Filings

On May 22, 2020, Trimble filed a Petition for Reconsideration at the FCC over its Ligado decision.

In the petition, Trimble notes:

“Founded in 1978, Trimble is a leading provider of, among other things, advanced positioning and productivity solutions using Global Navigation Satellite System technology, including the U.S.-based GPS, as well as laser, optical, and inertial technologies. Trimble has been an active participant throughout this proceeding, both individually and through the GPS Innovation Alliance and its predecessor, the U.S. GPS Industry Coalition, and the Coalition to Save Our GPS, to ensure that Ligado’s proposed operations (and those of its predecessor-in-interest) do not adversely affect the myriad critical applications that depend on GPS. The Ligado Order fails to do that, which is why Trimble submits this Petition.

The Commission made several material errors and omissions in adopting the Ligado Order.

• First, it adopted the Ligado Order through an opaque process without engaging in a notice-and-comment rulemaking and disregarding key inputs from the federal agencies with expertise in GPS gained from utilizing it as a critical utility in accomplishing their public missions. Instead, the FCC effectively outsourced its decision-making to experts hired by Ligado. In so doing, the Commission violated its obligations under Section 343 of the Communications Act.
• Second, the Commission failed to include a reasoned cost-benefit analysis – merely relying on promises and press releases from Ligado to establish the purported public interest benefits of Ligado’s applications, while failing to systematically consider the costs and risks to GPS and the applications and critical activities that depend on it.
• Third, it erred by misunderstanding or mischaracterizing agreements between Ligado and a handful of GPS manufacturers to reach the false conclusion that they “concurred” with or supported Ligado’s applications.
• Fourth, the Commission dramatically underestimated the potential for interference to GPS devices by relying on a vague legal standard of harmful interference and ad hoc, limited analyses of Key Performance Indicators as opposed to the readily measurable and well-established 1 dB metric for measuring interference to GPS devices.
• Fifth, even though it acknowledged that an unknown number of the nearly 900 million existing GPS receivers will suffer interference, the FCC’s “stringent conditions” intended to mitigate and address incidents of interference are entirely unworkable, especially because the Commission has outsourced the job of policing interference to Ligado itself.”

Read the full petition here.

 

 

On May 22, 2020, the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation (RNT) filed a Petition for Reconsideration at the FCC over its Ligado decision.

They argue:

“The Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation respectfully requests reconsideration based upon: the Commission’s failure to assess the impact of the proposal upon the American public and economy with a cost-benefit or similar analysis; the Commission’s failure to comply with the Communications Act of 1934 as amended by the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act; the Commission’s apparent failure to follow its own rules and the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act; and Ligado’s predecessor-in-interest withholding information crucial to the hearing.”

Read the full petition here.

On May 22, 2020, Iridium Communications, Aireon LLC, Flyht Aerospace Solutions and Skytrac Systems filed a Petition for Reconsideration at the FCC over its Ligado decision. 

In the petition, the groups argue the following:

“The Commission repeatedly accepted Ligado’s claims at face value despite overwhelming evidence that Ligado’s operations will cause harmful interference with a wide range of civilian and military operations. The Order violates core requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act, entirely ignoring material evidence and arguments that spoke directly to the inquiry before it and offering explanations that ran counter to the record. The Commission should reconsider the Order and deny Ligado’s requests.

The Commission erroneously dismissed the public interest harms associated with a grant of Ligado’s modification request. Iridium and others submitted reams of evidence, argument, and technical analysis showing that Ligado’s operations would cause harmful interference, undermining billions of dollars of investment and jeopardizing national security. The Order sidestepped these concerns, insisting that there would likely be no such interference and that any harmful interference would be remedied by the “conditions” the Commission imposed on Ligado. These premises were badly mistaken. The record included abundant studies and analyses proving that Ligado’s operations would produce harmful interference – material the Order dismissed on the flimsiest of grounds. The Commission inexplicably applied 2005 out-of- band emissions limits despite evidence that the assumptions supporting such limits no longer apply. It offers no technical analysis of its own in support of this choice, nor can it point to any material supplied by Ligado itself. Whereas Iridium did submit such analysis, the Order rejects that evidence, largely on the basis that Iridium assumed the power levels that Ligado had proposed, rather than the level selected by the Commission – even though the Commission easily could have modified the results and seen that the study showed harmful interference at that level, too. The Order likewise dismissed the interference concerns raised by the executive branch –specifically, the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration, each of which is assigned statutory responsibility with respect to the interference concerns at play here.”

