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71–500 2011

LIGHTSQUARED: THE IMPACT TO 

SMALL BUSINESS GPS USERS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS 

UNITED STATES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

OCTOBER 12, 2011 

Small Business Committee Document Number 112–039 

Available via the GPO Website: http://www.fdsys.gov 


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HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri, Chairman 

ROSCOE BARTLETT, Maryland 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina 

SCOTT TIPTON, Colorado 

JEFF LANDRY, Louisiana 

JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington 

ALLEN WEST, Florida 

RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina 

JOE WALSH, Illinois 

LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania 

RICHARD HANNA, New York 

ROBERT SCHILLING, Illinois 

NYDIA VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York, Ranking Member 

KURT SCHRADER, Oregon 

MARK CRITZ, Pennsylvania 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

YVETTE CLARKE, New York 

JUDY CHU, California 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

CEDRIC RICHMOND, Louisiana 

JANICE HAHN, California 

GARY PETERS, Michigan 

BILL OWENS, New York 

BILL KEATING, Massachusetts 

LORI SALLEY, Staff Director 

PAUL SASS, Deputy Staff Director 

BARRY PINELES, Chief Counsel 

MICHAEL DAY, Minority Staff Director 


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C O N T E N T S 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Page 

Graves, Hon. Sam .................................................................................................... 1 

Vela ́zquez, Hon. Nydia M ........................................................................................ 2 

WITNESSES 

Dennis B. Boykin IV, Managing Principal, DB4 Consulting, LLC, Leesburg, 

VA .......................................................................................................................... 3 

Rick Greene, Precision Agronomy Manager, MFA Incorporated, Columbia, 

MO ......................................................................................................................... 5 

Jeff Carlisle, Executive Vice President, LightSquared, Reston, VA .................... 7 

Tim Taylor, President & CEO, FreeFlight Systems, Irving, TX .......................... 9 

APPENDIX 

Prepared Statements for the Record: 

Dennis B. Boykin IV, Managing Principal, DB4 Consulting, LLC, Leesburg, VA ......................................................................................................... 28 

Rick Greene, Precision Agronomy Manager, MFA Incorporated, Columbia, 

MO .................................................................................................................. 34 

Jeff Carlisle, Executive Vice President, LightSquared, Reston, VA ............. 36 

Tim Taylor, President & CEO, FreeFlight Systems, Irving, TX .................. 62 

Questions for the Record: 

Mulvaney questions for the record .................................................................. 70 

Schilling questions for the record .................................................................... 72 

Answers for the Record: 

Carlisle responses to Mulvaney questions for the record .............................. 73 

Carlisle responses to Schilling questions for the record ............................... 78 

Carlisle supplemental responses to Mulvaney questions for the record ...... 78 

Additional Materials for the Record: 

American Farm Bureau Federation Statement for the Record .................... 82 

ASABE/ASA Joint Comment to the FCC ....................................................... 85 

MFA–GPS Facts and Figures—Revised ......................................................... 87 


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LIGHTSQUARED: THE IMPACT TO SMALL 

BUSINESS GPS USERS 

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2011 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 1:02 p.m., in Room 

2360, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Sam Graves [Chairman 

of the Committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Graves, Bartlett, Chabot, King, 

Mulvaney, Tipton, Herrera Beutler, West, Hanna, Schilling, Schrader, Cicilline, Owens, and Hahn. 

Chairman GRAVES. Good afternoon, everyone. We will bring this 

hearing to order. I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here 

today. This is a very important hearing. I know some of you traveled a ways, and I appreciate you being here. 

Today we will hear about how LightSquared’s proposal is going 

to impact the ability of small businesses to access the global positioning system, GPS. Thousands of small businesses rely on an accurate GPS signal for their day-to-day operations, and potential interference could severely handicap or impair those businesses. 

LightSquared aims at providing wireless 4G broadband coverage 

to 260 million Americans in both rural and urban communities by 

2015. I agree that we need to find innovative ways to provide highspeed Internet access to underserved areas. Access to high-speed 

Internet provides small businesses, especially those located in rural 

communities, with the opportunity and resources to compete in an 

electronic and global marketplace. However, such innovation 

should not jeopardize the currently established systems, including 

GPS, and add more unnecessary burdens to those who use them. Since it was first launched, taxpayers have invested over $35 billion in the GPS system. This national asset has become an integral 

part of our economy. We can see the value-added benefits in a variety of sectors. From a safer and more reliable energy grid to precise 

agriculture mapping, nearly every industry has benefited from this 

technology. Moreover, recent studies estimate that GPS supports 

over 3 million U.S. jobs and contributes over $3 trillion in economic 

activity. 

Federal test results from LightSquared’s proposal showed significant interference on all types of GPS receivers. This alarmed many 

small businesses that could be required to replace or retrofit their 

current GPS system. This would be an enormous cost to small business. Even though LightSquared is committed to spend $50 million 

to retrofit Federal GPS devices, this does nothing for the nearly 1 


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million small businesses that are left to pay the bill that will easily 

cost billions of dollars. 

Moving forward, I am confident that we can find a solution to 

provide more broadband to rural areas while not jeopardizing any 

small business GPS users. Again, I want to thank all of our witnesses for their participation. And I now yield to Ranking Member 

Vela ́zquez for her opening remarks. 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, and 

thank you to all the witnesses for being here today. Expanding access to broadband is not just about technology. It is about job creation and growth. Through its adoption, companies can reach new 

markets across the globe while reducing costs at home. In fact, the 

number of jobs depending on broadband and information technology is expected to grow by 25 percent over the next 10 years. 

This makes the expansion of broadband connectivity a critical priority and is the main reason the administration set a target of 

reaching 98 percent of the population through such technology. 

Today we will examine a proposal that will advance this objective. This plan, which centers on constructing a hybrid groundbased satellite network, would have broad benefits. Beyond its immediate payoff, widespread broadband adoption will mean new economic opportunity for communities across the Nation, particularly 

rural America. For individuals looking to launch a new enterprise, 

broadband offers lower start-up costs. This is especially important 

now as many dislocated workers are looking to entrepreneurship as 

a way to replace lost income. 

For the established small business, high-speed Internet can expand a firm’s client base using a company Web site, social networking, or other forms of online advertising. Firms can utilize 

voice and video communication to connect with customers around 

the world and reach previously untapped markets. They can store 

data on line and access office productivity tools. 

While the proposal we are considering today shows promise to 

accomplish these goals, we have to consider its interference potential. One example is GPS, which serves a critical role in aviation 

safety and efficiency. In fact, the Department of Transportation’s 

NextGen program focuses on modernizing this platform, and it is 

expected to create 160,000 jobs in 4 years, the same number the 

aviation industry lost in a decade. 

With 360,000 GPS-equipped aircraft and over three million jobs, 

we must ensure interference does not undermine this growing industry. Not only must we address the aviation industry’s concerns, 

we also need to investigate the plan’s small businesses impact. 

Business owners in a variety of trades, like precision agriculture 

and construction, rely on GPS technology for its cost-saving benefits. Small farmers use GPS to save $5 billion annually on water 

and fertilizer costs. Inaccurate information or expensive equipment 

upgrades caused by interference could result in small business job 

losses. 

Recognizing these concerns, it is imperative to test this plan’s 

technology. Doing so will ensure small businesses are not left with 

costly burdens. Regardless if this new plan is ultimately adopted, 

we must continue to push forward with R&D and evaluation. At 

some point, either through the current effort or subsequent endeavVerDate Mar 15 2010 22:52 Dec 22, 2011 Jkt 071500 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HR\OC\A500.XXX A500

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ors, we will be able to mitigate GPS interference successfully and 

bring the benefits of broadband to nearly all small businesses and 

their customers. We should not let a complication that has multiple 

solutions hinder progress towards nationwide connectivity. 

Time and again, advanced technologies have been a springboard 

for growth. From mobile phones to biotechnology to the Internet, 

new technologies have brought jobs and prosperity. With this in 

mind, I look forward to hearing how we can further foster innovation. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman GRAVES. If Committee members have an opening 

statement prepared, I would ask that they submit it for the record. 

And just to explain to you the timing system, each of you have 5 

minutes, and the lights will indicate green for that time period. 

When you are down to a minute it goes yellow, and then red when 

you run out of time. If you run out of time, it is not that big a deal, 

just don’t go too far over. 

This hearing has obviously—or this subject matter has been 

heard in a lot of Committees on the Hill so far, Small Business 

Committee, because it has such an impact here. But the Armed 

Services Committee, Transportation Committee, the Science and 

Technology Committee, the Agriculture Committee will probably 

have a hearing on it. So it is of huge importance. 

With that, we will go to our witnesses now so you each can give 

your statements, and I am going to turn to Representative West 

from Florida to introduce our first witness. 

