Lawmakers Push for Additional Testing Prior to LightSquared Service During Hearing

More testing is likely needed before LightSquared moves forward on revised plans to offer terrestrial wireless service in just the lower part of the L-band, government officials and GPS users said Thursday during a joint hearing with the House Aviation and Maritime Transportation subcommittees on GPS reliability. Lawmakers and executives also voiced concern over the FCC’s handling of LightSquared’s proposed plans, asking for more involvement from the Federal Aviation Administration and Defense and Transportation departments when considering spectrum use that affects GPS. Meanwhile at a House Appropriations Committee markup, members agreed to an amendment requiring the FCC to address GPS interference concerns.

LightSquared recently said it would seek approval to launch service in the lower part of its L-band spectrum, further away from GPS service (CD June 21 p2). The revised plan hasn’t been fully vetted and the “subcommittee may request the FCC allow time for full comprehensive testing of the plans … for potential harmful interference impacts,” said Aviation Subcommittee Chairman Tom Petri, R-Wis. “The impact of LightSquared’s revised plans should be independently and thoroughly tested to ensure that the FCC does not approve plans that would introduce unacceptable risk in the aviation system or leave the aviation GPS users with new and costly burdens.” The FCC wasn’t invited to testify and declined to comment, an agency spokesman said.

Much of the testimony and questions focused on LightSquared’s original plan for using spectrum in both the upper and lower parts of the band, rather than its revised proposal, which has yet to be presented in full. The initial plan was widely panned as severely disruptive to GPS services. LightSquared is expected to give more detail in a coming working group filing at the FCC.

Once the details are filed with the FCC, the technical staff of various agencies will review them and determine the testing necessary, said Roy Kienitz, the Transportation Department under secretary for policy. “Very preliminary thinking indicates that if they are transmitting in a zone that is much farther from the GPS band, interference is likely to be less,” he said. “But if there are 500 million GPS units out there and we are only interfering with 1 percent, that’s 5 million. That’s still a lot. The other question really is, that is phase one of some plan, and what is phase two?"

Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., was especially tough in his questions on LightSquared’s evolving business plan. Graves, who said he isn’t comfortable with LightSquared’s proposal, pointedly asked LightSquared Executive Vice President Jeff Carlisle about longer-term details of the company’s revised plans. LightSquared has said it will roll out service in urban areas and wouldn’t begin service for several years in more rural areas where precision GPS operations are more common, giving it time to find technical fixes. “So, you're betting on the come,” Graves said. “You're hoping you'll find a solution before that happens.” Graves asked what the company considers an urban area and voiced concern over the idea of filters for aviation GPS devices.

Carlisle said operations in the lower band are unlikely to affect aviation, but operations in the upper band could and further discussion has to occur on the use of filters down the road. LightSquared continues to believe filtering technology and coordination will help expected interference issues with precision GPS operations and any service it provides won’t come at the detriment of GPS services, Carlisle said.

The regulatory fight over its spectrum could have larger ramifications by creating uncertainty for the spectrum market, potentially hurting the FCC’s auction efforts, said Carlisle. “If there is extraordinary regulatory or legislative action taken, if we aren’t allowed to work this out on a cooperative basis, certainty our spectrum and the valuation of spectrum will be severely undermined in this country,” he said.

The FCC should look at LightSquared with the same rigor that the Food and Drug Administration looks at drug trials, said Craig Fuller, president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. The FDA supports and facilitates investing and testing of drugs, but won’t let a drug come to market if its hurts the public. “My biggest beef is with the agency that is supposed to control the policy process,” he said. “Congress ought to investigate this policy path that we have been on because it is very confusing and we cannot, on an ad hoc basis, look at new proposals and say ‘I hope it works’ and go down that path.” Several lawmakers and executives voiced concern that LightSquared could cause problems and delay for the GPS-based NextGen airplane navigation system that the FAA is seeking to implement.

Meanwhile, during a House Appropriations markup, Rep. Steve Austria, R-Ohio, offered the GPS amendment to a financial services and general government appropriations bill. The Appropriations Committee agreed to the amendment by voice vote, and cleared the full appropriations bill by a vote of 27-21. The amendment deals with the FCC International Bureau waiver that allows LightSquared to offer terrestrial-only service. The Austria amendment prohibits the FCC from using funds “to remove the conditions imposed on commercial terrestrial operations” in its Jan. 26 waiver order, “or otherwise permit such operations, until the Commission has resolved concerns of potential widespread harmful interference by such commercial terrestrial operations to commercially available Global Positioning System devices."

Austria stressed that the bill would not block broadband deployment. Financial Services Subcommittee Ranking Member Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., had no objections but said he thought the FCC was already aware of potential GPS issues. Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., also said he had no problem with the amendment, but reminded the committee that LightSquared plans to invest $14 billion, expand broadband deployment and create many jobs. The company has “demonstrated a willingness” to work with the FCC to avoid interfering with GPS, Moran added. Rep. Kevin Yoder, R-Kan., replied that “no one wants to harm industries that are investing in our country” but lawmakers must also protect consumers who use GPS.