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Several months ago, we featured a blog post that went into concerns that a company’s cell phone frequencies would interfere with GPS frequencies in the airwaves. We concluded that the situation was ongoing, and we promised to report again.

Well, here we are a few months later. The situation is still unresolved. The company, LightSquared, is still not backing down. LightSquared, in a fairly recent development, has now reined FCC approval to build a network.

LightSquared, a voice and data service, will primarily use the cell towers in order to keep its customers connected. However, when the cell towers are not fully operational, the company will rely on satellites.

Herein lies the problem: if LightSquared uses satellite frequencies that conflict with GPS satellites (as they currently intend to use), then the GPS satellites will have interference.

Some cynics believe that this will cause the ultimate demise of GPS, as the conflicts will eventually become too great. While we don’t believe that is true — GPS is here to stay — we think it is certainly worth considering.

Coalition to Save Our GPS has been founded by the GPS industry. On their website, located at http://saveourgps.org, the GPS industry provides a number of white papers and information about the issue.

Article Written by Greg Minton