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The FCC waived certain rules affecting LightSquared's network plans earlier this year, allowing the company to build a hybrid satellite and LTE (Long-Term Evolution) network as long as it tested for and solved interference with GPS (Global Positioning System).
Since then, members of the GPS industry and some lawmakers have attacked the plan and the FCC's waiver as hazardous to GPS.
On Thursday, the House Appropriations Committee passed a measure that would use Congress' control of the FCC's purse strings to stop the agency from letting LightSquared move forward.
"None of the funds made available in this Act may be used by the Federal Communications Commission to remove the conditions imposed on commercial terrestrial operations ... until the Commission has resolved concerns of potential widespread harmful interference," with GPS, said the text of the measure, an amendment to a funding bill.
The amendment came as LightSquared and the FCC came under sharp criticism at a separate Congressional hearing about the carrier's plan, in which it wants to operate a cellular network in frequencies close to those used by GPS devices. The company plans to operate its land-based network alongside a satellite system and sell services at wholesale to other carriers.
At the Congressional hearing, representatives of federal agencies and industry groups testified that LightSquared's current network plan would hobble GPS use for aviation, navigation, agriculture, defense and other purposes. Some witnesses also were skeptical about the carrier's proposal to mitigate interference by changing spectrum bands. Some also slammed the FCC for giving LightSquared a conditional waiver with too little time for debate. The oversight hearing was held by the Subcommittee on Aviation and the Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation.
At the hearing, the U.S. Coast Guard and departments of Defense and Transportation reported that tests showed LightSquared's current approach caused unacceptable interference with GPS, endangering a system vital to national defense and commerce. Witnesses from the GPS industry were even more critical.
"All of the testing performed to date confirms that the LightSquared system, as currently proposed, will result in a widespread degradation of GPS receiver performance and severely limit the GPS utility as we now know it," said Philip Straub, vice president of aviation engineering at GPS equipment maker Garmin International, in written testimony. RTCA, a nonprofit advisory commission on aviation, presented the results of tests conducted with LightSquared. From those tests, RTCA concluded that aircraft would be unable to use GPS over broad areas. Other tests have led to similar conclusions.