FierceWireless: Ligado scraps plan for trial deployment in northern Virginia

Sept. 15, 2022

By Monica Alleven, FierceWireless

Ligado Networks informed the FCC this week that it’s not going to move forward with a trial deployment of its L-band spectrum in northern Virginia.

“Ligado has reached this decision to allow time for the company’s discussions with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, acting in its statutory role on behalf of the Executive Branch, to resolve in a fair and reasonable manner issues relating to the government’s ongoing use of Ligado’s terrestrial spectrum,” wrote Ligado attorney Gerard Waldron of Covington & Burling LLP in a September 12 letter to the FCC.

The move, previously reported by Light Reading, came after Ligado in March revealed plans to conduct operations in the 1526–1536 MHz band on or after September 30, 2022. The company at that time said it was giving the GPS community the requisite six months’ notice as mandated by the FCC. The company included a map showing where it planned to do the trial in northern Virginia.

That came after the FCC authorized Ligado to move forward with the deployment of a low-power terrestrial nationwide radio network in 2020. However, members of the GPS community and U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) questioned the underlying assumptions in the FCC order. That led to Congress requesting a study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM), which was published last week.

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