Says Study Offers Conclusive Proof Of LightSquared's Incompatibility With Existing GPS Units

The Coalition to Save Our GPS says a government study released Wednesday shows conclusively that the 4G wireless broadband Internet connectivity proposed by LightSquared should not be allowed on frequencies adjacent to the existing GPS bandwidth. 

Dale Leibach, a spokesman for The Coalition to Save Our GPS, said in a statement that the results "confirm yet again the depth and breadth of the serious GPS interference problems raised by LightSquared’s proposed plans, even after  many rounds of changes to these plans  by LightSquared which supposedly ‘solved’ the interference problem."

LightSquared has been saying since June that there were no interference problems with the GPS devices consumers use every day in their cars and boats, and that are used every day to make air travel safer. "The results reported yesterday, which come from additional testing ordered by the FCC and NTIA, show that in fact there are substantial risks to all of these everyday activities," Leibach said. "In short, the GPS interference problem does not just affect ‘hundreds of thousands of high precision GPS receivers,’ but millions of devices in everyday use.

Leibach said that the coalition members are still in the process of reviewing the detailed interference test results as they become available. "Unfortunately, based on LightSquared’s public statements, it is clear that LightSquared simply refuses to accept the overwhelming technical evidence on the interference issue and continues to try to ‘define away’ devastating test results," he said. "For example, LightSquared’s public statements reject the clearly established interference metric selected by the expert Federal agency overseeing the tests, calling the demonstrated interference effects ‘minor.’ This is grossly irresponsible – the interference threshold used in the tests represents a 20 percent reduction in the ability of GPS receivers to process GPS signals. This is not minor.”

http://saveourgps.org/