LightSquared’s intentions to build a brand new 4G LTE network has gained nationwide attention, but over the past few months the attention has been turned to the network’s tendency to interfere with GPS devices. On Thursday, federal officials said they were still concerned about GPS interference despite a number of measures LightSquared has taken to address those issues. The company announced in late October that it worked with PCTEL to develop a new antenna that “[resolves] concerns over high precision GPS receivers.” Unfortunately, the Department of Defense and the Department of Transportation still see an interference problem with the network. Read on for more.
“LightSquared signals caused harmful interference to the majority of… general purpose GPS receivers,” Anthony Russo, the director of the National Coordination Office for spaced-based positioning, navigation and timing, said in a statement. LightSquared CEO Sanjiv Ahuja believes that LightSquared isn’t at fault, however. “The interference issues are not caused by LightSquared’s spectrum, but by GPS devices looking into spectrum that is licensed to LightSquared,” Ahuja explained to The Wall Street Journal, noting that LightSquared ” profoundly [disagrees] with the conclusions drawn with respect to general navigation devices.” Ahuja said his company will work with the FAA to address a single remaining issue that is related to terrain avoidance systems.
