations to the Obama campaign. Apparently he did make some donations in some congressional races, but the bulk of his donations were to REPUBLICANS.

Re:How is this not an impeachable offense?

[wes33]

mod up - important information

Maybe the problem is with the GPS devices.

[mc6809e]

Poor input filtering on GPS devices could also be a cause.

Normally, there's very little going on adjacent to 1575.42MHz. A GPS device with a poorly performing input filter would still perform well so long as adjacent bands were void of signal. A designer might even cheat a little by intentionally designing a filter that was had poor filtering at the edges of the band but allowed more signal at the center to get through. This would increase the possibility of acquiring the signal. No one would ever know so long as adjacent bands remained relatively unused.

If I were Lightsquared, I'd ask that each GPS device be tested to see if it was properly ignoring signal outside the GPS bands.

Re:Maybe the problem is with the GPS devices.

[Tacvek]

1575.42MHz is first of all just the carrier frequency. All useful signals have a non-zero band width. Second, GPS receivers are required by design to not filter out adjacent spectrum because the actual received frequency will differ due to Doppler shift.

GPS signals are extraordinarily weak. The cell towers are over 1000 times as powerful as the actual satellites, and the satellites are so much further away, that the LightSpped signal at a GPS device is often a billion times stronger than the GPS signal. Considering how close the frequencies are that means that an incredibly strong filter is needed, and it must be designed to have near zero attenuation of actual GPS signals, since they are so weak already.

GPS receivers have historically been designed assuming that the nearby signals like those in LightSpeed's frequencies would not be substantially stronger than a GPS signal, since that frequency range was reserved for satellite communications. Even if they had been designed with LightSpeed in mind, it is virtually impossible to design a filter that would work and not harm the performance of GPS without substantially increasing the size of the receiver.

I'm honestly shocked that up to 25% of the receivers did not experience any interference. These were probably large receivers that already had excellent filtering, but which would be completely unsuitable for use in say a cell phone.

Ligh Squared didn't do due dilligence

[calidoscope]

Simply put, LightSquared should have known that use of high power terrestial base stations could adversely affect GPS receivers and they should have made an effort to see if a work-around was possible before acquiring rights to the frequency bands. Since they didn't, LightSquared management have probably opened themselves up to shareholder lawsuits.

The original allocation for the LightSquared frequencies was for satellite based transmitters and it is up to LightSquared to prove that shifting to terrestial transmitters will not cause harmful interference.

Re:BUT WHERE IS THE MASS ?? WHERE IS THE MASS ??

[Shotgun]

And the only problem with tearing down the old system to build a new one, is that the leaders to come forward in the new system will be corrupt, but there won't be any safeguards against them yet. They'll have the opportunity to take complete control 8*(

Somebody gonna get Sued!

[Gyorg_Lavode]

if I were lightsquared, I'd be hiring lawyers and start sueing GPS manufacturers. From the sound of it, those manufacturers are stepping all over lightsquared's (very expensive) spectrum. This is a physical, limited, resource and GPS manufacturers are both using it and preventing lightsquared (the rightful owners) from using it. Lightsquared needs to start asking for daily damages until the GPS manufacturers start doing proper filtering of their receivers.

Along with that, I honestly want lightsquared to succeed. I think the only hope for the US wireless market is the kind of use-agnostic bandwidth that lightsquared, clearwire, and sprint are pushing. Otherwise, AT&T and Verizon are simply going to lay siege to Sprint, TMobile and any small carriers until we have a duapoly.

Good GPS World Article

[northerner]

GPS World has a good article about the Lightspeed controversy called "MSS Misinformation, and Ten Truths"

http://www.gpsworld.com/gnss-system/expert-advice-mss-misinformation-and-ten-truths-12353