On May 22, 2020, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, the American Farm Bureau Federation, and the American Road & Transportation Builders Association filed a Petition for Reconsideration at the FCC over its Ligado decision.
“As a public utility, GPS receivers support nearly every economic sector—including in the majority of the Nation’s 16 critical infrastructure industries3—and GPS has helped produce $1.4 trillion in benefits to the U.S. economy since 1984, the majority of which occurred during the past decade,” the petitioners wrote.
Asking the FCC to reconsider its decision, the organizations representing hundreds of thousands of small and medium sized businesses said, “The Commission ignored all of the foregoing well-documented economic benefits and the value of GPS to the wide range of industrial sectors in the Ligado Order and Authorization. In addition, while the Commission acknowledged that harmful interference to GPS devices may occur, it failed to consider the real-life impact of that interference. As AFBF has explained, “[d]isruption to GPS has the potential to reduce farm profitability by raising production costs and affecting farm and ranch operations.” AEM has also highlighted that “GPS technology helps improve worker safety, reduces project delays, reduces fuel consumption and produces a more efficient worksite” and “[a]ny interference with these signals would be extremely disruptive to the many benefits GPS has brought to the construction sector.” The ARTBA co-chaired Transportation Construction Coalition (“TCC”) explained that “[t]he construction industry does not object to the goals of increasing wireless data capacity and competition.” But, in a May 6 letter to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, the TCC also argued that Ligado’s operations should not be approved if they cause harmful interference to GPS.”