Ligado Deployment Could Come Late Next Year, CEO Says

Senate Armed Services “is working on holding a hearing on [DOD] spectrum policy and equities and the risk of Ligado’s proposal poses to GPS,” which is expected during the “middle of next week,” a committee aide told us Tuesday. A final date and witnesses hadn’t been decided Wednesday, another Hill aide said. Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., ranking member Jack Reed, D-R.I., and their House counterparts publicly declared their opposition to Ligado’s plans and are exploring legislative options to intervene (see 2004230001). It's still not certain the hearing will happen next week given continued questions about whether Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., will decide to not bring the chamber back into regular session amid COVID-19, lobbyists said.

Senate Armed Services is contemplating including testimony only from DOD officials at their hearing, lobbyists said. Smith confirmed neither Ligado nor the FCC has been invited to testify. The DOD officials the committee is eyeing to appear include Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Jay Raymond, Chief Information Officer Dana Deasy and Defense Undersecretary-Research and Engineering Michael Griffin, lobbyists said. All four officials contributed to DOD’s opposition to Ligado’s plan.

"It's unfortunate we even have to think about" the possibility of legislative action or litigation, Smith said. "Once you sweep away all the rhetoric and politics around this, the science and the math unequivocally supports the FCC decision." He hopes "Congress upholds their faith in the FCC." Hill opponents are considering attaching anti-Ligado language into the FY 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, among other legislative vehicles. House Armed Services Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., and ranking member Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, said they believe the pandemic "will certainly affect how the Committee marks up the FY21 NDAA and how the House considers it on the floor. We are discussing those details and consulting" with the chamber's leaders.

"If we get to a point where the engineering and the science" underlying the FCC's decision "gets thrown out the window, then I think you run some real potential problems with the value of future auctions," said House Commerce Committee ranking member Greg Walden, R-Ore., in an interview: If DOD and other Ligado opponents prevail then "every agency is going to" challenge future license applications if it affects their systems. Walden said Tuesday he's backing the FCC on Ligado (see 2004280071). NDAA "has special privileges in the House" to expedite its passage, but "those privileges have always been built on the understanding of the other authorizing committees that [DOD] would stay in its lanes," he said. "We've had some issues in the past in this space," including during work on the FY 2020 NDAA (see 1909180048).

There's no clear path for Ligado opponents to enact a legislative remedy either via NDAA or another vehicle, lobbyists said. The Armed Services committees' leaders may be publicly opposed to the plan, but it's unclear whether the committees' other members will back anything beyond oversight of the issue, lobbyists said. They said Walden's support for the FCC's decision is significant. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., is reviewing the dispute (see 2004240044). The Armed Services committees would likely need to get sign-off from their Commerce colleagues to smooth the path for legislation, lobbyists said. House Armed Services and House Commerce didn't comment.

Ligado plan opponents "are certainly very protective of the GPS system, as they should be," Smith said. "We know the importance of GPS to our country and would never want to create issues there." He said the satellite firm hasn't received any information directly from the Pentagon and other agencies that raised objections to its plan but would hope to discuss technical issues directly. The company "will live up to" its conditions to address any problems with its proposed terrestrial low-power broadband system, "but our opponents have an obligation to share the information with us," he said. Opponents seeking legislation "are using a political process instead of an engineering or science-based process," he said.

DOD responded to a request for comment by pointing to Defense Secretary Mark Esper's November letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai (see 1911210055) and its assertion that Ligado's proposal has too many risks and threatens too much danger to GPS operations.

Asked about the likelihood of a merger or acquisition, Smith said the company's focus is on getting the spectrum deployed for 5G. The business expects to have submissions for the standards process before the 3rd Generation Partnership Project in May or June, he said. Ligado has been working with companies including Nokia and Ericsson on infrastructure buildout so there can be devices enabled for the band, Smith said. The company also is working on satellite infrastructure for its narrowband 5G IoT service, he said.