Globalstar Problems Seen Bad Sign for Other Satellite Spectrum Deals

Michael Calabrese was quoted in Communications Daily about the Globalstar spectrum proposal:

New America’s Open Technology Institute recently urged the FCC to authorize public use of Wi-Fi channel 14 in locations where Globalstar’s TLPS isn’t deployed and where Globalstar itself has found the transmissions create virtually no risk of harmful interference to its mobile satellite device customers. 

Michael Calabrese, representing the group, met with Erin McGrath, an aide to O’Rielly, according to a filing. “Globalstar is caught in a cross-current of opposition,” Calabrese told us Friday. “The two GOP commissioners are rightly repulsed by the International Bureau’s continued efforts to shovel corporate wel­fare at failing satellite licensees, when in fact the spectrum could be put to better use. Companies relying on Wi-Fi and Bluetooth fear TLPS could disrupt the existing unlicensed ecosystem at 2.4 GHz.” But public interest groups have proposed a “third way, which has been to move forward with trial deployments if there is a public interest dividend in the form of shared public access to the new Wi-Fi channel 14 made possible by the Globalstar waiver,” he said.

While Wheeler and O’Rielly “have been struggling to make that return to the public meaningful, Globalstar is insisting on controlling public access in a way that makes any meaningful public benefit un­likely,” Calabrese said.