The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports on LightSquared’s plan to create a new cell- and satellite-phone system, a local story for the paper since Minnesota-born billionaire Philip Falcone is behind the company and Best Buy has agreed to sell the service. Manufacturers and other companies are concerned that LightSquared’s approach will interfere with Global Positioning System devices that are so critical to transportation, supply chains and consumer products.

From “Smartphone network is aiming sky-high“:

GPS and LightSquared are in adjacent parts of the electromagnetic spectrum,” said Brian Raymond, director of technology policy for the National Association of Manufacturers in Washington, D.C. That could cause GPS signals to be “drowned out” within 4 miles of a LightSquared tower, he said. For aircraft, the interference extends as high as 12 miles above a tower, he said.

As a result, the GPS industry opposes LightSquared through a group called the “Coalition to Save Our GPS,” and has received verbal support from the U.S. Air Force Space Command that operates the GPS satellites. About 500 million GPS units are in use in the United States, the coalition said. GPS chips are widely used in smartphones, but also are used in industrial equipment as varied as aircraft and farm tractors and in cars and boats.

The NAM is a member of the Coalition to Save Our GPS.

The National Association of Manufacturers is one of the founding members of the Coalition to Save Our GPS, a new group dedicated to ensuring the reach and effectiveness of the Global Positioning System.

From the news release,”‘Coalition to Save Our GPS’ Launched,”

WASHINGTON, March 10, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ – Representatives from a wide variety of industries and companies announced today that they have joined together to form the “Coalition to Save Our GPS” to resolve a serious threat to the Global Positioning System (GPS) – a national utility upon which millions of Americans rely every day.

The threat stems from a recent highly unusual decision by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to grant a conditional waiver allowing the dramatic expansion of terrestrial use of the satellite spectrum immediately neighboring that of GPS, potentially causing severe interference to millions of GPS receivers. The conditional waiver was granted to a company called LightSquared.

A representative of one of the founding members of the coalition, Trimble Vice President and General Counsel Jim Kirkland, will testify on this issue on Friday, March 11 before the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science of the House Appropriations Committee.

“GPS is essential to Americans every day – it’s in our cars, the airplanes in which we fly and the ambulances, police cars and fire trucks that help keep us safe. It’s also used in many industrial applications and even synchronizes our wireless, computer and utility networks,” the group said in a statement.  “LightSquared’s plans to build up to 40,000 ground stations transmitting radio signals one billion times more powerful than GPS signals as received on earth  could mean 40,000 ‘dead spots’ – each miles in diameter – disrupting the vitally important services GPS provides.” (continue reading…)

The Washington Times today editorializes on the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) latest act of reality-ignoring arrogance, a proposal to mandate reflective window glazings on vehicles to keep the vehicle insides cool. Turns out the materials block GPS and wireless signals and would add about $250 to the cost of each car and light truck.

From “Unhealthy CARB“:

The problem is that the new windows would reflect radio waves, thus highly compromising the use of GPS units, garage-door openers, laptop computers, satellite radio systems, parolee ankle bracelets, wireless medical equipment and cell phones. CARB admits the mandate would interfere with radio signals but is poised to promulgate the new rule later this month anyway. A 15-day public comment period would follow, during which alert consumers could overwhelm the bureaucrats with objections. …

The rule would be particularly infuriating because it’s unnecessary. Manufacturers have offered at least two other nonmetallic methods – using light-absorbing materials rather than reflecting materials – to reduce the warming effect of sunlight on cars. Those methods do not interfere with radio signals and are cheaper.

The San Diego Union Tribune earlier weighed in on the regulation, calling the CARB’s actions both farcical and a travesty. In its editorial, “Common sense-less,” the paper quotes veteran auto-industry analyst Drew Winter:

CARB regulators don’t know anything about the business of building and selling vehicles and only care about improving fuel economy. Unlike automotive engineers, they are not required to care about safety, durability, customer satisfaction or unintended consequences…

CARB regulators have forced positive change in the auto industry with tough regulatory actions for the past 30 years, but this new strategy of telling auto engineers how to hit fuel-economy targets in addition to mandating them is bizarre and potentially dangerous. CARB needs to give up trying to design vehicles or be stopped before its arrogance and ignorance cause real harm.

Of course. Everyone knows that designing cars is a job best left to Congress and the EPA.

From George Ou at Digital Society, “California vehicle standard blocks cell, radio, and GPS“:

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) just passed a new regulation that requires glazed glass in automobiles that is supposed to reduce the need to use air conditioning.  The catch is that the same properties that block electromagnetic sunlight radiation also blocks lower frequency electromagnetic radio waves.  That means radios, satellite radios, GPS, garage door openers, and cell phones will be severely degraded.  Even more surprising is that it requires this glass even for jeeps that have soft covers, plastic windows, and no air conditioning.  Furthermore, the rules are so stringent that they effectively make sunroofs black, even though many consumers use the covers.

Here’s some background on CARB.  This is the same group of regulators who passed a controversial regulation that would require completely new diesel engines which will cause the state tremendous economic loss, and the same group who mandated the costly use of carcinogenic MTBE in California’s reformulated gasoline.

Meanwhile, the California State Energy Commission is getting ready to ban larger flatscreen televisions because of their energy consumption. But there surely will be no unintended consequences from this latest regulatory fiat, right? (continue reading…)