'Would Upend Decades Of Sound Spectrum Policy'

On the one-year anniversary of the Federal Communications Commission’s Ligado Order, the Aircraft Electronics Association joined a broad coalition of nearly 100 organizations urging President Joe Biden’s administration and Congress to work with the FCC to ultimately set aside the flawed Ligado Order that, if left in place, would upend decades of sound spectrum policy, negatively impact a significant cross-section of commercial, federal, and academic users who rely on the many different L-band satellite services, and threaten the safety of most Americans.

On April 22, 2021, multiple groups representing various constituencies across the American economy signed letters to President Biden and congressional leaders in both the United States Senate and House of Representatives.

Both letters stated, in part: “Although Ligado continues to attempt to convince policymakers that its proposed terrestrial service will not cause harmful interference and is somehow critical to American success in 5G, the executive branch and affected parties have repeatedly detailed the adverse economic, national security, and public safety impact of the proposed Ligado operations.

As for Ligado’s 5G fallacy, NTIA concluded that ‘an inability to deploy terrestrial 5G or related services using the frequencies involved in the Ligado applications would not hold back the timely deployment of 5G’ across the U.S. Tellingly, Ligado’s spectrum is not internationally harmonized for 5G, nor is it part of any 5G standard.”

FMI: www.aea.net, https://aea.net/pdf/LigadoOrderAnniversaryCoalitionLetterBiden.pdf, https://aea.net/pdf/LigadoOrderAnniversaryCoalitionLetterHill.pdf