Mr. WEST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member. Our 

first witness will be Mr. Dennis Boykin IV, the founder and manager of DB4 Consulting. Mr. Boykin is a small business owner, a 

veteran, licensed pilot, and a proud aircraft owner. He is an Army 

veteran, an artilleryman with whom I served together in 1991 in 

Desert Shield, Desert Storm, in the 5th Field Artillery, and Dennis, 

it is great to see you again, and hopefully all is well with your family. He has been flying for over 30 years. Mr. Boykin will be testifying on behalf of the Leesburg Executive Airport Commission. Mr. 

Boykin. 

STATEMENTS OF DENNIS B. BOYKIN, MANAGING PRINCIPAL, 

DB4 CONSULTING, LLC, LEESBURG, VA, ON BEHALF OF 

THE LEESBURG EXECUTIVE AIRPORT COMMISSION; RICK 

GREENE, PRECISION AGRONOMY MANAGER, MFA INCORPORATED, COLUMBIA, MO, ON BEHALF OF THE AGRICULTURE 

RETAILERS ASSOCIATION; JEFF CARLISLE, EXECUTIVE VICE 

PRESIDENT, LIGHTSQUARED, RESTON, VA; AND TIM TAYLOR, 

PRESIDENT & CEO, FREEFLIGHT SYSTEMS, IRVING, TX, ON 

BEHALF OF THE AIRCRAFT ELECTRONICS ASSOCIATION 

STATEMENT OF DENNIS B. BOYKIN 

Mr. BOYKIN. Chairman Graves, Ranking Member Vela ́zquez, 

members of the Committee, and old Army comrades, thank you for 

the introduction and thank you for the opportunity to address this 

critical issue today. 

As Congressman West noted, critical to me not only as a small 

business owner who owns high-precision GPS in order to keep my 


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aircraft safe and, more importantly, keep the people underneath 

my aircraft safe, but in a leadership position as leader of the Leesburg Executive Airport, concerned about the welfare of our airport 

because we run a business. 

I have three concerns regarding this potential interference with 

high-precision GPS receivers: my family’s safety, the costs associated with the proposal, and the impact on our general aviation infrastructure. I have spent nearly $40,000 on GPS equipment installations over the last 8 years in two airplanes. I am not unique in 

my community. Many of us have spent a lot of money to increase 

our margin of safety while running our businesses and flying our 

airplanes. And make no mistake about it, GPS is a matter of life 

and death. This is not hyperbole. I am a combat veteran, and I 

know something about life-or-death situations, and although I 

know you hear a lot of hyperbole sometimes about this issue, GPS 

is critical not just to business but to life. 

First let’s talk about my airport in Leesburg. We have a saying 

out there, as I serve the town and its residents in running that airport, that airports are not about airplanes, they are about commerce. Our airport provides an interstate commerce benefit, bringing over 200 jobs and $80 million a year in economic impact to 

Leesburg and Loudoun County, Virginia. We have over 250 aircraft 

based at our field, and nearly all of them are GPS equipped. 

Now, the FAA estimates, if LightSquared deploys the system as 

tested at Holloman Air Force Base a few months back, they are estimating a $440 million a year negative economic impact to general 

aviation, 800 lives lost per year, and $22 billion in opportunity 

costs if NextGen isn’t deployed. That is their numbers, not mine. 

My estimate is a little more personal. I don’t want to have to go 

explain to residents in Leesburg and to the town council why the 

airport is causing trouble. 

In my second role managing a business, I am hearing 

LightSquared’s claims that their system won’t interfere with GPS. 

Then I read Mr. Russo’s testimony to the House Armed Services 

Committee Subcommittee on Strategic Forces that says exactly the 

opposite. LightSquared claims they have a filter—in fact Mr. Carlisle I think has one here with him—that will magically solve the 

problem that they caused, in my opinion. Am I expected to bear the 

expense of the certification, installation, downtime, and test flights 

surrounding these filters? Mr. Carlisle will tell you not, that 

Garmin should provide that. Oh, by the way, the FAA hasn’t certified these yet. 

Speaking of businesses, let’s talk about environmental impacts. 

Recently I took a business trip to Florida to an Army conference. 

Made that trip on a direct routing, thanks to GPS. Saved an enormous amount of fuel not following the airway routes. This is the 

next—this is the entire precept behind NextGen, direct routing. 

With any impact on GPS, we lose those environmental improvements in the reduced carbon footprint of each flight. 

And, finally, I am concerned about the safety of every flight. GPS 

signals enhanced by wide-area augmentation service have created 

a precise flight environment today that is unrivaled in our history. 

Flight is so much safer today than when I learned to fly 30 years 

ago, I am no longer uncomfortable in getting up in bad weather. 


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Now, let me put you in an entirely likely scenario. Imagine yourself flying in my airplane at night, returning from a trip, we are 

in the clouds, I am on a GPS/WAAS approach to runway 17 at 

Leesburg, and the screen goes blank because there is a harmonic 

attenuation from the LightSquared cell tower I just flew over. Now, 

the engineers will tell you that cell phone towers only impact 

ground receivers. Every general aviation pilot on the East Coast 

will tell you otherwise. And don’t ask me why I know this, but up 

to about 5,000 feet you can get a good cell phone signal. I just happen to know that. There is absolutely no reason to create this risk 

to life and property without proper testing and without proper coordination. 

Now, we are going to hear a lot of testimony about how folks 

have fixed the problem already and there isn’t an issue. Frankly, 

I will remind everybody here that we are in a Committee meeting 

chaired by someone from Missouri, and they have a great saying 

in Missouri, ‘‘Show Me.’’ And I would like somebody to put together 

a test that puts multiple base stations, multiple handsets out on 

that test range at White Sands in Holloman, and make sure this 

thing really does work before we put lives at risk. 

I have a little bit of experience. When I used to work for the Motorola Corporation I had to get trained in RF propagation. I am not 

an engineer, but I know that things can interfere with each other, 

and I hope this Committee would have something to say about how 

that works. 

I thank you for your time and I thank you more importantly for 

your service to our great Nation. 

[The statement of Mr. Boykin follows on page 28.] 

Chairman GRAVES. Thank you, Mr. Boykin. 

Our next witness is Mr. Rick Greene. Rick is a precision agronomy manager for MFA in Columbia, Missouri. In his role, Rick 

helps family farmers utilize precision agriculture technology to increase crop yields and efficiency. Rick is testifying on behalf of Agriculture Retailers Association. Thanks for being here. 

STATEMENT OF RICK GREENE 

Mr. GREENE. Thank you, Chairman Graves and Ranking Member 

Vela ́zquez and members of the Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today. My name is Rick Greene, I am 

here to testify on behalf of the Agriculture Retailers Association, a 

trade association which represents ag retailers and distributors of 

crop inputs, equipment, and services. ARA members are scattered 

throughout all 50 States and range in size from a fairly small family business to a large cooperative with multiple locations. 

I am a precision agronomy manager for MFA Incorporated, a cooperative built by farmers for farmers. Our core business includes 

sales, service, and inputs of seed, fertilizer, precision agronomy, 

grain, feed, and livestock supplies. 

I began my agricultural journey in 1995 when my father first 

purchased a yield monitor with GPS. During that time it was a 

struggle to operate this new type of technology and cope with the 

inaccuracies of GPS. While at Iowa State, as accuracy started to 

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ing, by preserving the environment, minimizing inputs, maximizing 

yield to give our farmers a greater return on their investment. 

So what is precision agriculture? Precision agriculture is using 

the latest technology to provide sound agronomic recommendations 

in a timely fashion in order to maximize yield, manage inputs, preserve the environment to ensure farmers with a sustainable way of 

farming. 

So, do some of your areas of your lawn grow better than others? 

Farm ground is the same way, only on a larger scale. Since then, 

GPS technology has evolved exponentially. Fleet vehicles use GPS 

for logistical tracking to minimize fuel consumption. Tractors drive 

themselves within one inch worth of accuracy to minimize overlap. 

Planters and sprayers turn off individual sections and automatically reduce overapplication of inputs. On-the-go sensors detect how 

much nitrogen a plant will require. River levees are surveyed in 

two-thirds of the time that it takes traditional surveyors. Aerial applicators vary nitrogen rates on the fly to reduce runoff and increase plant uptake. Irrigation systems vary water rates based on 

soil characteristics to reduce water waste. And the list goes on. 

We would not be able to perform any of these functions without 

the high-accuracy GPS. Jess Lowenberg with Purdue University 

did a study back in 2004 using an 1800-acre model farm, and he 

found that a farmer that uses high-accuracy GPS will decrease his 

hours of operation by 17 percent. That 17 percent is not only operation but it is also a decrease in fuel, maintenance, and inputs like 

seed, pesticide, and fertilizer. Times are changing, and the producer needs to be more efficient in order to combat global competition. 

Bruce Erickson, with the Purdue University, also did a study on 

economic adoption of precision farming technologies. From 2002 

prices are up 350 percent in commodities, seed prices are up 266 

percent, and fuel and fertilizer is up 270 percent. Efficiency and increased productivity is the key to surviving in this global market. 

According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, the world population could rise to 8.2 billion people in 2030, 

which will require 50 percent increase in food production over the 

next 20 years in order to feed the global demand. The only way we 

are going to be able to achieve this goal is by using high-accuracy 

GPS, biotechnologies, and proper management. 

