GPS Interests File for Review of LightSquared Waiver

The FCC International Bureau overstepped its authority in granting the LightSquared a waiver of mobile satellite service rules that will allow it to offer terrestrial-only service through resellers, companies and groups said in filings at the FCC. Applications for review and a petition for reconsideration were filed. Requests for review are largely focused on alleged procedural problems. Meanwhile, LightSquared submitted its first working group structure report to the FCC. LightSquared was required to create working group to address GPS interference concerns and submit reports to the agency as a condition of the waiver (CD Jan 27 p1).

"We are reviewing the petitions and will respond in the near future,” said an FCC spokesman. “It is important to note that we continue to listen to the concerns of interested parties. The Bureau’s actions have been transparent and all sides are fully participating in the process. Case in point, several parties concerned with potential interference to GPS receivers in the spectrum have signed onto the initial report filed last week by LightSquared with the FCC on the concerns related to interference to GPS receivers operating in adjacent spectrum bands. Until all potential GPS interference issues are adequately addressed, LightSquared will not be permitted to move forward under the waiver.” The spokesman declined to comment on how the reviews would be handled, other than to emphasize that it would be done in an open and transparent way.

The bureau’s action “exceeded the scope of its delegated authority by addressing novel issues not previously considered by the Commission and on which existing policy mandated a contrary result,” said the U.S. GPS Industry Council (USGIC), Air Transport Association, Garmin International and Trimble Navigation, in a joint application for review. The waiver order, which allows LightSquared to avoid rules that prevent MSS/ancillary terrestrial component licensees from offering terrestrial-only service, makes the terrestrial service ancillary “to nothing,” the groups said. “Fundamental changes of this nature can only be accomplished” through a rulemaking, so the waiver “must be reversed and vacated,” they said.

The waiver also didn’t explain what was meant in prohibiting LightSquared from beginning “commercial service,” they said. There’s “no accepted regulatory definition” and there are “many conceivable levels of operation and deployment” that aren’t commercial that could cause interference with GPS receivers, they said. Many GPS devices use neighboring spectrum, and industry and government users have raised concerns that LightSquared’s services could interfere. Lockheed Martin, which uses nearby 1559-1610 spectrum, also filed an application for review, saying interference would be a safety issue and that it didn’t have adequate notice of the proceeding.

The waiver order “is more akin to a spectrum reallocation,” said Deere, a company that uses the L-band for agricultural, construction and survey customers. LightSquared is also an L-band licensee. Deere, which filed a petition for reconsideration, said the FCC should give “give proper weight to incumbent spectrum user concerns” and treat LightSquared’s request as a reallocation deserving of public comment and a rulemaking. The FCC should “establish an effective process to scientifically evaluate the interference impact” unlike the working group, which allows LightSquared to set the agenda and testing process, it said.

"The line of demarcation on what can be done on delegated authority and what can be done by full authority is fuzzy at times,” said a satellite industry lawyer who is familiar with the waiver. While there may have been a “little creativity in the order,” it procedurally wasn’t “beyond the pale,” and authority was “exercised in way that is consistent with the Commission’s stated objectives,” the lawyer said. This isn’t “a situation where there is a radical shift in the direction of what the Commission wanted,” the lawyer said.

Separately, LightSquared filed its first report on the working group meant to deal with the GPS interference worries. The report was filed jointly with the USGIC and a progress report on the group is due March 15. The group will include two co-chairs: Jeff Carlisle, LightSquared’s executive vice president of regulatory affairs, and Charles Trible, GIC’s chairman. Together they will review and approve the group’s results. The group will also include a technical working group made up of GPS experts, they said. Each co-chair will appoint two members, and others may be added by agreement of the co-chairs, said GIC and LightSquared. Any other interested parties can provide feedback in writing as advisors to the working group, they said. LightSquared will pay for the testing, though all other costs, such as travel, will be paid for by the participants. In the FCC reports, bracketed text will indicate disagreement between the co-chairs over the language, they said.