[time-nuts] FCC Chair Talks Spectrum, Gets GPS Letter

[Jim Lux]

On 3/7/12 10:22 AM, SAIDJACK at aol.com wrote:
> Sorry for my language, I was quite upset when I read his letter.
>
> If it really was trivial and very low cost to upgrade GPS receivers, then
> he should not worry too much about loosing much revenue. This sounds more
> like  he made major investments in either Lightsquared itself, or into
> designing and  qualifying compatible receivers, and hoping for a major payday which
> is not  coming.
>
> There should be other solutions for LS such as allocating to a  different sp
> ectrum etc to not lose "a $14 billon investment".

I don't think $14B has actually been spent (as in actually paid to a 
manufacturer of parts and/or workers).. sure there's lots of paper 
investments back and forth, but not much cash has changed hands.

We were talking about this at lunch today.. SKyTerra cost something like 
1/2B.  They launched a next gen sat recently (maybe 1B).. I find it hard 
to believe they've spent close to 1B on their test ground stations and 
though they clearly have armies of lawyers and accountants, 1B buys a 
lot of legal fees.

They may well have made commitments and orders for multiple B of future 
purchases, and there will be termination liability if they cancel 
orders, etc.  But again, it's not like they have 1B in their vaunted 
dual mode handset chips sitting in inventory at Qualcomm..


>
> Also his claims that GPS receivers will soon be obsolete anyway's are
> clearly not true of course.
>
> This reminds me about the futile episode of Edison electrocuting  Elephants
> to prove his DC power grid to be superior to AC...

Those states that use electrocution *do* use AC in the electric chair, 
though... Granted we don't refer to "westinghousing" the offender as 
Edison advocated, though.


>