Precision agriculture industry has over 400,000 high-accuracy receivers valued at $13,000 and a replacement cycle of 10 to 15 years, 

and adds an approximately $19.9 billion per year of value to the 

grower. MFA has over 700,000 acres in GPS nutrient management, 

$9.5 million—or 9.5 million acres covered with high-accuracy RTK 

coverage, and has almost $20 million of GPS equipment sold to the 

farmers that will be directly affected by the implementation of 

LightSquared’s terrestrial component. 

Since 2005, MFA has seen a 600 percent increase in sales and 

adoption rate of 40 percent of our customer base. It is like asking 

the American population to switch their analogue TVs to a $13,000 

digital TV when LightSquared throws a switch. LightSquared must 

not be allowed to broadcast their signal in the upper and lower 

bands of the GPS until a feasible and economic resolution is found. 


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To conclude, it is the accuracy of GPS that makes the technology 

important. Ideally, a solution will be found that allows GPS and 

wireless broadband to coexist, but LightSquared and GPS providers 

will have to work together. We believe farmers and ranchers and 

GPS companies should not have to bear the additional financial 

burden in resolving this issue. Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Greene follows on page 34.] 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. It is my pleasure to introduce to the Committee 

Mr. Jeffrey Carlisle. He is executive vice president for Regulatory 

Affairs and Public Policy for LightSquared. Prior to joining 

LightSquared, Mr. Carlisle served as deputy chief and, later, chief 

of the FCC’s Wire Line Competition Bureau where he managed the 

development of the Commission’s broadband policies. He has over 

a decade of experience in telecommunications law. Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF JEFF CARLISLE 

Mr. CARLISLE. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, Ranking 

Member, members of the Committee, thank you for having me here 

today to talk to you about LightSquared and GPS. And one thing 

that is very important to understand up front, and my colleagues 

on the panel here are going to very clearly make the case that GPS 

is important to them, and nobody in my company doubts that one 

bit. In fact, GPS is crucial to us. We have to have a functioning 

GPS system in order to coordinate the signals on our network, and 

the people who bring devices to our network are all going to have 

GPS devices, GPS receivers built into their devices. So no debate 

about that GPS is important, it is crucial to the American economy, 

we use it every day, and it is important to safety of life. 

There is another important issue, though, that is particularly relevant to this Committee, and that is the fact that small businesses 

suffer today from a lack of choice in their ability to get wireless 

services. The Committee itself has recognized this numerous times. 

LightSquared is building a network that won’t just bring one competitor to the market, but will bring dozens of competitors to the 

market. We already have over 17 business partners who are waiting for us to have our network ready to go so they can start selling 

broadband services to end users. The effectiveness is to enable 

them to lower prices to end users and small businesses, the people 

who need it most; better connectivity and extension of connectivity 

to rural areas which historically have been on the short end of the 

stick when it comes to wireless networks, and will definitely be so 

when it comes to broadband networks. And this is a problem that 

we have to deal with, make no mistake. The lack of effective 

broadband infrastructure makes America 15th in the world in 

terms of broadband adoption. 

And why is this important overall? These consume 24 to 25 times 

more data than a regular cell phone. That was just 3 to 4 years 

ago before that started to be the effect. In less than 2 years we will 

have too many devices and too little spectrum. We are the only realistic new source of spectrum within that time frame. And let’s be 

clear: There will always be issues with existing uses of spectrum 

when you have a new network being built. With 700 MHz, which 

was another band, it was wireless microphones. With here, it is 

GPS. With 800 MHz several years back, it was public safety. 


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These issues can be solved. If we can’t solve them, we aren’t 

going to be able to provide services to the people who need them, 

and the real loser on that will be small businesses. They are the 

ones whose bottom line get hit the worst. ‘‘Not in my backyard’’ 

does not work in spectrum. There is not one piece of spectrum in 

the whole range that you can pick that will not have some sort of 

incumbent issue. 

So how do we solve the issue? I think, unfortunately, a lot of the 

commentary that you hear about this conflates our old proposal of 

starting in the spectrum closest to GPS with the proposals we have 

on the table now, where we will offer our service on the spectrum 

farthest away, and this will address the issue for over 99 percent 

of GPS devices, simply by physics. They don’t look that far down 

into our spectrum, and that covers cellular devices, personal navigation devices, it covers aviation devices. And to show that effect, 

the government testing itself, which was separate from the industry testing on this, concluded that initial test results demonstrated 

that some applications, for example aviation, were able to operate 

with little to no degradation when we were operating on the spectrum farthest away from GPS. That has been established for 

months now. 

So what are we left with? We are left with precision devices. So 

we are going from 400 million devices across the country to something less than 750,000, perhaps as few as a hundred thousand. 

These are the ones that are designed to get to centimeter-level accuracy and are used in agriculture, surveying, and construction, 

and I think there is room for skepticism in terms of the claims as 

to how hard this issue is to solve. For months now, we have heard 

about there is not enough room in the devices; it would take a 

backpack-size filter to fix it; it would cost too much; it is going to 

take too long; it is going to take years and billions of dollars. 

Well, I have a precision device right here, actually. It is from an 

unnamed manufacturer; we bought it on e-Bay, it is right there. As 

you will see when you take the dome off, there is room in this device, and this is the antenna. This is where you place the filter for 

the antenna. It is right here. It is this little square here. The filter 

that we have developed in a matter of days at a cost of $6 per unit 

is right here. 

Now, our solution isn’t going to be a solution for every receiver. 

Many receiver manufacturers will come up to—will have to come 

up with their own solutions. But what this is, is a proof of three 

concepts: It can be done; it can be done inexpensively; and it can 

be done quickly. I also think the issue of bearing the cost for this 

proposal is also something that is misunderstood. 

Just last August in 2010, Garmin issued a voluntary recall of 1.2 

million GPS receivers that had battery issues. Their stock price declined about a cent the day they announced that. So this is an 

issue that comes up in private industry all the time. Manufacturers 

who have put devices out there, that are subject to this kind of interference when they shouldn’t be, should bear some of the responsibility. And we have already borne a significant amount of the cost 

of addressing the issue for hundreds of millions of devices, and I 

look forward to receiving your questions. Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Carlisle follows on page 36.] 


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Chairman GRAVES. Thank you, Mr. Carlisle. 

Our final witness is Mr. Tim Taylor, the president and CEO of 

FreeFlight Systems in Irving, Texas. His company manufactures 

aviation GPS navigation systems for commercial and military aircraft. He has over 35 years of experience in this industry. Tim is 

testifying on behalf of the Aircraft Electronics Association. Welcome and thanks for being here. 

STATEMENT OF TIM TAYLOR 

Mr. TAYLOR. Chairman Graves, Ranking Member Vela ́zquez, and 

members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the impact of small business GPS 

users in industry of the proposal from LightSquared. My name is 

Tim Taylor, and I am president and chief executive officer—— 

Chairman GRAVES. Make sure your mike is on. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Is that better? 

Chairman GRAVES. There you go. That helps. 

Mr. TAYLOR. I am sorry. My name is Tim Taylor, and I am president and chief executive officer of FreeFlight Systems. Today I 

have the privilege of also representing the Aircraft Electronics Association. The Association represents more than 1,300 aviation 

businesses worldwide, including avionics manufacturers, repair stations, distributors, and schools. Of these, more than 80 percent are 

small businesses. 

My company, FreeFlight Systems, is a manufacturer of avionics 

systems for commercial and military aircraft and was the first company to certify an airborne WAAS receiver. FreeFlight Systems 

specializes in NextGen avionics, GPS navigation systems, GPS/ 

WAAS sensors, dynalink radios, and radar altimeters. Our entire 

industry has been working toward the implementation of GPSbased navigation, air traffic management, and landing systems for 

over a decade. This ongoing transformation of the Nation’s airspace 

system, NextGen, is predicated upon the availability of ultra highintegrity GPS position information, which has, in turn, been made 

possible by some 30 years of work in GPS technology that lives on 

the very fringes of human engineering capability. 

All of this development has been accomplished with a consistent 

assumption of a certain level of protection of the GPS signal spectrum, one that long predates any of this recent debate. 

LightSquared has proposed a nationwide wireless broadband network that pours high-energy radio waves into the previously protected spectrum. We, like all Americans, support a low-cost nationwide wireless broadband network, but not one that compromises 

the safety and efficiency of the national air transportation system. 

Quick studies are being undertaken and quick decisions are being 

made. This is entirely incompatible with the requirements of safe 

airspace critical system design. 

I am reading of voluntary spectrum self-limitation, and I see reports of instant solutions to interference through the addition of a 

filter that was thrown together in the past few months. This is not 

how it works for us. The FAA estimates, and I would agree, no less 

than 10 to 15 years would be required to bring an amended product 

safely to the aviation marketplace, assuming no further changes to 

spectrum use. 


