What Do CTIA and The GPS Council Have In Common? The Lightsquared Fight Expands to Satellite ATC Generally

[Commentary] Lightsquared does, in fact, cause interference with GPS, even though it is operating under rules the Federal Communications Commission approved in 2003. This brings us to the question of who bears the cost of trying to make Lightsquared, or any new system, work. Which brings us to the expansion of the Lightsquared fight into the Satellite band generally, and the curious partnership between CTIA and the GPS Council.

Both filed petitions asking the FCC to reconsider this order moving toward greater flexibility for satellite providers trying to offer “ancillary terrestrial component” (ATC) based services. Both object to a single, specific paragraph in the order in which the FCC (addressing the Lightsquared fight, which the GPS Council had raised in comments) stated that even existing incumbents have some responsibility to enable new services by making some adjustments to work more efficiently. Needless to say, organizations that represent incumbents, like CTIA and the GPS Council, do not like this one bit. From their perspective, once you get a license, you should never, ever, have to change what you are doing to accommodate someone else — even if that is the right answer from a spectrum efficiency/public policy standpoint. (We will pause a moment to appreciate the irony of CTIA arguing that incumbents must be protected under all circumstances no matter how old and useless their technology while simultaneously pushing to eliminate broadcasting and take their spectrum on the grounds that broadcast television is old and useless.)