The boss of an upstart Virginia company said Wednesday that his firm is on the cusp of solving technical problems that have dogged its effort to build a nationwide high-speed wireless network that critics worry will cripple military and commercial navigation systems.
“Watch this space,” Sanjiv Ahuja, CEO of Reston-based LightSquared, told editors and reporters at The Washington Times. “In the next few days, we will come out and say, ‘It’s possible, and here’s the engineering solution for it.’ “
Mr. Ahuja and his company for months have been at the center of a firestorm of controversy over the $15 billion network, which he said will slash consumers’ cellphone bills by more than a third. The row was set to continue this week when Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, testifies to a House Armed Services subcommittee.
The hearing will examine claims from the GPS industry that the LightSquared network — which uses a portion of the radio frequency spectrum adjacent to the one used by GPS devices - will interfere with the receivers used in its products, such as in-car navigation systems. The subcommittee also will hear from defense officials about any potential impact on military GPS navigation systems, such as those used in smart bombs.
At a congressional hearing this month, the government official in charge of maintaining the GPS system expressed concern about the impact of LightSquared’s planned network.
“LightSquared’s proposed system would create harmful interference [with GPS devices] throughout all three phases of its planned deployment,” Anthony Russo, director of the National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing, told the House Science Committee.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/sep/14/virginia-company-nears-breakthrough-in-nationwide-/
Democrat Party. The party of Misery, Violence and Hate.
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