Why, we might as well have been buying AIR
No they bought a fart.
The whole thing was stupid from the start.
LightSquared backer sues FCC over spectrum shindy
US hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners is suing the US government - and specifically the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) - according to the Wall Street Journal (paywall), for its part in the demise of optimistic wireless broadband network LightSquared. The network filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last May after the …
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Monday 14th July 2014 17:29 GMT David Kelly 2
Re: Why, we might as well have been buying AIR
This demonstrates markets work just the way they are supposed to: Stupid people lose.
Fortunately if FCC bureaucrats were bought they didn't stay paid for. The spectrum in question was allocated for space transmitters whose overlap into the GPS spectrum would be very weak. GPS receivers were designed for those conditions. Thats what GPS makers were promised. Am glad to see the FCC standing by that promise.
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Monday 14th July 2014 22:08 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Why, we might as well have been buying AIR
@David Kelly 2,
"This demonstrates markets work just the way they are supposed to: Stupid people lose."
Except that ultimately it's the US population that's lost. There's a big chunk of spectrum sat there doing nothing at all because some other people moaned about it being used. Spectrum is hugely important to everybody, and making sure that it's used effectively is vital.
"The spectrum in question was allocated for space transmitters whose overlap into the GPS spectrum would be very weak."
Not the whole story. The spectrum was originally intended for satellite telephony. Telephony is two way. Had they ever been built the satellite mobiles themselves would have had transmitters in them which could have had a similar GPS jamming effect. For the record it seems that LightSquared never transmitted in the GPS band, rather the plethora of cheap crummy GPS devices have inadequate frequency selectivity.
"GPS receivers were designed for those conditions. Thats what GPS makers were promised."
GPS receivers that fail to deal with licensed signals in the adjacent band are not designed 'properly'. Despite being allocated no one was using the adjacent band until LightSquared came along. If that band had actually been in use for satellite telephony before GPS came along none of this would have happened. GPS receivers would have been designed with adequate selectivity from the get go.
Plus I don't see how an extant frequency allocation in the adjacent band for a two way satellite mobile phone system (i.e. the situation that existed prior to LightSquared coming on the scene) could be considered to be a beneficial 'promise' to the GPS industry. Rather the opposite in fact.
"Am glad to see the FCC standing by that promise."
More like the placement of the GPS band next to the satellite telephony band was a mistake made long ago before anyone thought that it could become a mass market thing. Can't really blame any one organisation in particular, but it's a mistake that no-one else in the world seems to have made.
Plus the lack of effective regulation in the US allowed GPS manufacturers to build cheap devices without caring about the adjacent band at all and flood the market. Makes you wonder what the point of the FCC regulatory compliance statement that comes stamped on every mobile is for. You know, the one that says a device won't cause interference or fail to operate because of other system's transmissions. That is the one that turned out not to be true for a lot of GPSs.
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Wednesday 10th August 2016 19:29 GMT etabeta
Re: Why, we might as well have been buying AIR
You fail to realize the technical hurdles that must be overcome to build GPS receivers that have a front-end that is selective enough to not be interfered by a signal only about 5 MHz below GPS frequency milions of times stronger. Sure they can be built, but you would never be able to put one in your pocket. Add $150.00 and a 5kg 4 cavity band-pass-filter and they would be compatible. Forget about hand-held devices! There was gross incompetence involved on both sides. Lightsquared should have never thought about asking to use that band for terrestial transmitters, and the FCC should have never given even the minimal go-ahead. It is obvious that all those involved did not know absolutely nothing about what they were doing, or what they were trying to do.
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Wednesday 10th August 2016 19:35 GMT etabeta
Re: Why, we might as well have been buying AIR
You fail to realize the technical hurdles that must be overcome to build GPS receivers that have a front-end that is selective enough to not be interfered by a signal only about 5 MHz below GPS frequency billions of times stronger. Sure they can be built, but you would never be able to put one in your pocket. Add $150.00 and a 5kg 4 cavity band-pass-filter and they would be compatible. Forget about hand-held devices! There was gross incompetence involved on both sides. Lightsquared should have never thought about asking to use that band for terrestial transmitters, and the FCC should have never given even the minimal go-ahead. It is obvious that all those involved did not know absolutely nothing about what they were doing, or what they were trying to do.
