[amsat-bb] Re: Lightsquared Analogy

[Robert McGwier]

This is my opinion. It is a mistake in engineering and policy to invalidate
all spectrum in the neighborhood of a service by allowing poor front ends
to control the adjacent spectrum forever.  This decision was made to lessen
the cost at the expense of  never allowing anything next door.  That is
poor policy and is especially troubling now when we see spectrum being
forcibly removed from some services and put up for auction.

What this really says is that the FCC and others, having made the really
poor initial decisions on GPS receiver manufacturer, FORGOT the decision,
and like BPL and other things before them,  let LightSquared go spend tons
of their venture capital/backers dollars without doing an engineering
analysis of the impact on GPS.

I blame no one but the FCC who are now doing nothing but throwing
LightSquared under the bus of their bad decisions.  LightSquared should
also have done the tests but it is easy to understand why they may not have
wanted to spend lots of money testing and proving their scheme would wreck
GPS services.

Bob
N4HY


On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 12:18 AM, Greg Dolkas <ko6th.greg at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Bob(s),
>
> I think the difference here is that, continuing the headphone analogy, the
> headphone manufacturers created a line of very popular lightweight
> headphones at an affordable price, knowing that the environment they were
> going to be used in were to be music rooms and other places with quiet
> surroundings.  Now LightSquared wants to come in and build a rock crushing
> plant in the adjacent room.  That invalidates a base design criteria for
> the headphones. Certainly they would have designed noise cancelling
> headphones if they knew that the adjacent music room was zoned for rock
> crushers, but that's not what the landlord told them.
>
> I saw a better analogy on the CNET website (Reporters Roundtable), where
> the poster likened it to a zoning violation.  As I understand it, the
> spectrum adjacent to the GPS band is also (zoned) for satellite
> communication, which if LightSquared had kept to their original
> satellite-based business plan would have worked out just fine.  Instead
> they've changed business plans, and feel they have a right to use the
> spectrum they own in a different (incompatible) way.  We all know that the
> laws of physics don't work that way, and thankfully the FCC decided not to
> ignore them it this time.
>
> Good design principles should consider all factors, including both
> performance and cost.  Clearly one CAN build better GPS receivers, but that
> doesn't mean that they need to, or even should.  If Henry Ford hadn't built
> the Model-T, I bet our highway system would look a whole lot different
> today.
>
> Greg  KO6TH
>
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 4:30 PM, Robert McGwier <rwmcgwier at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> In this case that would be wrong.  The headphone manufacturers complained
>> that good foam costs too much and were allowed to get away with tissue
>> paper and now everyone pays for allowing lobbyists and lawyers run the FCC
>> and ignore good design principles
>> On Feb 29, 2012 3:01 PM, "Bob Bruninga" <bruninga at usna.edu> wrote:
>>
>> > I finally figured out a good analogy about the LightSquared and GPS
>> fiasco.
>> > ---------------
>> >
>> > There is a "music room" where people can go and, with headphones,
>> listen to
>> > their own music.  No one disturbs anyone else.  Everyone is happy.
>> >
>> > A LightSquared rock band comes into the room and begins to play at max
>> > volume, and then insists there should be no problem because the
>> headphones
>> > work just fine in providing the isolation between what each person is
>> > listening to.
>> >
>> > Therefore the interference to everyone in the room is not their fault,
>> but
>> > the fault of the Headphone Manufacturers!
>> >
>> > Bob, WB4APR
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
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>> _______________________________________________
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>
>


-- 
Bob McGwier
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