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So my testimony today is not intended to support or deny the reports that have been submitted regarding the compatibility of the 

two systems. The record has more than enough evidence to draw 

a conclusion. My intent is to explain the aviation certification process and extreme cost to small business that any change to the aviation-certified GPS navigation and surveillance systems would 

cause. 

GPS satellites are low powered and a long way away. The signals 

we receive are less than the noise interference generated by the 

metal box we put the receiver in, but people’s lives depend upon 

our ability to read that information and not get it wrong any more 

than once in every 10 to 1,000 million flight hours. If you have ever 

been on an aircraft landing in low-visibility conditions, you will appreciate this level of integrity, as do those who live close to airports. 

To expect the industry to maintain performance requirements 

like these in a rapid response mode to a significant noise environment change is entirely unreasonable. For example, in a stable requirements environment, we have been developing a replacement 

GPS for one of our older products for some 6 years. We are still 

about a year away from a certified GPS engine, and 2 to 3 years 

away from a usable avionics system implementation. Approval of 

that system into real aircraft will take another 1 to 2 years. 

I can categorically tell you I do not know if the new system will 

work in the most optimistic LightSquared plans that are on the 

table. I can tell you it will not work at all at LightSquared’s FCCapproved transmission levels and spectrum. AEA member companies have been manufacturing, selling, and installing GPS navigators, surveillance, and emergency locator systems to the aircraft 

owners and operators for nearly 20 years. These systems have been 

designed, manufactured, and certified to the government’s technical 

standards to provide the aviation consumer with an assurance of 

usability and acceptability within the national airspace. Any efforts 

by LightSquared to generate a requirement resulting in costly recertification and retrofits of the already installed systems will directly and negatively affect the industry and the Nation’s airspace. 

In closing, while we support the concept of a low-cost national 

wireless broadband system, no system, regardless of its anticipated 

benefit, can be allowed to compromise the safety and security of the 

national air transportation system. Changes that affect the national air transportation system require long-range planning, and 

we encourage LightSquared or any other company to participate in 

the aviation technical standards development process. RTCA and 

the FAA have been working towards NextGen for nearly 20 years. 

If neighboring technologies need changes in the aviation systems in 

order to be compatible, these companies need to work with the FAA 

and RTCA so that the next generation of aviation products might 

be designed and certified to be compatible with their future business plans once the current generation of products reaches the end 

of its service life. 

The idea that a new entrant into the marketplace can arbitrarily 

introduce a new product that immediately compromises aviation 

safety and security, while expecting the aviation industry to design, 


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manufacture, test and certify, and install an aviation-compliant filter, is simply not realistic. 

Thank you for providing me this opportunity to address the Committee. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

[The statement of Mr. Taylor follows on page 62.] 

Chairman GRAVES. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. 

Mr. Carlisle, I have a quick question on your receiver there you 

have got, which I have never seen a receiver that big before, but 

my question to you is: The filter that you held up, which you talked 

about you could fit inside there easily, the GPS antennas that I 

have on the aircraft that I fly are the same size as that filter, 

maybe just a little bit larger, so how is that going to fit in that antenna? And that includes the streamlined casing on it for the slipstream. I am just curious how that is going to— 

Mr. CARLISLE. I am glad you asked that question because it allows an opportunity to really clear this issue up. This is a precision 

receiver that gets you down to centimeters for use in agriculture, 

surveying, construction. The type of receivers you are talking about 

in your plane are not that kind of precision receiver, all right? 

Under our proposal, which puts us at the bottom end of our band, 

under the minimum performance standards which are adopted 

internationally, we should be fine under that. The FAA is reviewing that. But all the testing of aviation receivers that was done by 

both the Federal Government and by industry shows that the aviation receivers perform much better than the minimum performance 

standard. So we are not talking about, under our current level of 

proposals, requiring any changeout—and let me repeat that because it is important—any changeout of aviation receivers. If it was 

going to take us 8 to 10 years to go through the certification process in order to do that, that would not be a commercially feasible 

business plan. So what we have proposed is the use of our spectrum that does not require any changeout of aviation receivers. 

Chairman GRAVES. Well, that brings us—and the problem I have 

is, and in your testimony you used the comment ‘‘little to no degradation.’’ The ‘‘little’’ is the part that bothers me. And you said 

just now in the question, you said ‘‘should be.’’ It is the ‘‘should be’’ 

that bothers me because in aviation we deal in zero tolerances. 

Mr. CARLISLE. Uh-huh. 

Chairman GRAVES. Zero tolerances. So if there is any concern out 

there, we are going to end up having to retrofit and filter because 

it is zero tolerance. And what that is going to cost, you know, and 

I am very curious as to what—in fact, I want to hear from all the 

panel, you know, what we think this is going to cost in terms of 

that retrofit, because at least when it comes to aviation it has to 

be certified. If it has to be certified, that is when it gets really expensive. 

Mr. CARLISLE. I absolutely agree with you, and if I can directly 

respond to that, that is absolutely true. And the fact is that we 

should only move forward if this can be done while absolutely assuring safety of life and aviation, all right? And we are working 

with the aviation community in order to do that. That is something 

that we believe is nonnegotiable, all right? Nobody in our company 

is running out to irresponsibly deploy a network that is going to 

cause issues with people, with air safety in the United States. That 


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is not what we are about, and we are absolutely committed to making sure this will work and that the FAA is satisfied, that NTIA 

is satisfied, and FCC is satisfied on that front. And we have 

worked with FAA for years. We have worked with RT—we are 

members of RT—I am sorry, pardon me. We have worked with 

RTCA for years, we have been members for years on these issues, 

so we have put a lot of resources into making sure that happens. 

In terms of cost, again, we believe our proposals will take us in 

a direction where there will be no cost to aviation in order to accommodate the network, and that is where we want to be. 

Chairman GRAVES. How is that no cost, though? 

Mr. CARLISLE. Because aviation receivers will not have to be replaced. We are taking all of the cost of solving the issue on our 

side, which is over $100 million, by the way. 

Chairman GRAVES. Mr. Taylor. 

Mr. TAYLOR. So, first of all, I would echo your comments on ‘‘little to no.’’ We don’t live in the world of ‘‘little to no.’’ We live in 

the world of certainties, as I said, measured in thousands of millions of parts, very, very, very high integrity and availability of our 

systems. 

I would also mention that many of the systems out there were 

developed back in the 1990s. I mean, there is a lot of aircraft systems. We as a company, have over 2,000, we know, systems flying 

that were developed in the 1990s. The requirements for noise interference testing on those was significantly less than the requirements levied on the modern receivers, so they certainly would have 

to be addressed, and I have no idea how they would work in this 

noise environment. No one has yet tested one. 

For the newer receivers, as we said, there is a very strict FAA 

requirement for noise. As I understand it, the proposal for 

LightSquared to use the lowest spectrum comes very, very close to 

the edge of that or crosses slightly that current noise requirement, 

and the concept that we are going to be okay because there is some 

margin in there, again, does not work for me. This is something 

that needs to be tested and evaluated, and it is not one field test, 

it is a very serious comprehensive series of regressive testing that 

will take a long, long time to accomplish. 

Chairman GRAVES. Mr. Boykin. 

Mr. BOYKIN. I don’t know what the cost is. I will go back to testing, though, and it sounds—it all sounds good. But back to the 

‘‘Show Me’’ concept, I will take you back to 1981 at a field in Arizona where a client of mine, when I worked for Motorola, was complaining about interference. I couldn’t figure out why he couldn’t 

talk to that repeater on the mountaintop 60 miles away. You could 

almost see the mountain, but he couldn’t talk to it with his 15-watt 

radio. Drove 2 miles back to Interstate 19 and found a crew from 

a large construction company that was operating in the 27 MHz 

band and asked them to key their radios every minute, drove back 

to my client’s site and said, okay, let’s try doing it now, and that 

is exactly what it was. My client was using a radio in the 450 MHz 

FM band for business. That is 400 MHz and 2 miles away, and 

that amount of electrical energy in the air interfered with a 60-mile 

transmission. 


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I note from the chart Mr. Carlisle brings in that we are talking 

about a spectrum spread of 30 MHz between ground-based transmitters that I have to fly over. So I will just go back to the point, 

Mr. Chairman, that I spent over $2,000 a receiver to do my WAAS 

upgrade a few years ago. We are talking thousands of dollars for 

upgrades, if necessary. Let’s get back to the testing. That is what 

really needs to get done. 

Chairman GRAVES. Mr. Greene. 

Mr. GREENE. Well, I will concur with the two gentlemen, Boykin 

on my left and Taylor on the end, with the fact that we need to 

have a lot more testing done on this just to make sure we don’t go 

through and interfere. Being in the agriculture industry, I do go 

ahead, I do recognize that receiver, and that receiver is a lot of the 

same type of size that we have for our high-accuracy RTK. 