• The Order ultimately acknowledges that some harmful interference is likely, establishing purported mitigation mechanisms. These measures violate Section 343 of the Communications Act, which demands not that the Commission urge parties to discuss interference but that the Commission resolve interference. They also contravene Section 25.255 of the Commission’s rules, which requires the ATC provider to remedy any harmful interference. In any event, the “remedies” the Order imposes simply will not work. The agreements Ligado has made with several GPS providers do not provide any cause to believe that Ligado can or would reach similar agreements with others, particularly after receiving FCC approval. Likewise, the suggestion that imposition of a new power limitation in the band adjacent to Iridium will address Iridium’s concerns is a non-sequitur, because, while an improvement, even the new power limit will not cure the harmful interference at issue. The Order’s proposed mitigation measures with respect to military users fares no better – the Order requires consultation but does not mandate any action by Ligado if it does not agree that it will produce harmful interference. Even if it did, Ligado is barred by law from providing funds to DOD for the replacement of equipment.
• The Order barely addresses the alleged public interest benefits of Ligado’s offering. Its anemic discussion merely regurgitates Ligado’s talking points – including its incorrect contention that its service will promote 5G – without even addressing record critiques of those claims or balancing the purported benefits of Ligado’s hypothetical offering against its attendant harms. Even so, the best the Commission can do is to conclude that the proposed service “could” become a useful offering.
• Finally, the Commission committed error in waiving the “integrated service” rule. For starters, it should have acted via rulemaking, as it has before in similar matters. It further failed to satisfy the basic criteria for waiver by showing that waiver better served the public interest than application of the rule or articulating the special circumstances warranting waiver. Indeed, it could not have done so, because waiver here will prolong or exacerbate Ligado’s failure to invest meaningfully in the MSS marketplace. The conditions applied to the 2011 waiver did not prompt Ligado to deploy meaningful satellite service then, and there is no reason to believe they will now. The instant waiver will further undermine the public interest by eviscerating the long-standing protections that have allowed satellite services in the L-band to thrive.

Read the full petition here.

On May 22, 2020, Lockheed Martin filed a Petition for Reconsideration of the FCC’s Ligado Decision.

They argue:

“The record before the Commission contains extensive evidence, including technical analyses, that demonstrate conclusively that grant of Ligado’s mobile satellite services license modification applications, as amended, and rule waiver, would not serve the public interest. The Order ignores or glosses over this evidence with a limited and dismissive deliberation that appears to have been driven by the agency’s desire to reach a particular outcome. The Order thus contains substantial legal and procedural errors and must be reversed on reconsideration. Specifically, the Commission’s analysis of the voluminous evidentiary record reveals that the Commission failed to engage in the reasoned decision-making mandated by the Administrative Procedure Act.”

• The costs imposed by the Order are understated—if evaluated at all. The Commission failed in any way to quantify the costs that dozens of affected parties will incur when dealing with the impact of Ligado’s operations. For example, even after inappropriately rejecting the 1 dB standard, the Order recognizes that seven of eleven high-precision receivers tested in the Ligado-sponsored reports by Roberson and Associates would be impacted by Ligado’s operations and that only three could be modified to ameliorate the harmful interference.
• The Order’s remedies are not sufficient to offset its costs. The “remedies” the Commission adopts are not sufficient to offset the costs already outlined. As discussed above, the power levels and operating restrictions and out of channel emission limitations adopted by the Order are insufficient to address the harm that Ligado’s operations would have on GPS and services in adjacent bands.
• The Order overstates the benefits of Ligado’s service. Given the Commission’s failure to grapple with the costs that granting the Applications imposes, it is perhaps unsurprising that the Order reflects little effort to evaluate Ligado’s claimed public interest benefits. Over the course of a scant two pages, the Commission readily accepts assertions that do not stand up to even moderate scrutiny.

