Philip Falcone’s LightSquared wireless service shouldn’t be allowed to operate as planned because it would interfere with “many millions” of Global Positioning System devices, an advisory board said.
LightSquared should select another set of airwaves to avoid “substantial collateral damage in its understandable quest to bring broadband to the American public,” James Schlesinger, chairman of the National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation & Timing, said in a letter Wednesday to Federal Communications Commission chief Julius Genachowski.
LightSquared, backed by Falcone’s Harbinger Capital Partners hedge fund, plans a wholesale network serving 260 million subscribers using airwaves previously reserved mainly for satellites. Makers and users of GPS devices, which use satellite signals, say LightSquared would disrupt navigation equipment on aircraft, boats, tractors and automobiles.
LightSquared on June 30 offered to initially use only part of its airwaves, a step it said would resolve interference concerns for 99 percent of GPS receivers.
That plan would disable about 22 million mobile phones and interfere with other GPS devices, the advisory board said.
