LightSquared Wants To Share Weather-Balloon Frequencies for LTE

IDG News Service reports (as carried by PC World) that LightSquared, having lost some of the spectrum they'd hoped to use for a nationwide LTE network because of worries it would interfere with GPS service, has a new plan: to use some of the spectrum currently reserved by the federal government for uses like weather-balloon communications. From the article: "The new plan would give the carrier 30MHz of frequencies on which to operate the LTE network. That's 10MHz less than it had wanted but still comparable to the amount of spectrum Verizon Wireless and AT&T are using for their LTE systems, which in most areas use just 20MHz. Wireless network speeds are determined partly by how much spectrum the network uses, so LightSquared might be able to deliver a competitive service for its planned coverage area of 260 million U.S. residents."

Comments

Some people

[mindwhip]

Just don't know when to fold.

Re:Some people

[icebike]

I don't view public use of GPS as more important than public broadband.

Your views don't matter.

The country as a whole, actually, the world as a whole, has decided that GPS location is far more important than yet another boradband provider.

The "kit" in the field was there first, and you can't tell every owner of every GPS equipped device in the world that they have to replace their devices just so this bunch of clowns can make money.

Just pay for proper spectrum already!

[gman003]

Second verse, same as the first. LightSquared just doesn't want to pay for spectrum. First they tried muscling in on satellite frequencies, claiming to the FCC that they'd primarily be satellite-based while telling everyone else that they'd be terrestrial only. And of course, they got caught because pretty much *any* terrestrial-strength broadcast is going to swamp out any satellite-based stuff on the same frequencies.

So now they're trying it again, trying to squeeze in on some pre-established frequencies. I don't claim to know any technical details of weather-balloon communication, but I do know this: if it *were* possible to safely share those frequencies with LTE-like communications, it would likely have been done already. Given their prior track record, LS is going to have to argue pretty effectively to convince me.

Look, LightSquared. You should've just paid for actual spectrum you could use before. You acted like a cheap bastard and tried to use the wrong parts because it was cheaper, and then you cried when it didn't work.

Nice choice of spectrum

[vmxeo]

I suspect the request to "share" frequencies with weather balloon transmitters has less to do with available bandwidth and more to do with a relative lack of industry who will be able to stand up this time to object. Weather balloons typically transmit at less than 300 milliwatts. If they couldn't figure out how to keep their land based-transmitters from overpowering 50 watt gps signals, I don't see how high-altitude balloons signals will fare any better.

Again

[sjames]

Here is yet another hair brained scheme to use a public resource on the cheap for private profit. Who needs accurate weather forecasts and severe storm warnings when we could let yet another carrier overcharge us for wireless bandwidth?