Jun 12, 2020

A trio of House Armed Services Committee members are asking for an inspector general-run investigation into a company that tested whether Ligado Networks’ potential use of a radio frequency will interfere with GPS. The lawmakers want to know if consulting company Roberson and Associates, which submitted its finding to the Federal Communications Commission, has a conflict of interest in the matter.

At the core of the members’ concerns is Dennis Roberson, the chairman of the FCC’s Technological Advisory Council. The TAC is a group of technology experts whose role is to help the FCC “identify important areas of innovation and develop informed technology policies,” per the commission website.

Roberson is also the head of Roberson and Associates. Ligado wants to use the L-band spectrum, and it hired Roberson and Associates in 2016 to perform a technical study on the potential interference to GPS. The lawmakers said this raises “a “troubling appearance of a conflict of interest.”

Read the full story at C4ISRNET