Recall at the recently held esriuc Survey Summit and ACSM event in San Diego a special forum was held to address the topic of Lightsquared. The American Surveyor Magazine Managing editor Marc Cheves offered up some comments from the event.
During the plenary session at the Survey Summit, Jeff Carlisle (a LightSquared VP) and Peter Large (representing the Save our GPS Coalition) each presented their case. Carlisle stated repeatedly that LS started the process ten years ago, and that all interested parties—including the GPS manufacturers—were well-aware and signed off. Legally, he is correct, but it seems to me that the answer to the question Why didn't anybody object? is quite simple: nobody knew the impact until the tests actually began. Prior to that, the system only existed on paper.
Carlisle made a convincing case: LightSquared has already invested $4 billion and plans to invest a total of $14 billion. There will only four providers of 4G broadband in the U.S. (AT&T, Verizon, Clearwire and LightSquared) and our country, with only 60% penetration with wireless, ranks 17th in the world. He emphasized that LS has expressed a willingness to alter its plans to avoid interfering with GPS.
