LightSquared asks to share weather-balloon spectrum for its LTE network

Embattled satellite carrier LightSquared proposed on Friday that the government let it share spectrum with federal uses such as weather balloons so it can get enough spectrum to launch its proposed national LTE mobile network.

LightSquared would give up on deploying LTE in one band of spectrum that it had been planning to use for that network before the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) moved to kill its plans over interference with GPS receivers. In the proposal it submitted on Friday, the company also offered to hold off on using the rest of that controversial spectrum until the FCC can carry out a rulemaking process that could take years.

The new plan would give the carrier 30MHz of frequencies on which to operate the LTE network. That's 10MHz less than it had wanted but still comparable to the amount of spectrum Verizon Wireless and AT&T are using for their LTE systems, which in most areas use just 20MHz.

What LightSquared wants to do is take one 5MHz band that it already uses for its satellite service (at 1670-1675MHz) and combine that with the next band up (1675-1680MHz), which is used for federal purposes including National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration weather balloons. The government could keep using that band, while LightSquared's LTE network would share it.

This would give LightSquared 10MHz for downstream traffic to customers' LTE devices. Another pair of bands that it uses for satellite now, which total 20MHz, would be used for LTE traffic going upstream from users' mobile devices.

//computerworld.com