Background: "LightSquared" has been pushing for using so-called "spare" radio frequency space for data and other wireless projects.
Current licensees are, for the most part, against it, partly because of the added competition (natch), but also because it looks like there are some pretty serious interference isssues.
Sprint has joined up with (or at least announced... I'm not sure if money actually changed hands) LightSquared.
Lots and LOTS of folk in the technical arena have been concerned, in large part because this has high potential of messing up the GPS network.
And now... the RWEC (Right Wing Echo Chamber), quoting the LWEC (Left Wing Echo Chamber), has gotten on board:
..... [from Malkin]
LightSquared: The next Obama pay-for-play morass?
When it rains, it pours. And there ain't a big enough umbrella for all President Obama's cronies and fixers to crowd under these days.
While the Solyndra BGB (big green boondoggle) continues to blow up on Capitol Hill, the White House faces another pay-for-play backlash - this time from his own left flank.
The liberal Daily Beast reports on a broadband project backed by a frequent Obama White House visitor and donor that has Pentagon officials concerned over potential military GPS interference. The Obama FCC took the lead in intervening on the donor, billionaire hedge fund manster (sic) Philip Falcone's, behalf and granting his company called "LightSquared" one of those coveted Obama waivers from existing law. Then Obama officials reportedly pressured a general to alter his testimony about the company's impact on military satellite transmissions. ---- rest:
_____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key snipped-for-privacy@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
***** Moderator's Note *****I don't think I'm in either the right OR left wing, and I try not to echo anyone else, but I am skeptical about _any_ new wiz-bang technology that depends on frequency-agile transceivers.
The idea sounds good: Lightsquared wants to use some "blank" spots in the spectrum to get "free" bandwidth that would otherwise be unused. However, as I understand it, their equipment has to automatically adjust to the location where it is placed, by detecting which areas of the spectrum are, and which are not, available. That's a dangerous way to set up radio-frequency emitters, and it effectively delegates to Lightsquared permission to assign frequencies in a way that protects existing licensees and other services, which is supposed to be the FCC's job.
Bill Horne Moderator