The report released by the NPEF yesterday provides concrete technical data to validate the GPS interference concerns of members of our military and of the House Strategic Forces Subcommittee.
Congressman Mike Turner released the following statement upon the release of the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Systems Engineering Forum’s (NPEF) assessment of the effects of LightSquared’s planned deployment of a terrestrial broadband communications network to GPS receivers and GPS-dependent systems and networks:“The report released by the NPEF yesterday provides concrete technical data to validate the GPS interference concerns of members of our military and of the House Strategic Forces Subcommittee. LightSquared’s operations as currently devised, ‘cannot successfully coexist with GPS’ and would hinder our service members who are counting on an uninterrupted GPS capability to do their jobs. I appreciate the NPEF’s work and, based on their recommendations, echo their call for the Federal Communications Commission to move to rescind the conditional waiver issued to LightSquared on January 26, 2011.”
NOTE: Turner authored Section 911 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (H.R. 1540) which prohibits the FCC from providing final authorization for LightSquared operations until Department of Defense concerns about GPS interference have been resolved. The legislation passed in the House on May 26, 2011, with broad bipartisan support. Turner, the House Armed Services Subcommittee Chairman on Strategic Forces, has legislative jurisdiction over space and satellite systems.