On October 27, 2020, a letter signed by a number of groups across a wide range of industries was sent to the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. The letter expressed the danger of the Ligado order to the safety of SATCOM services.
The letter states the following:
“Operators and users of L-band satellite systems have relied on a stable spectrum environment free from harmful interference to deploy their networks and conduct their operations that depend upon those networks. Ligado’s proposed terrestrial network would fundamentally put the vital L-band satellite communications services—that in some instances serve as the only way to reach even the most remote regions of the world and are critical to safe aviation—at risk. In addition, the proposed Ligado network would disrupt the reliability of satellite communications services and the many critical applications that rely upon Global Positioning System (GPS), which has direct implications for safety-of-life in commercial aviation operations, precision farming and irrigation management that have revolutionized the agriculture economy, autonomous ground and air vehicles that will bring a new generation of transportation, precise and actionable weather data that can predict hurricanes and other life-threatening natural events, and many other applications. Simply put, the Ligado Order failed to take full account of the diverse services in the L-band, including those relied on by military, federal, and public safety users, that would be stranded or significantly impaired (without available alternatives) by the harmful interference caused by Ligado’s proposed terrestrial network.”