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Monday 14th July 2014 18:40 GMT Mark 85
Re: Caveat Emptor
Blind greed by investors is a big part of all this. Not just this situation but the patent trolls, etc. stem from greed. The lawyers, greedy as they might be, are just the tools. Willing tools who will line up to get the business, but tools nonetheless. I think Shakespeare had it wrong... first kill the investors (starting with Icahn maybe?) and then take out the lawyers.
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Monday 14th July 2014 19:39 GMT SirWired 1
Enough beating this dead horse already, Harbinger!
Face it Hedge Fund barons, you thought you could push a stupid idea through by playing silly political games with your provisional license, and you lost, as you should have.
(For those late to the party, the FCC granted LightSqured a provisional license under the condition that they could demonstrate that their idea of using satellite spectrum for terrestrial communication would not cause interference on adjacent satellite bands. To the surprise of nobody, they couldn't. They then tried to get Congress and the media worked up over these guys getting the proverbial rug pulled out from underneath them. (Pretending that their original license was not, in fact provisional.) It didn't work.)
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Monday 14th July 2014 20:07 GMT Pet Peeve
Re: Enough beating this dead horse already, Harbinger!
Exactly. The fireworks started practically the moment that the proposal was made public, and tests were done early on (before Lightsquared even did any, if I remember right) proving it was a dumb idea that couldn't possibly work.
I don't know if Ergen purposely bought these damaged goods with a lawsuit in mind (though he's such a loose cannon that it's certainly possible), but if he wasn't, he ignored the "Sale is strictly as-is, parts are irreparably broken" tag, and it's his own dang problem.
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Monday 14th July 2014 20:51 GMT Sven Coenye
Re: Enough beating this dead horse already, Harbinger!
Ergen is not the one suing. He bought the bank debt to gain control over the Lightsquared carcass as it puts him in the driver's seat of the bankruptcy proceedings. Harbinger would be SOL. Their lawsuit is an attempt to do an end run around the situation by collecting from the FCC instead.
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Monday 14th July 2014 20:47 GMT etabeta
STUPIDITY!
Lightsquare'd move to even think that they would be able to use those frequencies so close to 1575 MHz used by civilian GPS was total technical ignorance and stupidity. Assuming that Lightsquared would be able to filter out any interference from their transmitters to the GPS frequencies, they surely could not have expected that the manufacturers of GPS equipment would be able to put suitable band-pass filters on the front-end of their receivers to prevent them to be saturated with the earth-based Lightsquared signal over 90dB more powerful. Immagine a smartphone with a telephone book sized filter attached to it! While this issue would have probably been able to be solved (but at what cost!) on board aircraft or in other vehicles, it sure would not have been possible with hand-held devices. The FCC should have NEVER even considered re-assigning spectrum to be used from only from space-to-earth. Somebody got some big kickbacks!...and that somebody in my opinion must be fired, and must spend the next 20 years in jail.
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Monday 14th July 2014 21:54 GMT Don Jefe
Re: STUPIDITY!
You've over complicated things. The technical issues were actually just the last problem, the entire idea had been screwy from the start. LightSquared came as close as it's possible to come to outright fraud.
They positioned their provisional license as an intermediary step on the way to full regulatory approval. That was never the case. The provisional license was issued to ascertain if frequency bleed over concerns expressed by everyone, except LightSquared, were valid concerns. That was it. If the tests went well the potential was there for more discussion, but the tests didn't go well. LightSquared got exactly what they were promised.
