“We welcome today’s statement on behalf of the nine government departments and agencies that unanimously concluded that ‘no practical solutions or mitigations’ exist that would allow LightSquared to operate without causing significant interference to GPS. Today’s conclusion represents the culmination of a year of unprecedented technical effort to evaluate LightSquared’s proposal to repurpose satellite spectrum adjacent to GPS for a nationwide wireless network providing terrestrial-only services.
“The January 2011 FCC decision to grant LightSquared a waiver imposed an absolute condition that LightSquared would not be permitted to move forward unless it could demonstrate that its proposed operations would not interfere with GPS, and LightSquared fully accepted this condition. Since then, every set of independent technical studies has confirmed that LightSquared’s proposed operations would create widespread interference to critical GPS uses, including the test results which were the subject of today’s government conclusion.
“LightSquared has been afforded every possible opportunity to make its technical case, and has failed to demonstrate that it can avoid interference to many critical GPS-based activities. At this point, there is no evidence that any further modifications to LightSquared’s proposal would yield a different conclusion. Because of this, the PNT Executive Committee’s conclusion that it is time to end technical studies and conclude that the proposal is not viable is supported by overwhelming technical evidence.”