Now, I went through and actually crunched some numbers. MFA 

has approximately 250 high-accuracy GPS units across the State, 

and we cover approximately 1 million acres with those high-accuracy RTK antennas. Assuming that LightSquared’s filter is going 

to cost around $800, to go and retrofit or basically to purchase 

those filters is going to cost roughly $200,000, and $200,000 for the 

filters and approximately $200,000 for the resource. The resource 

is the personnel, the truck, the fuel expenses to go around and take 

care of that. Time frame in that period, will take at least 1 year’s 

worth of time in order to go through and do that, and that is just 

for the 250 high-accuracy receivers that we have. 

Now, if you go ahead and you take a look at it, Mr. Carlisle said 

that there could be anywhere between 100,000 and 750,000 highaccuracy RTK antennas. Our belief is that there is at least 750,000 

to 1 million high-accuracy RTK receivers used in agriculture, used 

in construction, used in geography management. So you go and 

take those kind of numbers and you go and times it, basically it 

comes out to $1,600 per unit that it will cost in order to go through 

and retrofit it with this filter, go and take it times that $1 million—or, excuse me, 1 million high-accuracy RTK GPSs that are 

out there in the marketplace. 

Mr. CARLISLE. May I respond on the accuracy? The numbers I actually used were that the universe of devices could be about 

750,000 in the country. It is not entirely known exactly. It could 

be as high as a million. But in terms of the ones that actually have 

to be replaced or retrofitted, it is not going to be that entire universe. First of all, because a significant number of precision devices 

have already tested out in terms of being resilient, so that is 10 

out of 38, or almost 25 percent. 

Second, many of these receivers are going to be used in areas 

which are going to be far away from anywhere our network is going 

to be, and, third, our—this is not a flash cut. We are going to be 

deploying our network over a period of 5 years. There will be a certain amount of exchange of devices that would take place in the ordinary course of business anyway. So that is how you get down to 

the 100,000 to maybe 200,000 number that you have to focus on 

and actually change out. Just to correct the record. 

Chairman GRAVES. I don’t want to dominate the questions because we have got a lot of members here with questions, and I will 

save the rest of mine for the end of the hearing. But I do have one 


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quick one for you, Mr. Carlisle, because the test results have revealed some significant interference in that upper 10 MHz band, 

and so you have proposed launching in the lower 10 for your service. My question to you is: Will you guys never use that upper 

10—— 

Mr. CARLISLE. Well, we will certainly use—— 

Chairman GRAVES [continuing]. Of GPS? 

Mr. CARLISLE [continuing]. Continue to use it for satellite services. We have used it there for 15 years without any issue at all 

with GPS, and those satellite services provide services to public 

safety, oil and gas, all sorts of folks in the United States uses it. 

Our satellite services were used after Hurricane Katrina. After the 

tornadoes in Joplin, first responders had our units there. So we will 

continue to use the spectrum. 

We would like a continued dialogue as to whether or not we 

could ever commercially deploy that spectrum because then you do 

start to get into the issues that Mr. Taylor and Mr. Boykin have 

raised about aviation functions and the susceptibility of a larger 

number of GPS receivers, simply because more of them look into 

that spectrum. So you would need a longer conversation about that, 

but we are open to having that discussion, open to talking about 

alternatives. 

Chairman GRAVES. But right now, I mean, basically you are not 

using that upper bandwidth, you are just basically doing that, that 

is just the company has decided not to do it, there is no requirement for that, you could use it at any time? 

Mr. CARLISLE. We would—let me be clear. The only issue that 

comes up down the road is if, you know, we deploy out in our network using the 10 MHz all the way down on the other end of the 

band. We can do our full deployment to 260 million people with 

that amount of spectrum. The issue is the number of devices, the 

amount of usage that ultimately goes on the network. 

That won’t be a problem we have for at least 5 to 6 years. And 

in the meantime, you can either—you can skin that cat a lot of different ways. You can modify the way you are using your current 

spectrum, you can use the new spectrum in ways that are very different, much lower powers that would not raise an issue on interference. You could also look at swapping for alternative spectrum 

or something like that. There are a whole bunch of things that 

should be looked at before we—while we move forward on the lower 

10, but—and also keep in mind our customers are retailers. They 

will have options in the marketplace, too. By that time other spectrum may very well have been brought online, and if they need 

more spectrum for their customers, they can go out and buy it from 

somebody else. So I think there are a lot of different ways to skin 

that cat down the road, and we are willing to talk with the government agencies and the GPS manufacturers about how we do that. 

Chairman GRAVES. I am worried about the future and this betting on the outcome that something is going to happen in the time 

frame between now and then. That worries me a great deal, that 

it isn’t going to happen. I am going to yield to Ranking Member 

Vela ́zquez. 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Thank you. Mr. Carlisle, if filtering technology 

is the solution to interference, are you aware of how much it will 


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cost small firms because, after all, this is the Small Business Committee, and we are here because we understand that it could have 

a negative impact on small businesses. And I would like to know 

if—it is important for all of us to recognize that it is not just the 

cost of retrofitting but also if you took into account indirect costs, 

such as time and lost resources or use of equipment, if those were 

included in your calculation. 

Mr. CARLISLE. Okay. Well, that is a very good question, and 

thank you for asking it because I think it highlights an important 

point there, in that filtering is not the only solution. Filtering is the 

solution for high-precision receivers, okay? For the vast number of 

small businesses who day-to-day only use consumer-level devices 

that aren’t precision, moving down to the spectrum and lowering 

our power is going to address the issue for them. 

Now, for those small businesses who do use precision equipment, 

our very strongly held belief is it shouldn’t cost them a cent. It 

shouldn’t cost them a cent. We will be deploying our network in a 

way that they will have advanced notice of when—of where we will 

be and when we will be there. There will be time for them to work 

with their manufacturers to get alternatives, and the manufacturers really should be stepping forward on this. I don’t think there 

is any question about that. 

Mr. Taylor in his testimony, has, you know, made statements 

that this was all of a sudden came up and wasn’t anticipated, that 

our power levels were all of a sudden jumped up. We are operating 

at transmission levels, power levels that were approved in 2005. 

There have been years to address this issue. 

Ms. VEL ́AZQUEZ. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Taylor, the DOD’s 2008 

GPS standard encouraged filters for GPS devices. Can you please 

explain how exactly these filters minimize interference and whether you currently use these filters in your GPS devices? 

Mr. TAYLOR. First of all, we do not make much in the way of 

military GPS. We do a small amount of military GPS, so I cannot 

specifically address that question. From a more general aviation receiver point of view, we would be happy to look at filtering as a 

possible means of mitigating the risk associated with the spectrum 

challenges we are talking about. 

GPS is different from telecommunications. The way GPS works, 

the signal—I will not get technical, I promise. The signal is a 

broadband spread-out signal. We need, in order to reliably discriminate the information, we need to be able to see a broadband signal, 

so filtering limits that, and it will—filtering will impact the performance of our receivers. I can’t tell you today to what extent. 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Okay. Mr. Carlisle, I understand the updated 

plan includes a design to eventually expand operations to the entire spectrum band, yet no details have been provided. Does the 

company have a timetable for this expansion and how will this affect GPS? 

Mr. CARLISLE. We won’t need additional capacity, as I said earlier, for at least 5 to 6 years, and so I think that is the outside 

timetable. And as I said, there are many alternatives that we 

would want to consider to see what was commercially reasonable 

and safe. 


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Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Your company believes that its plan can increase coverage to at least 260 million people by the end of 2015. 

In light of our current economic conditions, what role do you see 

your company’s expanded wireless broadband network playing in 

job creation? 

Mr. CARLISLE. I think it will play a significant role in it. Our in- vest—to build that network, you have to plow $9 billion into the 

American economy. We have already spent a billion dollars in 

American technology to put our satellites up. That was with Boeing 

in Washington State and Harris in Florida. In order to achieve a 

network build like this, you have to spend a tremendous amount 

of money all across the country. Wherever you put a tower up, that 

is folks from your vendors, that is contractors, that is small business people providing that service, and then it is contractors and 

small business people providing the maintenance going forward. So 

we have estimated very conservatively that the impact of our investment on the American economy is 15,000 jobs supported a year 

for each of the 5 years of the build-out. Following that, each one 

of our business partners, because they don’t have to spend money 

on owning and maintaining their own network, can plow that 

money into their own retail operations and hire jobs there. 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Okay. My question to the other three witnesses, 

the FCC believes that LightSquared’s proposed network is going to 

benefit and have a positive impact on broadband access for rural 

small businesses, but we also know that existing GPS technology 

will be harmed. So my question to the three witnesses is, how do 

you recommend that we proceed going forward? Should an innovative idea be outright rejected without any real attempts to find a 

technical solution? Mr. Boykin? 

Mr. BOYKIN. Thank you, ma’am. And obviously we don’t want to 

withhold any technology. Technology has led our economy. I will go 

back to—I am starting to sound like a broken record here. We need 

to do some testing. Things aren’t always as they appear to be in 

the RF spectrum, and I will point back to the fact that the original 

test had one base station. I pointed out earlier, I used to work for 

Motorola. Motorola was not only the company that designed land 

mobile radio in the beginning, Motorola is the company that invented cellular technology with the 800 MHz system Mr. Carlisle 

referred to. Those experiences at Motorola taught me that when 

you get two or more radios in close proximity, things get different, 

and you will note that some of these tests were done with one radio 

in an anechoic chamber, a noise-free chamber. We need to put a 

couple of base stations out there, a couple of handsets, and I will 

offer up my airplane, if somebody wants to chip in for the gas. I 

would be happy to fly out to New Mexico, it is a beautiful State, 

and fly over and make sure that this thing actually works. 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Mr. Greene. 

