June 15, 2020

A bipartisan trio of U.S. House of Representatives members wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai with a series of questions about how much weight the FCC gave to a study by Roberson & Associates LLC when the commission made the April decision to greenlight Ligado’s 5G plan.

The U.S. Department of Defense fiercely opposes the buildout, saying Ligado’s use of that spectrum will likely interfere with GPS communications that the military uses. Lawmakers signing Thursday’s letter to Pai oversee military operations by House Armed Services panels.

They said Dennis Roberson, the consulting firm’s founder, had done a technical study on behalf of Ligado’s law firm, Covington and Burling LLP — a private study that the agency referred to more than 80 times in its Ligado order, according to the House members. But Roberson also chairs the FCC’s Technological Advisory Council, or TAC, and helped author white papers that undergirded the FCC’s policy on what “harmful interference” means, which the decision also leaned on.

Read the full story at Law360.