In The News

In The News | Wall Street Journal | Holman W. Jenkins, Jr | December 7, 2018

Is Airwave Nimbyism Holding Back 5G?

Ligado Networks… offered giant concessions to the GPS industry in hopes of getting use out of the hostaged frequencies.

It greatly stepped down the power of its proposed devices. It essentially gifted a large swath of its spectrum to GPS users, making it a “guardian band” to protect their devices. GPS-device makers, to their credit, have been improving their products too. Understand: Low-power GPS users have no claim to the frequencies in question, but essentially occupied them anyway by being vulnerable to interference.

Many of Ligado’s original opponents, such as device makers Garmin and Trimble, have struck coexistence deals with Ligado. The U.S. Department of Transportation has accepted that Ligado’s new business plan doesn’t pose a threat to aviation users.

Read the full op-ed at the Wall Street Journal.