• 08 Sep 2011 at 11:27 AM

So Harbinger-Backed LightSquared Might Mess With Hurricane Tracking, So What?

By

As you know, Harbinger Capital has a big bet going on a wireless company called LightSquared. Should it succeed, Phil Falcone will make billions and his investors will receive the triple digit returns they scored on subprime. Should it fail…it’s an outcome to dire to even think about but will most likely involve the Grammy-award winning Wilbur Falcone being forced to go back to playing Three-card monte in the UBS parking lot just to put food on the table. While LightSquared has so far encountered some opposition (as one often does when one is doing groundbreaking, visionary-esque work), the company has most recently been making the case that its satellite system will be huge for “coordinating enforcement and emergency response teams during natural disasters, like Hurricane Katrina.” According to various US agencies, it’d be the least they could do, as LS might screw up the tracking of future natural disasters.

Philip Falcone’s LightSquared wireless service needs more testing because it may degrade precision services that track hurricanes, guide farmers and help build flood defenses, Congress is being told today. LightSquared’s signals may disrupt precise gear that reads data from the satellite-based global-positioning system, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Transportation Department and a federal advisory body said in testimony prepared for a hearing by the House science committee.

“We support further testing of LightSquared’s proposal,” Mary Glackin, a deputy under secretary at NOAA, said in the testimony obtained by Bloomberg News before the hearing. Concerns include LightSquared’s potential effect on a satellite system that increases accuracy of hurricane tracking, Glackin said. Options for mitigating interference would be limited because the GPS satellites are in orbit and cannot be modified, she said.

According to LightSquared, Glackin and her friends can go fuck themselves.

“Everyone had nine months to do all the testing they wanted to do,” since the FCC issued preliminary approval in January, Chris Stern, a Washington-based spokesman for LightSquared, said in an interview. “If they want more testing they should be very specific about what exactly it is they want tested, because testing can always be just another delay tactic.”

If no one has any other (real) objections, step out of the way so they can do this thing.

LightSquared May Degrade Hurricane Tracking [Bloomberg]

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    Posted by FutureStratPartner | September 8, 2011 at 11:37 AM

    Pretending that 10mhz of spectrum is sufficient for an LTE network is the NKI.

    -Sprint

  2. 2
    Posted by Dr. Emmett Brown | September 8, 2011 at 11:43 AM

    Indeed. Everyone knows you need at least 1.21 gigawatts.

  3. 3
    Posted by Guest | September 8, 2011 at 11:46 AM

    Destabilizing National Emergency detectors, causing planes to fall out of the sky and police cars' communications to fail, what is this guy hedged with a short insurance industry position?

  4. 4
    Posted by Wilbur | September 8, 2011 at 11:46 AM

    Ugh! I'm never going to get that new Baby Grand Piano at this rate!!!!

  5. 5
    Posted by Guest | September 8, 2011 at 12:06 PM

    Dear Sir/Madam,

    Would you please add another objectionto the list? I'd like to blame Colony Collapse Disorder– or the spontaneous disappearance of the honey bee– on Light^2 too, just for good measure to make it a hat trick.

    Yours sincerely,
    The Hon. E. B. Colony
    Chairman of the Apiarist Society

  6. 6
    Posted by Blah Blah | September 8, 2011 at 12:14 PM

    Well having 10 mega hers of specturm is actually quite a lot. If it is enough to handle 10 women yapping, then it surely can handle 250M calls per second.
    -BSC Quant

  7. 7
    Posted by early_hominid | September 8, 2011 at 12:18 PM

    In response to Mr. Stern's demand for specifics, Ms. Glackin alluded to an earlier test of the technology that did not degrade NOAA's precision satellite services, but did remotely engage NOAA's flexible energy and plumbing systems to first set fire to the Administration's main offices then extinguish the flames by squirting liquefied human shit through the ceiling sprinklers.

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    Posted by wahoo | September 8, 2011 at 12:34 PM

    You don't know shit about blowing hard, Irene.

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  9. 9
    Posted by Charles S | September 8, 2011 at 12:35 PM

    If NOAA needs 'precise, satellite gear' to identify a giant frickin' hurricane approaching the US, they should all be fired.

    Howzabout looking at the window or calling Nassau? Or the Cayman funds? #DuhWinning!

  10. 10
    Posted by GentlemanTrader | September 8, 2011 at 12:53 PM

    I KNOW, right?!?!?

    -L.M. Falcone

  11. 11
    Posted by Anonymous | September 8, 2011 at 1:37 PM

    Chris (Phil/Wilbur): Would your investors prefer a "delay tactic" or an outright NO to LightSquared operations?
    Mary (the terrible) Glackin

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    Hearing about the problems Phil is having trying to build a state of the art communication network only validates my theory that the easiest way to make money is the old fashioned way – to steal it.

    -Gumby, who wants to let the feds know that if he gets jammed up, he's holding court in the street.

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