Read the full petition here

On May 22, 2020, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) filed a Petition for Reconsideration of the FCC’s Ligado Decision. Additionally, NTIA filed a Petition for Stay of the Order and Authorization of the proceeding that the Commission granted Ligado. 

In the Petition for Reconsideration, they argue:

“There are a number of procedural and substantive flaws in this proceeding and Ligado Order. The FCC repeatedly refused to consider the impact of the broader regulatory and policy issues under consideration in this proceeding, including national implications for GPS capabilities and alleged 5G benefits, through appropriate notice and comment rulemaking. The Ligado Order effectively modifies the Commission’s MSS/ATC rules and policies for the L- Band, and these now should be addressed in that context subject to independent technical assessment and evaluation.”

• The Ligado Order Failed to Satisfactorily Address and Resolve Executive Branch
  Concerns Regarding the Risks of Harmful Interference to GPS
• The FCC should acknowledge that further technical studies and testing are needed to
  ensure that Ligado’s actual terrestrial network would not cause harmful interference
  to GPS and other authorized services.
• The Ligado Order’s Conditions Must be Significantly Modified to Adequately Prevent
  or Remediate Harmful Interference to Federal GPS Devices

In the Petition for Stay, they argue:

“Ligado should not be permitted to deploy its network until NTIA’s Petition for Reconsideration or Clarification (Petition) is addressed and executive branch concerns of harmful interference to federal government and other GPS devices are satisfactorily resolved. Because the Commission relies upon a new and unproven “harmful interference” metric and imposes unworkable conditions while still uncertain whether GPS receivers critical to national security and public safety would experience remediable harmful interference, the Commission should stay the Ligado Order. In this manner, the Commission can meaningfully and promptly consider the appropriate metrics and mitigation procedures – and their realistic application to Ligado’s actual terrestrial network – before coordination and deployment efforts under the current conditions commence.”

• THE NEW AND UNPROVEN PERFORMANCE-BASED HARMFUL INTERFERENCE METRIC SHOULD BE TESTED SCIENTIFICALLY BEFORE LIGADO CAN DEPLOY A POTENTIALLY HARMFUL TERRESTRIAL NETWORK
• THE PRESENT CONDITIONS SET FORTH IN THE LIGADO ORDER WILL NOT PREVENT HARM TO GPS

Read the full Petition for Reconsideration here

Read the full Petition for Stay here

On May 22, 2020, The Aerospace Industries Association, The Aircraft Owners And Pilots Association, Airlines For America, Aviation Spectrum Resources, Inc., The Cargo Airline Association, The General Aviation Manufacturers Association, The Helicopter Association International, The International Air Transport Association, The National Air Transportation Association, and The National Business Aviation Association filed a Petition for Reconsideration of the FCC’s Ligado Decision. 

They argue:

“The Commission’s Order and Authorization (“Order”), which grants Ligado’s license modification applications, recognizes that GPS receivers and SATCOM terminals are entitled to protection from interference caused by Ligado. The record in this proceeding does not substantially support the decisions the Commission made. As a result, the Order does not impose technical and operational parameters that will deliver appropriate protection to GPS and SATCOM. In an attempt to make up for this failing, the Order adopts a long list of license conditions. But these have numerous deficiencies and arbitrarily shift much of the burden for protection upon the aviation industry itself, putting air safety and aviation operations at risk. For these reasons, the Order should be reconsidered and the Ligado applications denied.

