Public Interest Not Properly Weighed in LightSquared Waiver, Say GPS Interests

The FCC International Bureau waiver that allows LightSquared to offer terrestrial-only service should have received a full public notice with a 30-day comment period because the requested modification, by the FCC’s own account, isn’t a “minor” one, said the U.S. GPS Industry Council and the Air Transport Association. The trade groups filed joint reply comments to oppositions to applications for review of the waiver (CD March 17 p17). The waiver order itself makes clear that “the modification is not minor” because it would raise interference issues and finds that LightSquared’s mobile satellite service modification request requires a waiver of FCC rules, they said.

The ATA and USGIC also separately replied to opposition filed by public interest groups. Those groups, New America Foundation, Media Access Project, Free Press and Public Knowledge, were mistaken in saying ancillary terrestrial components can’t remain complementary to MSS if there are terrestrial-only services, said ATA and USGIC. The FCC didn’t adequately consider the public interest effect of harmful interference with GPS receivers, they said. The public interest groups are wrong in saying the USGIC and ATA were on notice of widespread terrestrial service in the MSS bands, said the USGIC and ATA. Past USGIC filings show its “long-standing concerns and strong interest in finding the appropriate balance between LightSquared’s service and existing GPS operations -- a balance that the [IB] upset with the unexpected evisceration” of the MSS/ATC rule,” said USGIC and ATA.

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association also said the FCC didn’t pay enough attention to the public interest effects of the waiver. The record offers evidence that GPS interference could create a “massive problem” for the aviation industry and only through a IB investigation could a fair decision on the waiver be made, said the AOPA. The FCC’s failure to instigate such an investigation is not mitigated by the LightSquared-led review of the issues, it said. The “result is a de facto rule change, not waiver” and the IB was “bound to follow requisite notice and comment rulemaking procedures in order to be able to decide as it did,” it said.

John Deere & Co., which uses some L-band spectrum, needs effective and accurate GPS services for the U.S. agricultural sector to keep its competitive edge, the company said. Even if the FCC wants to foster wireless broadband in MSS spectrum, “a waiver to enable LightSquared to operate a high-powered terrestrial network in sensitive space-to-earth L-band MSS spectrum is irreconcilable” with FCC precedent and policies, said Deere. Neither LightSquared nor the public interest groups deny that “LightSquared’s network will cause disabling co-channel interference with Deere’s facilities and devastating overload of Deere’s GPS receivers,” the company said.

The waiver also contradicts spectrum-management principles that favor clustering services with similar characteristics together and “disfavor allowing dissimilar services” to use the same or nearby spectrum, it said. The claim that LightSquared hasn’t “materially departed from the business and technical plan” envisioned when MSS/ATC was authorized “goes against the record,” said Deere. The GPS community is large and diverse and many haven’t been involved in discussions with the FCC or LightSquared, it said. While past discussions with the U.S. GPS Industry Council were important, they shouldn’t “immunize LightSquared from having to address the interference that its network will cause to Deere’s” facilities and receivers, it said.

Globalstar defended the bureau’s action in its filing, saying the “legal and policy grounds” for the decision are “sound.” By upholding the order, the FCC will provide certainty to the market place so the IB “can issue analogous waivers” to MSS licensees to help address the need for mobile spectrum, said Globalstar. “In particular, Globalstar should be able to obtain similar terrestrial flexibility through a similar request for waiver” of the MSS/ATC rule that prohibits terrestrial-only service, the company said. The FCC “is obligated to provide similar regulatory treatment to similarly-situated entities under its jurisdiction,” said Globalstar.