Back to the almost-fraud, LightSquared did disclose the reality of the situation (they're shady, not stupid). However, that disclosure utilized every sketchy legal argument and penis pill style 'gotcha' known to man. As far as I know, they didn't do anything illegal, but they didn't do anything ethical either. It is fucking hilarious that Harbinger got burned by the same tactics they use though.
This entire fiasco needs to be ended and buried. Put it in textbooks as an object lesson to future MBA's. The SEC could put a quick fast end to all this if they wanted to. They might not find anything, but it would be just great to tie up the money of everybody involved for years. Jackasses.
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Tuesday 15th July 2014 21:19 GMT Tom 13
Re: came as close as it's possible to come to outright fraud.
Absolutely true. There is only one offsetting mitigation, but in this case it happens to be a big one and you admitted to it: Harbinger looks like it equally comes as close as it's possible to outright fraud. And makes an inquiry into whether or not there were other FCC side shenanigans a valid one.
I will admit that while your solution of a pox on both their houses is intriguing, with Dish also being at risk I'm not sure it is one I'd like to pursue. If Dish the company could be excluded, I'm all for it. I'm not a Dish subscriber myself, but both my dad and my brother are. Not much else available in my dad's area. I'd think my brother should have more options in MSP, but don't know.
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Monday 14th July 2014 22:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
@ Another Anonymous Coward
"Plus the lack of effective regulation in the US allowed GPS manufacturers to build cheap devices without caring about the adjacent band at all and flood the market. Makes you wonder what the point of the FCC regulatory compliance statement that comes stamped on every mobile is for. You know, the one that says a device won't cause interference or fail to operate because of other system's transmissions. That is the one that turned out not to be true for a lot of GPSs."
Your post shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue. GPS receivers operate at many dB *below* the noise floor. Lightsquared in placing transmitters, within their space allocation, at ground level, at the power levels they were proposing would stop EVERY civilian GPS receiver ever made from working. It's not a case of cost engineering by the manufacturers.
The answer is to let Lightsquared put their transmitters in orbit, on the frequencies they have been allocated, at the power levels they have been allocated. Then no one would give a flying f*ck as there would be no issue with GPS or anything else. In the years until that happens give their lawyers a choice, fifty years behind bars for abuse of the legal system or a 2 minute lecture on common sense followed by a compulsory RF engineering degree.
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Tuesday 15th July 2014 13:21 GMT JeffyPoooh
Hmmm...
Many GPS Receivers are designed to work with external active antennas, antennas that have LNAs built-in. If there's going to be any overload from adjacent channels, then it would as likely as not happen within the LNA. Point being, there's not much that you can do to the "receiver" if the LNA is already gone all square wave on you. Any filtering would have to be within the antenna assembly, between the antenna element and the built-in LNA (i.e. *before* the LNA).
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Tuesday 15th July 2014 14:17 GMT David Spencer
Analogy
If you want a good analogy to understand the whole LightSquared situation, imagine two houses side-by-side with nice sunny gardens separated by a six-foot wood fence. Both householders can happily listen to their portable radios in their gardens without disturbing the neighbours in the other house.
However, imagine that one homeowner then can't pay his mortgage and a big company that wants to build a concert venue buys the house from the bank. Now, this company could have built the venue in the middle of town but the land was too expensive so instead they buy the house and then go to the council to get planning permission to convert the house to a concert hall. The council is a bit worried about the effect on the neighbors but they really see that a new concert hall would be a good idea so they grant the company permission to install a large sound system and test it. Of course, it completely swamps the remaining neighbour's little radio so the council says "no - the trial failed and you'll have to build elsewhere".
Is the neighbour at fault because he can no longer listen to his radio? Should he have anticipated this change and bought a louder radio. You could argue that the neighbour should build a sound-proof enclosure over their garden, but everyone would see that as unreasonable. Likewise, most people would agree that it was obvious that the whole project was a non-starter and the council should have never allowed the trial in the first place, and the people giving the company money to do the trial should have not done so, but greed prevailed all round.
That, in a nutshell, is the LightSquared story.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
