Ligado Opponents Renew Bid for Reversal of FCC OK
With multiple petitions for reconsideration of the FCC's April 2020 Ligado authorization pending (see 2005210043), scores of aviation interests and allies pushed the White House and congressional leadership "to work together with the FCC to stay and ultimately set aside"…
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the order. In letters Monday, they said a stay "is necessitated by the clear bipartisan will of Congress." It said the independent technical review required by Congress and the mandated DOD briefings about the possibility of widespread harm should be enough to stay the order, so any new material information that comes up can be considered. A stay is also needed "to address the imminent harm" that could come from Ligado's announcement it intends to deploy as soon as Sept. 30, well before the FCC might address the recon petitions. The Ligado order "is legally and factually deficient ... but the FCC may not have the additional information regarding the full extent of harmful interference in advance of Ligado's planned launch," they said. Signatories include Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, Air Line Pilots Association, Cargo Airline Association, General Aviation Manufacturers Association, National Weather Association and Resilient Navigation & Timing Foundation. Many were also signatories to similar April 2021 letters urging the order be set aside (see 2104220071). Ligado and the FCC didn't comment. Noting silence from federal agencies on GPS issues with its L-band use, "it seems clear that government agencies either have no legitimate concerns with their GPS devices or continue to disregard -- or disobey outright -- the Order’s mandate as well as the express directives of Congress," Ligado said in docket 11-109 Monday. It listed agreements with Nokia and Select Spectrum on its spectrum use in 5G and its efforts to get the L band planned for standardization for nonterrestrial networks as part of the 3GPP Release 17. It repeated that it plans to start operations in the 1526-1536 MHz band on or after Sept. 30 (see 2204010066).