Philip Falcone’s LightSquared wireless venture offered to forgo an increase in power affecting global-positioning devices on the ground, saying the move shows the company is addressing interference concerns. The lower-energy operations, proposed in a Dec. 12 regulatory filing, is among LightSquared initiatives that have “proven that an engineering solution to the interference issues with GPS devices is possible,” Terry Neal, a company spokesman, said today in an emailed statement.
LightSquared needs U.S. approval to build a high-speed network offering wholesale service to 260 million people through airwaves close to those used by GPS. LightSquared transmissions caused harmful interference to 75 percent of GPS units tested in a recent set of government-mandated tests, according to a draft of a government summary seen by Bloomberg News.
The Bloomberg report “was based on an incomplete, selective and slanted analysis of the data,” LightSquared said in a letter Monday to U.S. officials. Bloomberg stands by its reporting, said Ty Trippet, a spokesman for New York-based Bloomberg LP, parent of Bloomberg News.
