"ITS A CRISIS SOMEONE IS GOING TO DIE IF WE DON'T ACT NOW!

Apparently LightSquared lobbyists have been unsuccessful in getting the laws of physics repealed, and have now shifted to the "Its a crisis, someone is going to die if we don't act now" tactic to attempt to entice the FCC to rule in their favor.

In an article in Urgent Communications Jeff Carlisle, LightSquared’s executive vice president for regulatory affairs and public policy, warned the public safety industry,  “The satellite company, in and of itself, is not sustainable over the long term — we know that,” Carlisle said. “It’s too small of a market to support the capital investment needed to launch a new satellite every 15 years. This is why you see a lot of satellite companies that have gone through restructuring.”  he then goes on to warn, "As long as we have a viable business, we will always be committed to our public-safety solutions,” . . . “We’ve got cutting-edge technology that nobody else has, and we’ll continue to be committed to that. Hopefully, we’ll be able to find our way through this thicket and make sure that this capability will be provided into the future.”  One presumes that Carlisle was referring to the push to talk satellite service that public safety agencies sometimes depend on, but but if you carefully read Carlisle's comments I am not sure that is what he means at all.


But none the less, the message is clear, LightSquared is clearly using the "ITS A CRISIS someone is going to die if we don't act now" tactic in an attempt to coerce the public safety industry and their unions to lobby for LightSquared.  


In reality, LightSquared has lost the technical argument (the facts), lost the legal argument, and has now entered the speak loudly an forcefully part of their campaign to get their spectrum repurposed!


I know LightSquared doesn't particularly like to answer practical questions about its network deployment but here are two questions, relative to the push to talk satellite argument they are now making, I am posing  to LightSquared:


1. How is the low powered push to talk satellite system used by public safety going to co-exist in a high powered (relatively) terrestrial based LTE network, without having those pesky laws of physic's repealed?


2.  When LightSquared's terrestrial network is fully deployed and operational why would LightSquared continue to invest millions every 15 years to launch a new satellite to support a market that LightSquared has admitted is ". . . too small of a market to support the capital investment needed to launch a new satellite every 15 years."? 


Marc