How About Them High-Precision GPS Receiver Tests?

Consider this your LightSquared daily double, as I also have a story in our news section on the company and tests on whether its network will interfere with GPS receivers.

Tests already have been completed on the kinds of receivers used by the general public and cell phone chips, but, as I reported last Friday, LightSquared still has not submitted for testing filters the company claims will reduce interference with GPS receivers used for surveying and precision farming.

Jeff Carlisle, LightSquared's executive vice president for regulatory affairs and public policy, told me today that he expects high-precision receiver tests to begin next month.

Dean Bunce, Ground Segment Lead for the FAA's GPS-based Wide Area Augmentation System who serves as the co-chair of the National Positioning, Navigation and Timing Engineering (PNT) Forum, which represents federal agencies involved in the GPS tests, said in a presentation at a Stanford University navigation conference Nov. 17 that he does not expect those tests to begin until next spring.

If this is the case, the LightSquared saga will last longer than some television sitcoms, minus the laughs.