That is apparently the position of LightSquared, which is blaming the fact that their signals would interfere with tens of millions of GPS units on those GPS units.
Their suggestion is that we all should replace our GPS units with "better" ones (and pay for that ourselves) and get out of LightSquared's way of making a shitload of money. I gather that the FCC agrees with them, because the FCC has been in LightSquared's corner from the start.
When you get down to the core, the "fuck you if it costs you money" is basically the business model of a lot of companies: Make a shitload of money and stick society with the costs of dealing with the side effects of the business. Whether the exploding Jeep Cherokees and Pintos, BP's decades of safety and environmental fuckery, Massey Coal, or polluting the land, air and water, that is what a lot of companies do.
UPDATE: Apparently LightSquared's transmitters would fuck up hundreds of millions of GPS units.
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This is the same FCC that sais BPL (broadband over power lines) would not cause interference.. it did. The FCC got the butts handed to them by a federal judge for hiding data over that.
This is a bit more complex. The GPS receivers became ubiquitous when they were made low cost. adding the needed capability to reject strong adjacent signals costs, means larger and more power. So applications that are possible because of near micro power are lost till someone figures out how to do it again and same for cheap.
The serious issue is all the hardware in use that could be compromised in aviation and other critical use applications that will have to be replaced or upgraded (both military and civil) is staggering.
In the end all license holders are obligated to one standard that is universal, the transmitters use must not cause interference to other licensed operations.
Stay tuned as the Light squared license is still provisional.
Eck!
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