Mr. GREENE. Thank you. I concur with the rest of the group that 

the fact that we need to do some additional testing. And being a 

Cubs fan, and knowing that their spring training happens out in 

springtime out in Arizona, I would be happy to go out there and 

help out in any possible way that I can. 

However, definitely some more testing needs to be made. We feel 

like broadband Internet will bring an exceptional increase to our 


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business perspective as well, but if we don’t have—if we don’t have 

the GPS to collect the data, there will be no data to transfer into 

in order to do more processing. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Again, we all agree that we need more broadband 

services in the country, no doubt, but from the aviation community’s point of view it has taken decades, decades of a complicated 

interaction between receivers, GPS constellation, ground infrastructure, to come with something that is robust enough to be safe, the 

safety of life for people to fly safely. And one or two flight tests will 

be fun, but it will not answer the question, and I cannot tell you 

there is a fast answer for this. I think it is going to take time and 

analysis and interaction. I cannot see any other answer, I am 

afraid. 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Mr. Carlisle, what is wrong with testing? 

Mr. CARLISLE. There is nothing wrong with testing, and in fact 

we are fully supportive of the further testing that NTIA asked for, 

but I am not sure the background materials Mr. Taylor has read— 

but frankly, there has been a more comprehensive testing of this 

issue than any other interference issue ever presented to the GP— 

to the FCC. There were 130 devices tested in eight independent 

labs over a series of months by an industry group that had 37 of 

the Nation’s top GPS engineers on it. That was just the industry 

testing. There were dozens of devices tested in New Mexico at 

Holloman Air Force Base by the U.S. Air Force. Furthermore, there 

were devices tested by the FAA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 

Moreover, RTCA, their GPS group ran an analysis of the minimum 

performance standards against our signal, and that analysis is continuing to be done by FAA. So we have no issue with there being 

further testing to make sure we are absolutely safe on safety of life, 

but let’s not ignore the fact, there has been an awful lot of testing 

already and analysis. 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman GRAVES. Mr. Schilling. 

Mr. SCHILLING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just quickly, a couple 

of things. I guess I will go to Mr. Carlisle. If the retrofit replacement of the GPS receivers in the market, if you have to do a retrofit, will you guys be paying for that or will that be the person 

that is having the retrofit done, say a farmer, for example? 

Mr. CARLISLE. That is a very important question, because for 9 

months what the GPS manufacturers have done is they have said 

there is only two parties in this debate. There is the LightSquared 

network and there are the users of GPS who are going to be affected by it. They have conveniently left themselves out of the 

equation. 

Again, I don’t think the users should have to pay a cent. We have 

already paid, and the total value of our commitments is over $160 

million at this point to solve the problem for the vast majority of 

consumer devices. For these precision devices, where there really 

is no solution that we can put on our transmissions except to abandon the band entirely, we think given we are talking about 100- 

to 200,000 devices, maybe a few more than that, but that is the 

order of magnitude we are talking about, and that our power levels 

have been set for 6 years, that that is the right outcome there. 


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Mr. SCHILLING. Okay, very good. Thank you. Now I want to go 

to Rick Greene. A couple—I come from a large agricultural area. 

One of the things, have you guys done any looks at maybe like if 

things do need to be switched around, how long a tractor will have 

to be down, you know, how that will affect like a single tractor 

versus a large family farm? 

Mr. GREENE. I haven’t put any numbers per se, but one of the 

things with agriculture, it is very time sensitive, and it is one of 

those things where if we can’t get to everybody by springtime, then 

a producer could go and have the option—well, I have got—a producer could go and see a projected downtime of—well, let me just 

give you an example. 

So in the State of Missouri we have 1 million acres underneath 

high-accuracy RTK coverage, okay? If you go and look at 180 bushels per acre times $7 corn, say for instance those acres don’t go 

through and get planted, that will be $1.26 billion that the producers will have lost that year, just for our 1 million acres that we 

have in the State of Missouri. 

Mr. SCHILLING. Okay, that is a lot of corn. Okay, very good. That 

is all the questions I have. I yield back my time, Chairman. 

Chairman GRAVES. Mr. West. 

Mr. WEST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member. My 

question, Mr. Carlisle, and I guess I will take it into a little bit different direction. You are talking about developing this out in rural 

communities, correct? I am very concerned, because when you start 

to look at a lot of military type of activity, military activity out 

around a lot of rural communities like NTC, National Training 

Center, Twentynine Palms, China Lake, impact areas and this type 

of thing, my question is: What type of testing, and what is your implementation plan? What have you done to work with the Department of Defense as far as aircraft, you know, helicopters, fixed 

wing, laser designating devices and, as well, as smart munitions, 

because I think it would be a bad day for small businesses and 

communities if that spectrum were to somehow interfere with a 

training exercise and all of a sudden a smart munition ends up 

somewhere where it is not supposed to be. 

Mr. CARLISLE. Thank you for your question. We have actually 

been working with DOD since 2008 to coordinate the use of our 

spectrum, and with the OASD and NII group within the Pentagon, 

and in terms of the more recent identified issue with GPS receivers, which was really only brought up in September of 2010, we 

have had extensive exchanges with U.S. Space Command about the 

use of GPS within the U.S. military, also with Northern Command. 

General Shelton’s testimony before the House Armed Services 

Committee a few weeks ago quite accurately outlined the fact that, 

well, you know, you have got to train the way you are going to 

fight, and so we have to be using the same equipment here as we 

are using over there. The fact is that we know where the training 

facilities are. We know where the proving grounds are. Today we 

operate under a very significant requirement to limit our power 

near air fields and near navigable waterways. It limits our power 

significantly in order to avoid any interference with aircraft or 

maritime receivers in our band. 


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You can extend those operating limits to base stations we might 

put near military bases in order to avoid that interference, because 

you know where the activity is going on. That is one thing you can 

do. There are other options. 

Mr. WEST. Well, then my question is: Have we actually put some 

of these towers out there and run some tests on this with—across 

the spectrum with different types of aircraft and munitions to 

make sure that we are certified? 

Mr. CARLISLE. The U.S. Air Force ran a classified testing of military receivers in New Mexico in April of this last year. Those results are classified. Our cleared consultants have not seen them, 

but we would assume they have run that testing. 

Now, they ran it under our old business plan which was to start 

closest to GPS, and that is part of the reason there was a reason 

for further testing now, was to make sure that the lower 10 option 

works for those. 

Mr. WEST. And for the rest of the panel, I guess the question is 

when was the first time that you all really heard about this impact 

or potential interference on the GPS system? This kind of like surprised us, that we should just be restrained to birthdays? 

Mr. BOYKIN. Well, I am not sure about birthdays Congressman 

West, but I can tell you that like a lot of issues that come up in 

public policy, we had a land development issue next to our airport 

that we learned about by reading about it in the Washington Business Journal. We learned about this by reading about it in the 

newspaper. 

I understand that the most recent application to the FCC over 

the Thanksgiving weekend last year, literally was over the Thanksgiving weekend, and the public notice came out with a 10-day turnover, the Thanksgiving holiday, which having done a lot of business 

with the Federal Government I find pretty speedy. But our first indication of this was strictly out in the public area—arena. 

Mr. GREENE. Same thing here. We basically first heard about it 

in the public arena probably in the March or April time frame. And 

then from there, it was quite simply kind of watching the news to 

see as this thing progresses. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Same answer, I am afraid. It has been less than a 

year, and just been trying to keep up with it as reports appear in 

the press. We have more recently been contacted by the FAA and 

by the military to provide receivers for testing. So we became involved in that way, but quite recently. 

Mr. CARLISLE. May I say when we first learned it? I will be very 

quick. We first learned of it in September of 2010 when the GPS 

manufacturers brought it to the attention of the FCC. We have actually have been working GPS interference issues with the GPS 

community since 2002 when we reached an agreement with them 

to limit our emissions into their band. So we have a cliff on our 

spectrum, there are filters in our transmitters that stop our signal 

from leaking into GPS. 

The issue that was—and there was no problem with that agreement for 8 years. There is still no problem with that agreement. 

All the equipment tested out the way it should. The issue that was 

raised in September 2010, much to our surprise as well as everybody else’s here, was that the GPS receivers look well into our 


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band. So it doesn’t really matter if we are limiting our signal if we 

are operating within our band within our authorized frequencies. 

They are looking at it and can be overloaded. So that is when we 

learned of it and we have been dealing with it since then, too. 

Mr. WEST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Chairman GRAVES. Ms. Herrera Beutler. Mr. Hanna. 

