Hi Bob(s),
I think the difference here is that, continuing the headphone analogy, the headphone manufacturers created a line of very popular lightweight headphones at an affordable price, knowing that the environment they were going to be used in were to be music rooms and other places with quiet surroundings. Now LightSquared wants to come in and build a rock crushing plant in the adjacent room. That invalidates a base design criteria for the headphones. Certainly they would have designed noise cancelling headphones if they knew that the adjacent music room was zoned for rock crushers, but that's not what the landlord told them.
I saw a better analogy on the CNET website (Reporters Roundtable), where the poster likened it to a zoning violation. As I understand it, the spectrum adjacent to the GPS band is also (zoned) for satellite communication, which if LightSquared had kept to their original satellite-based business plan would have worked out just fine. Instead they've changed business plans, and feel they have a right to use the spectrum they own in a different (incompatible) way. We all know that the laws of physics don't work that way, and thankfully the FCC decided not to ignore them it this time.
Good design principles should consider all factors, including both performance and cost. Clearly one CAN build better GPS receivers, but that doesn't mean that they need to, or even should. If Henry Ford hadn't built the Model-T, I bet our highway system would look a whole lot different today.
Greg KO6TH
On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 4:30 PM, Robert McGwier [email protected] wrote:
In this case that would be wrong. The headphone manufacturers complained that good foam costs too much and were allowed to get away with tissue paper and now everyone pays for allowing lobbyists and lawyers run the FCC and ignore good design principles On Feb 29, 2012 3:01 PM, "Bob Bruninga" [email protected] wrote:
I finally figured out a good analogy about the LightSquared and GPS
fiasco.
There is a "music room" where people can go and, with headphones, listen
to
their own music. No one disturbs anyone else. Everyone is happy.
A LightSquared rock band comes into the room and begins to play at max volume, and then insists there should be no problem because the
headphones
work just fine in providing the isolation between what each person is listening to.
Therefore the interference to everyone in the room is not their fault,
but
the fault of the Headphone Manufacturers!
Bob, WB4APR
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