The following statement may be attributed to Free State Foundation Director of Policy Studies & Senior Fellow Seth Cooper:
Now that the National Academies of Sciences has completed its review of the FCC's 2020 order that authorizes Ligado Networks to operate mobile-satellite services in the L-band, NTIA hopefully will constructively work with Ligado to identify any old equipment owned by DOD that might need replacing. The FCC's order from April 2020, which was based on careful technical analysis, anticipated the possibility that some older equipment might need to be replaced due to harmful signal interference and it outlined a process for handling that. Importantly, the NAS study expressly states that it was not an evaluation of the FCC's decision from April 2020, and it has no legal operative effect. Executive branch agencies and members of Congress should not overread the NAS study's statements or miss the key point that the study acknowledged that most commercial GPS receivers will not experience significant harmful interference from Ligado's operations.
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