Mr. HANNA. What will it cost to retrofit—not retrofit, but for new 

devices, devices not thought of or built yet to accommodate your 

bandwidth? 

Mr. CARLISLE. It depends on the device. If you are talking about 

cellular phones where you have got millions of these devices and 

you can build at a very high level of volume, you are talking about 

filters that cost less than a nickel that exist today that can go into 

this. 

I think there was some ambiguity, or nobody really knew how expensive it would be to develop a filter for precision devices, which 

are really the hardest ones to deal with. Well, we now know you 

can deal with precision receivers that are on the market today and 

also sold to government agencies and surveyors, and all sorts of 

people use them, for $6. So going forward, this is a very small incremental cost to deal with it. 

Mr. HANNA. And you estimate that you will be able to provide 

Internet service to another 50 billion people in rural communities? 

Mr. CARLISLE. Is that on top of the 260 million that we are required to? 

Mr. HANNA. Yes. 

Mr. CARLISLE. Absolutely. We have already struck deals with 

several rural companies that we have the potential to go outside 

of our footprint. That is Cellular South, SI Wireless in southern Illinois. And just today we announced a deal with a company that 

plans to deploy in towns down to 10,000 people or less, that will 

reach out to areas that have been historically underserved. We may 

not have a regulatory requirement to serve above those 260 million 

people, but it is good business to do it and we should be doing it. 

Mr. HANNA. And have you done studies on the potential growth 

from that, economic growth? 

Mr. CARLISLE. I know there are studies out there that indicate 

broadband infrastructure investment is one of the majority determinants of economic growth. I grew up in a rural neighborhood 

that—where we had electromechanical switches until the 1980s in 

California. And I will tell you, the one thing that keeps people in 

rural communities is if they feel they have got economic opportunity there. They are not going to have that economic opportunity 

if you don’t have the highway going out there. Same thing is they 

are not going to have that economic opportunity if you don’t have 

the broadband infrastructure there today. It is just not going to 

happen. Leave aside issues like public safety, provision of medical 

services, and education. 

Mr. HANNA. Thank you, I yield back. 

Chairman GRAVES. Mr. Tipton. 

Mr. TIPTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Carlisle, I would like 

to go back to one of your comments. You talked about the filters 

stopping leaking as you described it. 

Mr. CARLISLE. Uh-huh. 


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Mr. TIPTON. Is that 100 percent? With the filters there is not 

going to be a problem? 

Mr. CARLISLE. Yes, sir. That was confirmed in both the industry 

tests and the government testing. Both confirmed that our filters 

are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing. They actually filter our signal down to a level that is a thousand times stricter than what the FCC requires for us. And that was a level, by the 

way, that the GPS industry put in 2002 and asked us to agree to. 

So that is what we agreed to. 

Mr. TIPTON. Okay. Great. I come from rural Colorado, and obviously support a lot of broadband being moved out into rural America. But we have a lot of problems right now, particularly for our 

small businesses that are struggling in terms of a lot of the costs. 

None more so, probably, than a lot of our farmers and other GPS 

users who are already struggling right now in our economy. 

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that about 50 million people 

live in these rural areas. How many of these 50 million citizens 

that are in rural America right now would receive new broadband 

service? And additionally, can you tell us how many would be covered by LightSquared if you move forward with your operations? 

Mr. CARLISLE. In terms of wireless service, they will get it the 

day we turn on and get our next-generation units out there. Remember, we have a satellite that covers 100 percent of the United 

States to 200 nautical miles offshore. And it reaches these devices. 

That is why we spent a billion dollars on it. We spent $250 million 

of that billion inventing technology that had never been built before. So the day we are out there—— 

Mr. TIPTON. Is that satellite, is that just a receiver that then 

transmits? Is the technology on the ground? 

Mr. CARLISLE. Yes, it is a pipe. So you can put basically any kind 

of signal you need over it. 

And so that will operate at speeds that are approximate to what 

you get on 3G today. So you can do phone calls, emails, texts on 

it today. 

Now, when we roll out—now, the rollout of our 4G network, that 

is going to depend on the business deals we do and the opportunity 

out there. But I will say that we have had a significant amount of 

interest from rural wireless companies who don’t see an alternative 

to being able to build out. On this issue, there was a 700 MHz for 

rural development that was put out there. And unfortunately, 

those carriers can’t get enough of the volume to be able to attract 

the chip companies and the handset manufacturers to put those 

frequencies on their devices. 

So it has been very difficult for them to actually have an independent way of moving forward. And that is why entities like the 

Rural Cellular Association support LightSquared. 

Mr. TIPTON. And I think that is an important point because it 

does get down to some economics. In your statement you claimed 

that the revised implementation plan will solve interference for 

99.5 percent of GPS receivers. And making the assumption—this is 

obviously a big assumption—that your figures are completely accurate, I understand that .5 percent of the receivers you admit are 

affected by high-precision receivers used in agriculture, construction, and surveying. 


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You stated today in your testimony that this .5 percent figure is 

actually 750,000 to, I believe, a million units. That is a lot of Americans that are going to potentially be negatively impacted by this 

implementation. How are we going to deal with that? 

Mr. CARLISLE. To be clear about the number, I think 99.5 percent 

is probably a liberal estimate of it. Actually, if you take the worstcase scenario of only 400 million devices in the universe, which 

seems to be the minimum that we have seen as a estimate, and 1 

million precision devices being out there, which is the largest number we have ever seen estimated, it is .25 of a percent. So really 

the number should be 99.75 percent. 

But in terms of how we fix that, there are three factors which 

indicate that the full universe is not going to need to be replaced. 

First, a significant number of precision devices use different types 

of technology. Some use satellite technology to achieve high levels 

of precision. Some, like RTK, use terrestrial technology. So when 

you test these out you see different results. And about 10 out of 

38 were fine. Now, the majority won’t be. By fine, I mean they 

didn’t suffer harmful interference under the strictest definition of 

‘‘harmful interference’’ used by the GPS manufacturers. 

So not all of them are going to be affected. Not all of them are 

going to be used in close proximity to where we will be operating. 

Even in rural communities where we are deploying, we may only 

have the ground network in the denser areas rather than in the 

far fields, far away. 

And then third, it is not a flash cut. We will be deploying over 

5 years and we will have an unprecedented level of transparency 

as to where we are going to be and when we are going to be there. 

So people will know well in advance. And a certain number of these 

devices are going to change out in the ordinary course of business 

anyway. 

So in terms of the cost, I think you start getting that portion, if 

you assume it is 750,000 or a million, is it 300,000 devices, is it 

200,000, is it 100,000? We have seen that estimate from some GPS 

manufacturers. I don’t know, but it is not going to be the full universe. And we believe that cost is appropriately borne by the manufacturers. 

Mr. TIPTON I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. 

Chairman GRAVES. Mr. Mulvaney has no questions? 

Mr. MULVANEY. No. 

Chairman GRAVES. Let the record show that is a first time. Mr. 

King? 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you holding 

this hearing. It is something that needed to be and still needs to 

be aired out. And I find myself in one of those conflicting pieces of 

real estate that is very much impacted by the GPS guidance of our 

farm equipment and also can use a little more broadband. 

But I wanted to direct my first question to Mr. Greene, and that 

is the impact on precision farm equipment, GPS guidance. And as 

that was developed, I don’t know how many years ago we are talking about, perhaps 10 years or so ago as it was put in place, do 

you have knowledge of any efforts that were made to look at the 

spectrum then? And do you have the basis by which the decisions 


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were made to build out the ag guidance technology on that spectrum? 

Mr. GREENE. Yes, I would be happy to address that issue. The 

agricultural industry looked at that kind of spectrum back in the, 

oh, I believe it was around the late nineties, early 2000s area. And 

one of the things I have gotten from several manufacturers of GPS 

is that they were actually asked to have their spectrum in that 

area be movable, if you will. So if the company called Sky Terra 

at the time would like to go and change the OmniSTAR megahertz 

signal that it was operating it on, the company could go and move 

it from one side of the spectrum to the other side of the spectrum. 

Mr. KING. And your perspective on this is that the spectrum that 

has been purchased by LightSquared, you disagree, I think, to 

where the overlap might be? Is that a fair characterization? 

Mr. GREENE. Yes, that is correct. 

Mr. KING. And if a decision were made then on where that bright 

line might be, rather than where that gray line might be, how 

would you respond to this? And that would be if a company or an 

entity purchases spectrum that they have a complete and full legal 

right to that spectrum aside from the definition of where that 

bright line versus gray line might be? Would you agree with that? 

Mr. Greene. 

Mr. GREENE. Yes. 

Mr. KING. Thank you. And then, so if there is to be mitigation 

of this problem that I sure hope does get resolved—and the testimony that has been here and the dialogue about the filter that at 

least presumably can resolve this, what is your position on which 

side of this spectrum should pay for that technology? Which side 

of this argument should pay for that technology? 

Mr. GREENE. You know, there is an old interference phrase that 

goes across the regular wireless network: First come, first served. 

