GPS system threatened by signal interference

Bruce Buls

Bruce Buls

The battle between makers and users of GPS equipment and a proposed wireless broadband system has heated up. The controversy stems from a conditional waiver granted by the Federal Communication Commission in January to LightSquared, a privately held company, for the terrestrial use of the mobile satellite spectrum (MMS) immediately adjacent to the frequency band used by GPS receivers.

LightSquared wants to establish a network of 40,000 ground stations to broadcast extremely powerful broadband wireless signals that could severely disrupt GPS signals, according to the Coalition to Save Our GPS, which represents a wide variety of industries and companies. In a statement on its website, the coalition states: “LightSquared plans to transmit ground-based radio signals that would be one billion or more times more powerful as received on earth than GPS’s low-powered satellite-based signals, potentially causing severe interference impacting millions of GPS receivers — including those used by the federal agencies, state and local governments, first responders, airlines, mariners, civil engineering, construction and surveying, agriculture, and everyday consumers in their cars and on handheld devices.”

A Technical Working Group including representatives from LightSquared and GPS manufacturers ran a series of tests with more than 100 GPS devices over a five-month period following the FCC’s action in January. The TWG’s report was filed with the FCC on June 30. The official comment period ended Aug. 15.

According to the coalition, “TWG’s test results conclusively demonstrate that LightSquared’s initial proposal would cause harmful interference to all types of GPS receivers tested.”

The Coalition also disputed LightSquared’s claims that using only the lower portion of its proposed MMS band and the use of filters on GPS equipment would solve any potential interference problems.

 

Workboat.com

 

‘AT&T is certain to lose’ lawsuit with DOJ, former FCC chairman says

Former FCC chairman Reed Hundt voiced his opinion on the Department of Justice’s decision to sue AT&T in an effort to block its planned $39 billion merger with T-Mobile USA. “AT&T is certain to lose,” Hundt told SNL. “They can litigate the case to death,” he said noting that the acquisition was anti-competitive. “It’s an extremely easy case. The Department of Justice will win the case in court. No question about it.” According to SNL, AT&T believed federal regulators would consider the acquisition based on a market-to-market analysis, rather than nationwide analysis. Hundt said the DOJ will instead determine whether the deal is anti-competitive or not based on both national and market-by-market investigations. Until recently, AT&T was confident that the acquisition would be approved by March 2012. AT&T vowed to contest the DOJ lawsuit and said it is confident the merger is in the best interest of consumers, and “the facts will prevail in court.” The carrier also said it would consider selling off 25% of T-Mobile USA in an effort to sway federal regulators toward an approval. Deutsche Telekom’s CEO Rene Obermann said on Thursday that both firms “have everything under control.”

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BGR

AT&T tempts FCC, promises to bring 5,000 jobs back to U.S. if T-Mobile merger is approved

AT&T said on Wednesday that it promises to bring 5,000 of its outsourced call center jobs back to the United States if its proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA is approved by the FCC. AT&T also promised that it will not layoff any AT&T or T-Mobile call center employee who is employed at the time of the merger. In addition, AT&T will invest $8 billion in its U.S. infrastructure and the Economic Policy Institute has suggested that move could provide up to 96,000 new jobs. AT&T made its announcement hours before the United States Justice Department filed a lawsuit in an attempt to block the merger. “AT&T’s elimination of T-Mobile as an independent, low- priced rival would remove a significant competitive force from the market,” the Justice Department said. AT&T responded and said that “there was no indication” from the DOJ that a lawsuit was being contemplated. “We remain confident that this merger is in the best interest of consumers and our country, and the facts will prevail in court,” AT&T Senior Executive Vice President and General Counsel Wayne Watts said, noting that AT&T will continue to fight for the merger’s approval.

Read on for the full press release from AT&T.

FCC Fridays: August 26, 2011

We here at NHCBBA Mobile tend to spend way too much time poring over the latest FCC filings, be it on the net or directly on the ol’ Federal Communications Commission’s site. Since we couldn’t possibly (want to) cover all the stuff that goes down there, we’ve gathered up all the raw info you may want (but probably don’t need). Like to know!

Phone

Read – RIM REM71UW

Engadget

BlackBerry Curve 9360/70 land at the FCC

Although still not official from RIM, all leaks point to the BlackBerry Curve 9360/70 as being the next devices in the BlackBerry line to be unveiled, and todays FCC filings are a sure sign of that. Both the 9360 and 9370 have just appeared at the FCC. RDD71UW, RDC771UW are what they are currently listed as. The filings don’t call out the specs but it does confirm NFC is onboard for both variations. Need a specs refresher?

• Tavor MG-1 800mHz processor
• 512MB of RAM / 512MB eMMC
• Built in Digital Compass
• 1050mAh Battery
• 5MP Camera w/ Flash
• 480×360 Display
• Built in WiFi
• Built in NFC
• Built in GPS
• BlackBerry 7 (Lite?)
• Bluetooth

We’re guessing that’s what the UK announcement is for but we’ll have to wait it out and see. As you can tell, the specs are well below that of the previously announced BlackBerry 7 line-up but for Curve fans out there, the update keeps the low-cost model in mind while still pushing it ahead ever so slightly.

