Ligado Plans Trial Network To Demonstrate Satellite/Terrestrial Mid-Band Use
One of Ligado's next aims is setting up a trial network to demonstrate terrestrial and satellite shared use of mid-band spectrum, CEO Doug Smith said in a blog post Monday. "This would be one of the earliest American demonstrations of…
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an advanced next-generation network and could kick-start our mission to serve the information explosion that comes in 5G," Smith said on the day of the deadline for comments in the public notice on Ligado's proposed license modifications that would have it abandon any planned 1545-1555 MHz terrestrial downlink use (see 1604250019). With FCC approval of Ligado's plans for mid-band spectrum, "We can create a model of at least a partial 5G network -- a next-generation, hybrid satellite-terrestrial network -- that will enable 5G use cases and mobile applications that require ultra-reliable, highly-secure and pervasive connectivity," Smith said. Those modifications and power limits are among the steps Ligado has taken "to ensure satellites using other mid-band spectrum can still successfully send signals to smartphones, GPS devices and specialized industrial equipment that rely on that data," Smith said on the blog. The company said the parameters and power limit agreement struck with Deere, Garmin and Trimble point to GPS users and manufacturers not facing any Ligado interference. "Significantly, cellular devices and consumer devices representing the vast majority of the GPS market are not adversely impacted by our planned deployment," Smith said. Ligado's license modification proposal is seeing some opposition. "We have a major concern that the receivers out in the field will be affected by the Ligado signals close to L1 band as they are from our receiver point-of-view in-band interference," especially minus surface acoustic wave (SAW) filtering, U-blox America said in a filing Friday in the docket. The global navigation satellite system component maker also volunteered to provide GPS receivers for more testing involving passive antennas, no external SAW and OEM receivers without integrated SAW. It also is receiving some outside backing. James Kirkland, Trimble Navigation general counsel, called Wireless Bureau Associate Chief Charles Mathias to talk about Trimble's support of Ligado's LTE plans, said an ex parte filing Friday in docket 12-340. According to Trimble, Kirkland said Ligado has agreed to technical parameters and other conditions that are "a reasonable compromise relative to the important competing policy considerations raised by Ligado's previous proposals."