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Vast coalition seeks reversal of Ligado Order

The same 91 signers also sent an identical letter to President Biden.

Dear Senators and Members of Congress: 

Last year, many of the undersigned wrote in reflection of the unprecedented opposition to the Federal Communications Commission’s (“FCC’s”) Ligado Order (1) across the vast federal and commercial user base of Global Positioning System (“GPS”), satellite communications, and weather forecasting services. Three years after adoption of the Order, as eight petitions for reconsideration remain pending, (2) we again 


 (1) Ligado Amendment to License Modification Applications, IBFS File Nos. SES-MOD-20151231-00981, SAT-MOD-20151231-00090, and SAT-MOD-20151231-00091, Order and Authorization, 35 FCC Rcd 3772 (2020) (“Ligado Order” or “Order”). 

(2) More than twenty parties in total signed petitions for reconsideration of the Ligado Order and all of these petitions remain pending before the FCC. See Petitions for Reconsideration of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration; the Air Line Pilots Association, International; the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation, and the Association of Equipment Manufacturers; the Joint Aviation Petitioners; Iridium Communications Inc., Flyht Aerospace Solutions Ltd., Aireon LLC, and Skytrac Systems Ltd.; Lockheed Martin Corporation; Trimble Inc.; and the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation, IB Docket Nos. 11-109 & 12-340 (all filed on or about May 22, 2020). The ten “Joint Aviation Petitioners” consist of the Aerospace Industries Association, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, Airlines for America, Aviation Spectrum Resources, Inc., the Cargo Airline Association, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, the urge you to work together with the FCC to stay and ultimately set aside the Order. (3) Critically, this is now necessitated by the crucial, previously unavailable information that was produced at the direction of Congress: the independent technical review undertaken by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (“NAS”) (4) analyzing the potential interference issues related to the Ligado Order. 


We greatly appreciate your administration’s opposition to the Ligado Order and commitment that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (“NTIA”), on behalf of the executive branch, will continue to actively pursue its petition for reconsideration of the Order. (5) As you know, the pending petitions for reconsideration convincingly demonstrate that the Ligado Order is legally and factually deficient. In the pending petitions, parties showed that the Ligado Order is fundamentally flawed, incompatible with the FCC’s rules, and inadequate in protecting incumbent services from the harmful interference from Ligado’s proposed operations. This substantial documentation, among many other concerns from federal and commercial users, resulted in Congress enacting bipartisan legislation in consecutive years after the FCC’s adoption of the Ligado Order, mandating NAS’s independent technical review and requiring the Department of Defense (“DoD”) to brief federal representatives across the government “at the highest level of classification” on the potential for widespread harm from Ligado’s proposed terrestrial operations. (6) On this basis alone, the FCC should stay the Order in an acknowledgement that it clearly did not account for the full, real-world risk of harm associated with a nationwide terrestrial deployment in the L-band. 

While the pending petitions have a strong likelihood of success on their own merits, the FCC’s rules and the public interest now require the FCC to reconsider the Order in response to the extensive analysis in the NAS Report.7 This new, previously unavailable information presented in the Congressionally-mandated independent technical review confirms that Ligado’s proposed terrestrial operations would cause harmful interference8 at significant ranges to incumbent L-band services across a broad range of deployment scenarios. This is consistent with the well-supported and robustly documented analyses and 


Helicopter Association International, the International Air Transport Association, the National Air Transportation Association, and the National Business Aviation Association. 

(3) The Commission should also not proceed with any companion rulemakings causing harmful interference to weather forecasting and hydrology services that could result in Ligado deployments, particularly in light of the analysis and recommendations presented in the “Spectrum Pipeline Reallocation 1675–1680 MHz Engineering Study (SPRES) Program Report. See Allocation and Service Rules for the 1675-1680 MHz Band, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, 34 FCC Rcd 3352 (2019); U.S. Department of Commerce. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. National Environmental Satellite Data Information Service. Spectrum Pipeline Reallocation 1675–1680 MHz Engineering Study (SPRES) Program Report. Silver Spring, MD: NESDIS, October 2020 (public release August 2022). 

(4) National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Analysis of Potential Interference Issues Related to FCC Order 20-48 (2022), https://doi.org/10.17226/26611 (“NAS Report”). 

(5) Letter from Gina Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce, U.S. Dept. of Commerce, to The Honorable James M. Inhofe, ranking member, U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services (June 22, 2021) (reiterating the NTIA’s position opposing the Ligado Order). 

(6) William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act (“NDAA”) for Fiscal Year 2021, Pub. L. 116-283, 134 Stat. 4074 § 1663; NDAA for Fiscal Year 2022, Pub. L. 117-81, 135 Stat. 1541 § 1613. 

(7) These statements are based on the publicly available portions of the NAS committee’s work. In addition, NAS prepared a classified annex, which further details the risks of Ligado’s proposed terrestrial network and additionally warrants FCC action. 

