Comment Re:Sucks for Lightsquared (Score 4, Informative) 178
And that's where the debate lies. LightSquared's license permits them two uses of the frequencies licensed:
- For satellite to earth communication, provided they ensure that the transmissions from the satellite do not leak out of their licensed bands.
- As a later waiver, made after the spectrum was initially licensed: For earth to earth and earth to space communication, provided that they ensure that their earth-based transmitters do not interfere with earth-based receivers designed to pick up satellite to earth transmissions in neighbouring bands.
LightSquared's argument is that they have met the second term of their license if they ensure that their earth-based transmitters do not leak out of their licensed bands, even if they interfere with licensed users of neighbouring bands; note that the FCC has been clear that one way to meet the second requirement is to replace receivers of the neighbouring bands with ones that cope with your interference, an option LS has rejected as impractical, as they cannot find affordable receivers that have both the GPS abilities of the receivers they're replacing and better rejection of LS's signals.