LightSquared Says GPS Tests Were Rigged

itwbennett writes "Would-be cellular carrier LightSquared claims that the company's LTE network was set up to fail in GPS interference tests. 'Makers of GPS (Global Positioning System) equipment put old and incomplete GPS receivers in the test so the results would show interference, under the cover of non-disclosure agreements that prevented the public and third parties from analyzing the process,' LightSquared executives said on a conference call with reporters Wednesday morning."

Comments

There are old receivers in use

[joe_frisch]

A lot of aircraft GPS receivers are quite old. It can cost 10-20K$ to put a certified receiver in a light aircraft, so pilots will keep their existing equipment as long as possible. Changing the requirements on interference resistance might require very expensive re-certifications of these receivers.

Re:There are old receivers in use

[AB3A]

Parent post is quite correct. The largest cost of a GPS receiver in an aircraft is NOT the electronics itself, but the installation and certification process, not to mention the database updates.

Remember that it has to work with many other transmitters and receivers nearby, including a Mode C or Mode S radar transponder required for most metropolitan regions, a UHF (403 MHz) ELT, a pair of VHF transmitters, possibly an HF SSB radio or an old DME system, and maybe even a weather radar. --and that's just the stuff that is supposed to deliberately transmit. Receivers can radiate their local oscillators...

The bottom line is that when you put safety of flight navigation equipment in an aircraft, it has to be tested and certified before it can be used. Lightsquared would like us to just "replace it" with something new.

I'd like to put their executives in an airliner filled with their damned LTE phones landing on a CAT III approach on a dark and stormy night. We'll see how "rigged" those tests were.

Sooo not buying this load of crap

[RogueWarrior65]

1) GPS manufacturers are not a direct competitor to a wireless networking company. If Verizon or AT&T were complaining they might have a case.
2) GPS was there first.
3) Clearly the Lightsquared hardware is spitting out a harmonic which could be fixed but would probably make the devices much more expensive to produce.
4) Lightsquared has been trying this case in the court of public opinion by running full page newspaper ads instead of dealing with the technology issues.
5) Lightsquared has been making huge political donations and receiving government grant funding which makes the whole thing stink like old fish.

Re:Really?

[kaiser423]

Exactly. They took relatively cheap satellite spectrum (cheaper, because you have to put satellites in orbit) and tried to get it re-purposed as ground-based spectrum, which costs billions of dollars more. It was really pretty ballsy and elegant; make your spectrum worth billions of dollars more just by filing paperwork and hoping that you slip by. The REAL kicker came in when DirectTV, and pretty much every single company that owns satellite spectrum said "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" and all filed paperwork requesting the same waivers. I mean, you can't expect them not to try and make the spectrum that they already own worth billions more. So, the FCC got flooded with all of these waivers, realized that this was going to destroy spectrum allocations across the US and cause untold disruptions as you open up massive chunks of bandwidth to high power, ground-based transmitters. We're not talking about just knocking out GPS. If LightSquared got approved, they'd have to approve other companies waivers also, and but pretty much every single service that relies on a satellite would go kaput. Pretty simple decision for the FCC to make....