And basically when you go and put a new frequency up on a tower, 

if your frequency interferes with somebody else, then you have to 

go ahead and remove your equipment or find an alternative way 

in order to resolve the issue. 

Mr. KING. Provided that you own that spectrum, as you said earlier? 

Mr. GREENE. Yes, correct. 

Mr. KING. And aside from that, even with that argument, let’s 

just say that some entity has the authority to make this decision 

clearly and they draw a bright line, and that bright line is someplace along the line with some of this GPS equipment that I want 

to keep operating, I want to solve this problem in the worst way, 

if that finds itself on a spectrum that is clearly and legally determined to be LightSquared’s then you would say from a legal perspective it is up to then the ag industry to take care of the cost 

of the filtration? 

Mr. GREENE. Well, I would say there is no clear-cut line on this. 

Like the other couple of gentlemen were saying, that frequencies 

have a tendency to go and bleed together. And testing out that interference and checking to see what is available is what the real 

key it. 

Mr. KING. You would say you would apply the first come, first 

served to that area? 


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Mr. GREENE. That is correct. 

Mr. KING. I am running out of time and I don’t want to spend 

it all focused on you, Mr. Greene, but I appreciate that. 

I want to turn to Mr. Carlisle who has listened to all of this dialogue, and ask the 180-degree opposite of these questions. If the 

shoe is on the other foot and it is determined in a clear way that 

the GPS people are there with a spectrum that they have a claim 

to, whether it is a gray area or a bleedover or first-come, firstserved, who then would you say should pay for the filtration? And 

I think you testified—I am going to guess this—that this problem 

can technologically be solved. Doesn’t it sort down then to who 

writes the check to solve it? 

Mr. CARLISLE. That is exactly right. And I would say if this were 

a case of our transmitter bleeding across to the GPS spectrum, into 

the spectrum that they are using that is Federal Government spectrum, by the way, that is used by the GPS manufacturers at no 

cost, if we are bleeding over there, then that would be our responsibility to solve. And we spent $9 million developing the filters to 

solve that. There is a chart at the back of my testimony that shows 

this. 

If the question, though, is then are their receivers looking into 

our band, there is no principle of first come, first served recognized 

in the law. Certainly not in FCC regulations. FCC allows you to 

build any kind of receiver you want, but you have to take the risk 

if you are looking outside your band and if you have the effect of 

blocking authorized services, then you have no claim to protection. 

And by the way, this is recognized in the user manuals of many 

GPS devices. 

I have got an excerpt here from a Garmin G900X integrated 

cockpit GPS navigation device manual which says: This device complies with part 15 of the FCC rules—the rule I just mentioned. Operations subject to the following two conditions: Device may not 

cause harmful interference and this device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired 

operation. 

Mr. KING. I appreciate that acknowledgement. I would just conclude with this question: Is either side of this argument looking to 

the taxpayers to pay the difference? 

Mr. CARLISLE. Absolutely not. 

Mr. GREENE. No. 

Mr. KING. I appreciate that. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I yield 

back. 

Chairman GRAVES. Mr. Carlisle, as far as the testing goes, you 

guys have tested your upper bandwidth but you are still in the 

process of testing the lower bandwidth; correct? Those results are 

not in yet? 

Mr. CARLISLE. To be clear, the technical working group testing, 

which was the industry testing for all classes of devices, the lower 

10 was tested. So we have a full set of data for all 130 devices. The 

further testing that needed to be done was for classified receivers 

that were not tested on the lower 10 in the independent government testing, and some additional validation testing as NTIA set 

out in its letter a couple of weeks ago. 


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Chairman GRAVES. My next question—Mr. Taylor and Carlisle, 

you can comment too—you talk a lot about over the course of the 

next 5 or 6 years there is going to be normal changeout of devices, 

but in the aviation community because they are so expensive, because of certification issues out there, there is still a lot of older 

devices out there that are working—working very well, and we 

hope work well into the future. 

But Mr. Taylor, can you comment on those? You know the ones 

I am talking about. The ones that came out in the nineties—late 

nineties, early 2000s. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Yes. Yes, sir. Normal service life for commercial 

aviation equipment, minimum is 15 years; we are required to support equipment for 15 years. Often it lasts much longer than that. 

As you said, it is incredibly expensive to make a change to an aircraft, to change a critical system like a GPS. The larger the aircraft, the more complex the change. 

Those systems that predate this entire discussion are in the field 

in thousands. And I know thousands is not a big number compared 

to the numbers we are hearing in terms of equipments fielded here. 

But this is thousands that you care about. It is airplanes that you 

fly on every day. Many of them have equipment that was developed 

long before this debate started and to which no one knows the answers. I don’t know the answer. I build it; I don’t know the answer 

to its susceptibility. And that equipment will in normal course of 

business be in service for at least another 5 years, some of the 

older equipment. Some of it for much longer than that. It lasts for 

a long time and stays in service. 

On the spectrum, I just wanted to clarify something on the spectrum. The RTCAs as you said, the RTCA preliminary report, which 

is a quick report, said that if LightSquared stays at the lower 50 

MHz of the lower spectrum, lower half of the lower spectrum at 

very reduced power, you just impinge or don’t impinge on the 

standards to which new equipment is developed. Brand new equipment. If you go to the next 5 MHz of the lower band, its acquisition 

is affected, tracking might be affected. You go to the upper band, 

then acquisition and tracking is affected. 

RTCA said that of the full spectrum, there would be no GPS 

aviation service over the entire eastern United States and close to 

any major city where this system is operating. Today I heard for 

the first time again the lower 10 MHz is now the one that is contemplated. If the lower 10 MHz is used at even the reduced powers 

that we are discussing, RTCA says—I say—you will have problems 

with aviation GPS receivers, even the newest ones that are in service today. And who knows what the story is with the older ones? 

Mr. CARLISLE. I would like to correct the record on a couple of 

things. First of all, on what RTCA found. What it found was that 

the lower 5 was cleared and that the next 5 MHz for tracking was 

likely fine, but there could be issues with acquisition, and further 

analysis was necessary. And the FAA is undertaking that further 

analysis. 

The RTCA report did say if we were using our upper 10 megahertz then, that could impact aviation. But unfortunately, this 

issue continues to be conflated into our new proposals to move 


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down to the lower 10 at the power levels we were authorized to do 

in 2005. 

The other point I would mention is on the aviation receivers and 

whether the older ones are better than the newer ones. One thing 

we found through the testing process is months and months and 

months ago, when we were at the very beginning of this, I think 

we like other people just assumed, well, this has got to be old GPS 

receivers. It is old technology. Certainly the newer technology is 

better. 

Well, what we found out was that wasn’t actually the case. Older 

technology actually is in some cases less susceptible to this kind of 

interference because it is not as wide open. The GPS industry has 

moved further and further into more and more precise equipment 

which requires you to pick up more GPS energy and requires them 

to look further and further into our band. 

And I am happy to get further follow-up information on this to 

make sure I am recalling correctly, but my understanding is the 

older RTCA standards which predated the currently applicable 

ones are actually less open and will have less wide open receivers 

than the ones that are currently authorized under the current 

standard. And that is the one that is being analyzed today. But I 

will provide follow-up information on that to make sure that is correct. 

Chairman GRAVES. Mr. Boykin, did you have a comment? 

Mr. BOYKIN. Far be it for me to spoil a really good party, but in 

fact I am following along with the RTCA paper and Mr. Carlisle 

is exactly accurate in his comments about that. But what it points 

out there is that there is a small margin for error. That same paper 

points out that traditionally, GPS being an aviation safety service, 

the analysis includes a six-decibel safety margin as standard practice. 

I am starting to see numbers here that are getting very small 

and very small safety margin. So my comment to that would be 

back to the same comment that we started with: A significant 

amount of testing that still needs to be done. And as my colleague 

from the GPS manufacturer said, that isn’t going to be taken lightly and isn’t going to be done tomorrow. 

Chairman GRAVES. Mr. Greene, I will give you the last word. 

Mr. GREENE. Well, we all know how much wireless Internet to 

rural areas as well as GPS is to the rest of the country, and how 

much of an economic impact. And like to go and follow everybody 

else and say that, you know what, more testing does need to be 

done, and I hope we don’t jump into a situation that gets everybody 

in trouble in the end. 

Chairman GRAVES. I thank you all for participating today. The 

Committee is going to very closely follow the action of the FCC in 

the LightSquared proposal and I plan to send a letter to the FCC 

reinforcing the need for comprehensive tests of all types of devices 

to ensure that there isn’t going to be any interference for small 

business GPS users. 

With that, I would ask unanimous consent that all members 

have 5 legislative days to submit statements and supporting materials for the record. Seeing no objection, it is so ordered. 

[The information follows:] 


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Chairman GRAVES. And with that, the hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 2:30 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 


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88 


jlentini on DSK4TPTVN1PROD with HROC6601Insert graphic folio 123 here 71500A.061
89 


jlentini on DSK4TPTVN1PROD with HROC6601Insert graphic folio 124 here 71500A.062