In a letter to President Biden, a cross section of aviation and GPS users – including construction and agricultural interests – urged the President not to allow Ligado’s proposed terrestrial operations to go forward. Some of you may require the industry battle against Lightsquared over a decade ago.
The letter states “In the two years following the Federal Communications Commission’s (“FCC’s”) adoption of the Ligado Order,1 unprecedented opposition across the vast federal and commercial user base of Global Positioning System (“GPS”), satellite communications, and weather forecasting services has laid bare the fundamental harm of Ligado’s proposed terrestrial operations and the deficiencies in the Order itself. Following the second anniversary, as eight petitions for reconsideration of the Order remain pending,2 we write to urge you to work together with the FCC to stay and ultimately set aside the Order.
Staying the Order is necessitated by the clear bipartisan will of Congress. In consecutive years after the adoption of the Order, Congress mandated an independent technical review to further assess the harmful interference that would be caused by Ligado’s proposed network and required the Department of Defense to brief federal representatives across the government “at the highest level of classification” on the potential for widespread harm from Ligado’s proposed terrestrial operations.3 On this basis alone, the FCC should stay the Order to adequately consider the material new information that will be uncovered as a result of these ongoing Congressionally-mandated processes.
The FCC must also stay the Order to address the imminent harm implicated by Ligado’s recent announcement that it intends to deploy as soon as September 30, 20224—well before it appears the FCC may address the petitions for reconsideration—and in light of the full record before the agency. The record convincingly demonstrates that the Order is legally and factually deficient, and the potential for harm grows closer on a daily basis, but the FCC may not have the additional information regarding the full extent of harmful interference in advance of Ligado's planned launch.