[time-nuts] From GPS World - Lightsquared has been giventhegoahead

Fri Feb 4 13:50:51 UTC 2011

Trouble is those 'hams with their effing toy radios' have pioneered just about every 'business' service being sold today.   

 Especially true since US business has essentially abandoned industrial research and 'innovative design' in too many cases is copying a reference design from a data sheet. 

The FCC has made a series of extraordinarily bad decisions since the appointment of Powell in the interest of grubbing for dollars

220 Mhz allocation to UPS (still unused 10 years later) BPL, Sirius/XM repeaters then merger which was explicitly against the law which established the service,  DTV transition which left huge areas of the country dark for OTA TV,  Spectrum auctions and now Lightsquared which is going to hose 10's of millions of GPS dependent devices as well as break the aviation GPS receivers

Ironic since the entire next generation of ATC depends on L1 GPS.

The commissioners used to take into account FCC's engineering studies but today they are entirely political animals looking for their post FCC gig at one of the entities they used to regulate.  And so they hurry to approve anything set before them which could land them a cushy post FCC job.

Until the revolving door is stopped we will continue to have these issues.  Hopefully NTIA will step in and stop this idiocy as L1 is also used by the military and Govt

Scott N1JIN
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: "William H. Fite" <omniryx at gmail.com>
Sender: time-nuts-bounces at febo.com
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2011 08:27:19 
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement<time-nuts at febo.com>
Reply-To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
	<time-nuts at febo.com>
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] From GPS World - Lightsquared has been given
	thegoahead

A good point, Don, and no one should infer from my earlier post that I am
any fan of the FCC, either.  I found working with them to be a profoundly
frustrating experience.  My point, though, was that those marketplace
decisions are an integral part of the FCC mission.  The business people get
angry when FCC pays "too much" attention to technical issues and the
technical people get angry when FCC pays "too much" attention to business
issues and both are simultaneously right and wrong.

You could not pay me enough to be an FCC commissioner.

Bill

On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 1:33 AM, Don Latham <djl at montana.com> wrote:

> No head-ripping, Bill, simply that the FCC makes by fiat decisions that
> belong in the marketplace. As long as it's easier for business to
> cultivate a mandate instead of competing, I'll continue to dislike the FCC
> behavior.
> Part of the blame actually devolves from a great mistake by Reagan, the
> Federal Register, q.v.
> Cynical Don
>
> 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.
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >
>
>
> --
> "Neither the voice of authority nor the weight of reason and argument are
> as significant as experiment, for thence comes quiet to the mind."
> R. Bacon
> "If you don't know what it is, don't poke it."
> Ghost in the Shell
>
>
> Dr. Don Latham AJ7LL
> Six Mile Systems LLP
> 17850 Six Mile Road
> POB 134
> Huson, MT, 59846
> VOX 406-626-4304
> www.lightningforensics.com
> www.sixmilesystems.com
>
>
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