Members of a bipartisan group of 33 U.S. senators have signed a letter sent to Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski urging him to overturn a frequency spectrum license waiver awarded to broadband satellite communications company LightSquared until testing can show the company’s mobile 4G technology won’t interfere with GPS signal reception.
The issue has been a hot-button topic for months, with dire warnings about the potential for LightSquared ground transmitters to knock out GPS signals to aircraft, emergency responders and others prompting the formation of the Coalition to Save Our GPS, a lobbying group that counts among its members Garmin, AOPA, the Aircraft Electronics Association and scores of others from inside and outside the aviation industry.
