[time-nuts] From GPS World - Lightsquared has been given thegoahead

[William H. Fite]

Mike, I think you are quite correct.  I wanted to make this observation
earlier but feelings are clearly running so high on this list that I feared
having my head ripped off by individuals of strong conviction.

In my view, it is inconceivable that Lightsquared would be allowed to take
out GPS service for any significant fraction of the population.  There are
just too many Nuvis and TomToms and Magellans in use for that to happen, not
to mention contractors, road-and-bridge builders, surveyor, etc., etc., etc.

  I think this, frankly, is a tempest in a teapot.

If I may dare to mention another point, it seems to be the firm conviction
here that FCC should be exclusively devoted to technical matters that are
invariably subject to the Monday morning quarterbacking of every electrical
engineer in the United States.  Speaking as someone who worked closely with
FCC for a number of years, I can assure you that this is not the case.
Technical issues are only one part of the FCC mission, however dissatisfying
that state of affairs may be to the  technically oriented set.  FCC is also
mandated to consider the economic welfare of the telecommunications industry
and the good of all Americans who rely on telecommunications.  And, of
course, it is a political organization--though I would argue that that
aspect of its operation is overstated.

If you gentlemen think that FCC arouses the ire of time nuts and others of
our ilk, you have no idea how it arouses the ire of those on the
commercial/business side of the table.  For every one angry engineer ranting
about the pols and nitwits who mismanage FCC, there are ten or twenty
business people ranting about
those-goddamned-hams-and-their-effing-little-toy-radios.

FCC is an easy target for anyone on any side of any telecommunications issue
who wants to take a shot.

Fire away.

Bill



On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 6:46 PM, Mike S <mikes at flatsurface.com> wrote:

> At 05:54 PM 2/3/2011, gary wrote...
>
>  It only take a little radio knowledge to realize how stupid much of what
>> the FCC approves. The FCC raison d'etre is to prevent interference.
>>
>
> I don't see any reason for people to get all excited. GPS is fundamentally
> a military system, and has very significant visibility, being used by _many_
> more people than will use the Lightsquared system - civilian, commercial and
> governmental in addition to military. If, upon initial deployment, real
> world interference is an issue, Lightsquared will be shut down quickly.
> There's simply much more inertia, money, and constituency behind GPS than
> Lightsquared.
>
> I asked before if anyone knew the timing requirements for LTE, which is the
> technology this is based on. If it requires synchronized timing like CDMA,
> then Lightspeed would be shooting themselves in the foot if they were unable
> to use GPS based timing within their system.
>
> _______________________________________________
> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts at febo.com
> To unsubscribe, go to
> https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
> and follow the instructions there.
>