• For its decision on how to protect Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) certified aviation GPS receivers, the Order relies heavily on an FAA analysis of the potential for Ligado to cause harmful interference to certified safety-of-life GPS receivers at the boundary of a 250-foot radius cylinder around Ligado base stations, and a boundary 30 feet above those stations (the “250/30 Cylinder”). But that analysis, by the FAA’s own recognition, did not conduct a full assessment of operational considerations within the 250/30 Cylinders or among a dense deployment of Ligado base stations such as low-altitude operations of helicopters and Unmanned Aircraft Systems (“UAS”). Nonetheless, the Order inexplicably relies on that very analysis (without supplementation), and a mischaracterization of an FAA rule, to find that all operational scenarios concerning certified receivers have been addressed. In so doing, the Order ignores the large body of evidence the aviation community provided showing that FAA-certified GPS devices would be regularly used in close proximity to Ligado base stations. As a consequence, the technical and operational parameters adopted by the Order applicable to Ligado’s base station operations in 1526-1536 MHz do not protect aviation’s use of certified receivers near Ligado base stations.
• The Order’s conditions do not make up for the flaws of this insufficient technical analysis. The notification provisions require Ligado to establish a database for pilots’ use outside the normal FAA processes on which pilots rely for information about obstacles. This directive is seriously vague and raises numerous significant questions. This new notification mechanism is also beyond the Commission’s authority to adopt. The interference complaint condition places too much authority and discretion in the hands of Ligado offering little certainty that interference situations will be adequately and timely addressed. The Order also makes unfounded assumptions about how UAS currently and in the future will use GPS for operations in low-altitude environments, putting at risk new growth industries.
• With regard to non-certified receivers, the Order discounted the interference assessment standard based on a 1 dB change in the carrier signal-to-noise ratio that has been supported consistently by the relevant federal agencies, the major GPS manufacturers, and the aviation industry and which the record evidence showed is the best objective predictor of interference to GPS devices. Exacerbating the error of this rejection, the Order relied on Ligado-sponsored studies that are insufficiently narrow. For example, these studies looked at only two of many important functions performed by non-certified GPS receivers on which critical aviation systems rely. In addition, the studies only looked at a single non-certified GPS receiver used by aviation and did so in a non-aeronautical test set-up. And again, the conditions imposed by the Order in an attempt to make up for the expected interference from Ligado are insufficient to shore up the other deficiencies of the Order which fail to protect noncertified receivers.
• Finally, the Order recognizes the need for measures to protect SATCOM from interference caused by Ligado. But the Order unjustifiably relies upon resolution of long-open negotiations between Ligado and Inmarsat – which have occurred without aviation industry involvement – to develop terms for a major retrofit of aircraft using Inmarsat SATCOM. Regarding potential interference to Iridium SATCOM, the Order’s encouragement of Ligado and Iridium to keep talking hardly passes for sound spectrum management and a similarly flawed response to demonstrated interference concerns. The Order’s inadequate treatment of the SATCOM issues amounts to the Commission adopting no protective measures whatsoever.

Read the full petition here.

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. 

Continue reading “The Association of Equipment Manufacturers, The American Farm Bureau Federation, and The American Road & Transportation Builders Association Petition for Reconsideration of Ligado Order”

On May 6 at 3 PM ET, The Senate Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing on the Department of Defense spectrum policy and the impact of the FCC’s Ligado decision on national security. Read the statement for the record signed by 71 companies and associations representing billions of dollars to the U.S. economy that could be imperiled by spectrum interference.

Industry Coalition Statement of Record on Ligado for SASC Hearing

Continue reading “Petition to Dismiss Dangerous Ligado Proposal”

Letter from Department of Defense to Interdependent Radio Advisory Committee (IRAC) at Commerce, written by Thu Luu, the Air Force’s executive agent for GPS. The memo was co-signed by representatives from 12 other agencies, including NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the departments of the Interior, Commerce, Justice, Transportation and Homeland Security.

IRAC Ligado Memo with 13 Agencies