Dec. 14, 2020

By Robert McDowell

After a contentious political year, Congress is on the cusp of passing the annual National Defense Authorization Act by an overwhelming bipartisan majority. Republicans and Democrats are coming together to support and strengthen our warfighters by providing them with better technology, more resources and a well-deserved pay raise.

Among the many important aspects in this year’s NDAA are provisions that seek an independent technical review of one controversial company, Ligado Networks.

There are also provisions that ensure American taxpayers are not stuck with the tab if Ligado’s operations harmfully interfere with GPS and satellite communications vital to the operations and effectiveness of the U.S. military. And finally, the conference committee has included a provision barring the Department of Defense from doing business with a company that might gain financially by causing harmful interference to a GPS device of the Department of Defense.

Congress is rightfully choosing to protect our women and men in uniform over helping what is merely a speculative venture disguised as a 5G play.

The NDAA has become law each year for 59 consecutive years because this country’s lawmakers can put country and national security first in negotiating its provisions, which this year include hundreds of bipartisan provisions and key pay and benefits measures for troops. To let the law lapse would be to jeopardize hundreds of planned Pentagon reforms, program starts and specialty pay reauthorizations.

Ligado, formerly known as LightSquared, for years has been asking my former agency, the Federal Communications Commission, to let them “rezone” airwaves reserved decades ago for critical satellite missions to be used instead for terrestrial cellular services. After years of silence, in April the FCC suddenly granted Ligado’s request under the guise that Ligado’s tiny amount of spectrum would somehow help the United States in the global race to 5G.

The FCC violated its own rules to help Ligado. For more than 86 years, the cornerstone of FCC spectrum policy has been to prevent new entrants to a spectrum “neighborhood” from harmfully interfering with their neighbors. For the past decade, many parties including GPS and satellite communications companies submitted substantial evidence and technical studies to the FCC to show that Ligado’s proposed terrestrial operations would likely cause harmful interference to GPS, weather and satellite communications providers to the point of possibly rendering them inoperable.

In the meantime, in just the last four years, the FCC has repurposed an eye-popping 5,400 megahertz of spectrum for many valuable purposes, including 5G. The United States needs large, contiguous blocks of this spectrum to fuel next-generation wireless networks that will grow the economy, create jobs and unleash incredible innovations. The FCC’s hard work will help propel America forward in a fiercely competitive global marketplace.

Ligado wrapped its special request to the FCC in 5G clothing. But the truth is its spectrum is ill-suited for 5G. For starters, Ligado’s spectrum neighborhood, the L-Band, has never been part of the FCC’s 5G plan. Second, it is not internationally harmonized for 5G uses, which is critical for 5G device interoperability here and abroad. Additionally, not a single wireless engineering standards body has included the L-Band as being suitable for 5G. Furthermore, Ligado’s spectrum block sizes are only 10 megahertz wide when 5G engineers are demanding 100 megahertz-size blocks. Also, Ligado’s tiny spectrum blocks are spaced far apart when 5G companies want large “vacant lots” that adjoin each other.

Perhaps most important, Ligado only has 35 megahertz of spectrum, a veritable rounding error in the FCC’s 5,400 megahertz rezoning effort — meaning that its drop in the bucket will not help the United States in the race to 5G. Today’s real 5G wireless carriers have between 117 and 300 megahertz of spectrum, so there’s no way Ligado can build a nationwide 5G network with a paltry 35 megahertz. While doing nothing for 5G, the FCC’s Ligado order will undermine our warfighters, who are needed to ensure American leadership. So why is the United States taking such a risk?

In short, Ligado’s proposal isn’t about 5G. It has caused massive uncertainty and risk to GPS and satellite communications to help speculators turn a profit by regulatory fiat. That’s why all of this has ended up in the NDAA. Our warfighters depend on accurate and reliable GPS data and satellite communications to defend our country. So do the passenger airlines, air cargo carriers, medivac helicopters, emergency aviation operations fighting wildfires, and our telecommunications networks, including 5G services.

Now, a bicameral and bipartisan group of our country’s legislators included provisions in this year’s NDAA requiring an independent technical review of the FCC’s order and for Ligado to reimburse Department of Defense users for the costs caused by Ligado’s harmful interference. This is a clear signal to the FCC that Congress considers its action disruptive to America’s mission to protect our national security. Congress should pass the NDAA and the president should sign it for many reasons, and protecting our military’s navigation and communications capabilities should be toward the top of the list.