GPS & LightSquared - the Controversy

The country has a phenomenal navigation system, the GPS, that was developed by the military and has been available to the public for years.  Most of us have come to depend upon its reliable operation.  Now, there is a threat to accurate operation of the system by allowing a startup cellular phone system to transmit on a portion of the bandwidth reserved for the GPS system.

The agricultural community is alarmed at the threat posed by the operation of this new system.  Furthermore, professionals in the technical side of the business are equally upset at this change.

For the curious, it is worthwhile to examine the ownership and financial interests of this interloper into the GPS bandwidth.

• What's the economic incentive to enter this segment of the cellular market?  
• What Federal agency regulates the bandwidth, a publicly funded resource?  
• Why is the change in use given more weight than the intended use that was funded by taxpayers?
• What are the unintended consequences of forcing the existing industry to re-tool, if possible, to reduce the interference on the signal transmissions?

For some interested in the activities of the K Street lobbyists, this situation seems to demand a unified voice of opposition and inquiry into the manner in which this change in use moved through the bureaucratic maze.

Ciao!