Russell Hall, London cabbie and founder of Black Cab calling service Hailo, gives us the pitch.
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has said that it plans to indefinitely suspend a conditional waiver that would permit LightSquared to build a ground-based LTE network using satellite spectrum. The decision was made following a recommendation from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which said that it performed a “substantial amount of testing and analysis” regarding LightSquare’s plans and the impact they would have on GPS services.
LightSquared, the aspiring US LTE carrier, has received a hammer blow to its hopes of shaking up the US market with a wholesale LTE network from a damning report released last week by the executive committee for Space-based Positioning Navigation & Timing (PNT).
A project to provide Europe with more reliable satellite navigation technology is nearing fruition after the European Commission (EC) announced that the first two satellite-navigation spacecraft are ready for launch.
In July, O2UK launched a location-based loyalty and retention scheme offering its customers discounts and deals from 30 partners from the fashion, leisure and retail sectors. The launch builds on existing loyalty and location-marketing initiatives from O2, which is among the most advanced carriers in the world in terms of location.
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Philip Falcone, manager of hedge fund Harbinger Investments, which funds US wholesale LTE/satellite player LightSquared, has hit back at the US interest group the Coalition to Save our GPS, claiming that interference problems are the fault of incumbent GPS users, and not of LightSquared. In an interview with US broadcaster CNBC, Falcone said that existing GPS users did not apply the “proper filtering” to their devices and that “we’re not interfering with them; they’re interfering with us.”
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Whichever way you cut it, it’s not been a good week for US LTE-satellite mash-up LightSquared. The firm has been under pressure over the likelihood that the satellite element of its game will interfere with GPS systems. Early in the week LightSquared announced its intention to switch spectrum bands so that its operations would be “further away from the GPS frequencies, greatly reducing the risk for interference.”
Greenfield operator LightSquared’s woes look set to continue, with news that a US House of Representative’s committee has passed a bill blocking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from granting the would-be wholesaler a waiver it needs to move forward.
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US-based LTE wholesale carrier LightSquared has been granted a two week extension on its deadline to file a report on whether it is able to build out its network without interfering with GPS signals.
US wholesale carrier LightSquared’s proposed mobile network does cause interfere with local GPS signals, a US government agency has confirmed. The news comes as a blow to LightSquared, which is hoping to be a disruptive force in US telecoms space by offering a country-wide LTE network on a wholesale basis for third-parties to run services over.