Source: FCC; via: CrackBerry Forums

FCC Fridays: August 12, 2011 – Possible MORE NEW Blackberrys coming..

We here at NHCBBA Mobile tend to spenda lot of way too much time poring over the latest FCC filings, be it on the net or directly on the ol’ Federal Communications Commission’s site. Since we couldn’t possibly (want to) cover all the stuff that goes down there, we’ve gathered up all the raw info you may want (but probably don’t need). Enjoy!

Phones

Read – RIM RDR61CW
Read – RIM RDS41CW

FCC puts brakes on Qualcomm spectrum acquisition, will review with T-Mobile merger

The Federal Communications Commission announced on Monday that it will review AT&T’s planned $1.925 billion acquisition of Qualcomm’s FLO TV lower 700MHz frequency band at the same time that it reviews the carrier’s T-Mobile USA merger. AT&T announced its intentions to buy spectrum from Qualcomm in December of last year and said it planned to deploy the spectrum as “supplemental downlink” while it built out its 4G network. That acquisition was originally expected to close during the second half of this year, but the FCC clearly has some concerns on the matter. AT&T said the FCC and Department of Justice are on schedule to approve the T-Mobile deal in March 2012, however this could be a ding to AT&T’s 4G network plans if it was relying on having the Qualcomm deal approved by now. The FCC’s statement follows below.

We currently have pending before us the application of AT&T Mobility Spectrum LLC (“AT&T”) and Qualcomm Incorporated (“Qualcomm,”) and together with AT&T, (the “Applicants”) to assign licenses from Qualcomm to AT&T, which has today reached 180 days on the Commission’s informal timeline for consideration of merger applications. As you are aware, the Commission has been evaluating for some time the relationship between this proposed transaction and AT&T’s proposed acquisition of T-Mobile USA (“T-Mobile”). The Commission’s ongoing review has confirmed that the proposed transactions raise a number of related issues, including, but not limited to, questions regarding AT&T’s aggregation of spectrum throughout the nation, particularly in overlapping areas. As a result, we have concluded that the best way to determine whether either or both of the proposed transactions serve the public interest is to consider them in a coordinated matter at this time, without prejudice to independent treatment at a later date.

[Via Phone Scoop]

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BGR

RIM Strips Down Bold 9900, Torch 9810, 9850 & 9860 for FCC

The confidentiality period for RIM’s submissions to the FCC are now over which means there are more goodies to be found. Dsquared2 (via BBNews.pl) noticed that you can now find the internal pictures for the BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 along with the BlackBerry Torch 9810, 9850, & 9860. All of these devices are disassembled in the PDF for their Internal photos at the links below:

U.S. broadband actually approaches advertised speeds

4G is a hot topic here on BGR and as such, we’ve likely become more numb than we should when it comes to advertised data speeds. We’re so used to seeing “theoretical limits” that are so far from reality we just chuckle and move along. The wireline broadband industry, however, is a different beast. According to a study recently conducted by the Federal Communications Commission, major broadband Internet service provides in the U.S. deliver data speeds that are generally between 80% and 90% of the speeds they advertise. The Associated Press reports that the FCC’s study measured data speeds delivered to thousands of U.S. broadband subscribers this past March from 13 of the nation’s top ISPs including Time Warner, Comcast, AT&T and Verizon. The three most popular wired broadband technologies were covered by the study — DSL, cable and fiber — and data rates were said to have been close to the advertised speeds during both peak and off-peak times. The AP notes that the FCC’s study didn’t delve into speeds delivered by wireless data services, which is a study we would love to see.

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BGR

NFC Only Coming in BlackBerry Bold 9900 & 9930 OS 7 Devices?

I am not sure how we all missed this before but previous spec leaks for the BlackBerry Torch 9810, 9850, and 9860 said that the device had NFC. I noticed in RIM’s announcement this morning that NFC was nowhere to be seen for these devices which had me wondering. So I checked back to the FCC filings for the 9900/9930, 9810, and 9850/9860 and noticed something interesting. When looking over the Test Report for all 3 only the BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 had a logged Near Field Communications test performed. The product pages also only list the 9900 as having NFC for “accessory pairing and smart tag reading/writing.”

Check out the filings for yourself:

 

• BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 FCC Filing
• BlackBerry Torch 9810 FCC Filing
• BlackBerry Torch 9850/9860 FCC Filing

I am not sure why RIM would not want this feature to have parity across all next gen BlackBerry devices but it has me scratching my head wondering why. I know the NFC is built into the battery cover for the 9900 but I just assumed they managed to hide it better in the 9810 and 9850/9860. What do you think of this? I was planning on getting the 9900 (GodBerry) either way but now it makes it truly the flagship BlackBerry.