[time-nuts] LightSquared gets at least some political attention

[Charles P. Steinmetz]

In keeping with its plan to re-purpose MSS spectrum (including the 
L-Band MSS spectrum) to include terrestrial uses, the FCC recently 
adopted a rule allowing "spectrum manager" leasing arrangements in 
the MSS bands (see Report and 
Order, 
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-11-57A1.pdf). 
This will make terrestrial operations all the more common, and is 
just one more step in the FCC's march to allowing terrestrial uses of 
the spectrum without any pretense of satellite operations.

Interestingly, Paragraph 28 of the Report and Order contains the following:

>>We emphasize that responsibility for protecting services rests not 
>>only on new entrants but also on incumbent users themselves [i.e., 
>>in this case, GPS users], who must use receivers that reasonably 
>>discriminate against reception of signals outside their allocated 
>>spectrum. In the case of GPS, we note that extensive terrestrial 
>>operations have been anticipated in the L-band for at least 8 years.

The situation with two other adjacent services, DARS (satellite 
radio) and WCS (Wireless Communications Service, one more service to 
be used for mobile broadband delivery) is quite similar, although in 
that case the interference is expected to be bilateral (DARS 
terrestrial repeaters into WCS mobiles, and WCS mobiles into DARS 
receivers).  For the moment, the FCC has afforded some protection to 
DARS legacy receivers, but it said it expects future DARS receivers 
to have better front ends (although it has not said that it would 
relax any of the constraints on WCS mobile transmitters when that happens).

Best regards,

Charles