(8) The term “harmful interference” is herein used to describe the results of the NAS Report. In turn, the undersigned believe the results of the NAS Report dictate that the FCC must reach the legal conclusion that Ligado’s operations would cause harmful interference under the FCC’s rules.


determinations of the federal government, (9) including fourteen federal agencies and departments, (10) and commercial parties (11) alike. Importantly, as concisely stated by DoD and detailed in the NAS Report, “[t]he terrestrial network authorized by [the Ligado Order] will create unacceptable harmful interference for DoD missions. The mitigation techniques and other regulatory provision [sic] in [the Ligado Order] are insufficient to protect national security missions.”(12) 

The unequivocal conclusions of the NAS Report constitute the exact type of previously unavailable information that the FCC’s rules (13) dictate must be addressed on reconsideration. Indeed, NTIA stated on behalf of the executive branch that the NAS Report “offers the [FCC] an important opportunity to reconsider Ligado’s Authorization.”(14) We therefore urge you to work with the FCC to address the harm from Ligado’s proposed terrestrial network to critical GPS, satellite communications, and weather forecasting services by staying the Order, addressing the previously unavailable information contained in the NAS Report, and resolving the pending petitions for reconsideration. 

Sincerely, 

AccuWeather, Inc. 

Aerospace Industries Association 

Agricultural Retailers Association 

Airborne Public Safety Association 

Aircraft Electronics Association 

Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association 

Airlines for America 

Alabama Agricultural Aviation Association 

ALERT Users Group 

Allied Pilots Association 

Air Line Pilots Association, International 

American Geophysical Union 

American Meteorological Society 

American Rental Association 

American Road & Transportation Builders Association 

American Weather and Climate Industry Association 

Arizona Agricultural Aviation Association 

Arkansas Agricultural Aviation Association 

Associated Equipment Distributors 

Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International 

Association of Aerial Applicators Washington 

Association of Equipment Manufacturers 

Association of Marina Industries 

Association of Montana Aerial Applicators 

Aviation Spectrum Resources, Inc. 

BoatU.S. 

California Agricultural Aircraft Association 

Cargo Airline Association 

CNH Industrial 


(9) See, e.g., National Telecommunications and Information Administration Reply to Ligado Networks LLC’s Opposition to Petitions for Reconsideration or Clarification, IB Docket Nos. 11-109 & 12-340, at 10 n.26 (filed June 8, 2020); U.S. Department of Transportation, Global Positioning System (GPS) Adjacent Band Compatibility Assessment, Final Report (Apr. 2018) (“DOT ABC Report”), https://www.transportation.gov/pnt/global-positioning-system-gps-adjacent-band-compatibility-assessment. 

(10) See Memorandum from Thu Luu, Executive Agent for GPS, Department of the Air Force, to IRAC Chairman (Feb. 14, 2020). 

(11) See, e.g., Letter from J. David Grossman, Executive Director, GPSIA, to Marlene H. Dortch, Secretary, FCC, IB Docket Nos. 11-109 et al., at 6 (Sept. 17, 2020); Letter from Bryan N. Tramont, Counsel to Iridium Communications Inc., to Marlene H. Dortch, Secretary, Federal Communications Commission, IB Docket Nos. 11-109 et al. (Jan. 19, 2022); Update to 2016 Technical Assessment of Ligado User Terminal Interference to Iridium attached to Iridium Communications Inc. et al., Petition for Reconsideration, IB Docket Nos. 11-109 et al. ( May 22, 2020). 

(12) NAS Report at 6, 73. 

(13) 47 C.F.R. § 1.106(c)(2). 

(14) Press Release, NTIA, NTIA Statement on National Academies of Sciences Report (Sept. 9, 2022), https://ntia.gov/press-release/2022/ntia-statement-national-academies-sciences-report.  


Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations 

CoBank 

Colorado Agricultural Aviation Association 

EarthScope Consortium 

Florida Agricultural Aviation Association 

General Aviation Manufacturers Association 

GeoOptics, Inc. 

George Washington University 

Georgia Agricultural Aviation Association 

Helicopter Association International 

Idaho Agricultural Aviation Association 

Illinois Agricultural Aviation Association 

Indiana Agricultural Aviation Association 

International Air Transport Association 

Iowa Agricultural Aviation Association 

Iridium Communications Inc. 

Kansas Agricultural Aviation Association 

Land Improvement Contractors of America 

Lockheed Martin Corporation 

Louisiana Agricultural Aviation Association 

Marine Retailers Association of the Americas 

Michigan Agricultural Aviation Association 

Microcom Environmental 

Minnesota Agricultural Aircraft Association 

Mississippi Agricultural Aviation Association 

Missouri Agricultural Aviation Association 

Narayan Strategy 

National Agricultural Aviation Association 

National Air Carrier Association 

National Business Aviation Association 

National Cotton Council 

National Society of Professional Surveyors 

National Weather Association 

Nebraska Aviation Trades Association 

NetJets Association of Shared Aircraft Pilots 

New Mexico Agricultural Aviation Association 

North Carolina Agricultural Aviation Association 

North Dakota Agricultural Aviation Association 

Northeast Agricultural Aviation Association 

Ohio Agricultural Aviation Association 

Oklahoma Agricultural Aviation Association 

Oregon Agricultural Aviation Association 

Pacific Northwest Aerial Applicators Alliance 

PlanetiQ 

Recreational Boaters of California 

Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation 

Seafarers International Union 

South Dakota Aviation Association 

Southeast Aero Cultural Fair 

Space Science and Engineering Center at the 

University of Wisconsin-Madison 

Subsurface Utility Engineering Association 

Tennessee Aerial Applicators Association 

Texas Agricultural Aviation Association 

The Airo Group, Inc. 

The Semaphore Group 

Trimble Inc. 

U.S. Geospatial Executives Organization 

University Corporation for Atmospheric Research 

USA Rice 

Vertical Flight Society 

Westwind Helicopters 

Wisconsin Agricultural Aviation Association 

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