PassageMaker - January/February 2012

ELECTRONICS

LightSquared wants to build a 4G broadband communications network, and the Federal Communications Commission has given initial approval to the project. The FCC decision has prompted a massive backlash by GPS manufacturers and users, who warn that LightSquared’s plan would disrupt navigation on land, at sea, and in the air. LightSquared is backed by Philip Falcone’s Harbinger Capital, which has risked nearly $3 billion of its $7 billion in managed assets on the venture.

Since 2004, LightSquared has had the authority to operate a satellite voice and data service that would be augmented by “ancillary” ground stations. The idea was that handsets for the LightSquared network would be dual-mode (containing satellite and cellular transceivers)

and that the ground stations would serve customers in places where satellite signals were blocked—tunnels or big buildings.

Last fall, LightSquared petitioned the FCC
to modify its authority for a satellite network to

A BoatU.S. representative delivers 15,000 comments from BoatU.S. members opposed to the LightSquared plan for a 4G network.

evaporate before my column went to print. I was wrong. I should have factored in the billions of dollars backing the project, a shield that has protected it from having an oaken stake driven into its 4G heart. Belatedly, here’s the story.

Leave your worries behind. Your destination awaits you.

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