LightSquared has given the FCC an amended LTE network program, reports Fierce Wireless, to further lessen GPS interference concerns. The filing (pdf) was created as LightSquared has come below criticism at a congressional hearing over its planned wholesale LTE network, which would be hosted on Sprint towers.
At a Residence hearing Thursday, Republicans criticized the FCC for not using its own engineers to examine regardless of whether LightSquared’s technology posed interference issues.
LightSquared, a mobile satellite communications organization, has received conditional approval from the FCC to build a nationwide 4G wireless network, provided it can be accomplished with out interfering with adjacent GPS signals. But government and industry tests this summer demonstrated the proposed method designed harmful interference.
Under the newest version of their plan, LightSquared will still limit its use the lower 10 MHz chunk of L-Band spectrum at 1.6 GHz, but will now limit the power of its terrestrial base stations to -30dBm when it launches its network.
According to a LightSquared, energy levels, as measured 50 meters from the base station, will not degrade the performance of GPS devices. In tests, only two GPS receivers were operating above that threshold and their efficiency was not degraded. The official stated that LightSquared’s operational efficiency and enterprise plan will not be affected by the alter. By 2015, LightSquared will enhance the power level to -27dBm and by 2017 it will increase it to -24 dBm.
In addition to the alter in energy, LightSquared also proposed a answer for satellite-augmented GPS, which is used for precision GPS devices from companies such as Trimble and John Deere. LightSquared suggested permanently utilizing a 4 MHz chunk of spectrum for those services which will provide them with a stable satellite signal.
That proposal will give LightSquared time to create a filtering resolution for precision GPS receivers, and the company is seeking at antenna replacement or a module modification for legacy precision GPS receivers.
The LightSquared official stated so far the reaction from the GPS community has been mostly positive. The FCC has stated there is no timeline for a decision on LightSquared’s strategy, but the LightSquared official expressed confidence that a choice will be made soon.
The Coalition to Save our GPS, a group of GPS device producers opposed to LightSquared’s network, said in a statement that the newest program “appears to be a positive step toward reducing, for some devices, the harmful interference to GPS signals confirmed during testing of LightSquared’s earlier incomplete proposals.”
Nevertheless, the group stated the strategy does not claim to solve interference to high-precision GPS receivers, and that further testing is necessary.
The new modifications to LightSquared’s plan came as federal government officials stated just before Congress that far more testing of the organization’s program is necessary. The testimony included that of Mary Glackin, a deputy under secretary at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as nicely as Anthony Russo, director of the National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing, which coordinates federal agencies’ interest in GPS.
LightSquared signed a 15-year, $ 9 billion network-hosting deal with Sprint Nextel in late July, but the deal is contingent on LightSquared getting FCC approval to operate its network.
GPS World and Inside GNSS have far more.
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