LightSquared Faces Congress, Amends Plan
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/239727/lightsquared_faces_congress_amends_plan.html
LightSquared is a company designed to “unleash the boundless opportunity of wireless broadband connectivity for all.” They intend to do so with a hybrid 4G-LTE (Long Term Evolution) and satellite broadband system that would provide high speed wireless to the United States.
The fundamentals of this company’s business are based in networks as they are trying to produce a service that could become one of the largest networks in the world. But, the hurdles keeping them from accomplishing this goal are in fact related to another network concept: game theory. Currently, the biggest issue preventing the approval of the system by the necessary government authorities is its potential to disrupt GPS devices, most notably, high precision ones used by US government authorities and the military.
The lower band spectrum that LightSquared would like to utilize is currently being tested against 130 products that it could potentially disrupt. Assuming that a reasonable number of devices are interrupted, LightSquared and in turn the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), are faced with a series of payoffs depending on how much the spectrum is allowed to intrude on other products. At various levels of interruption, there will be costs to the GPS industry and various government agencies that utilize the high precision GPS devices. Furthermore, it is unknown who exactly would bear these costs. However, LightSquared profits will depend directly on how powerful the network is allowed to be, since a more powerful network would result in higher speeds and greater coverage.
LightSquared, having already invested billions in technology and licensing fees, has chosen to continue to lobby the US government and has submitted new proposals claiming limited interruptions to GPS devices. Since they have already invested so much, it would result in a negative payoff if they simply choose the option to give up. Jeff Carlisle, an Executive Vice President of LightSquared, claims that “this is not a zero-sum game.” He believes there is a scenario where the net benefit to all parties involved is positive. The big question is how the costs and profits would be divided amongst the players.