LightSquared looks to appease public safety

Looking to maintain its position with the public safety community, LightSquared said it plans to replace current devices at no cost and continue to support older devices through 2014. Those current services and devices were deployed during LightSquared’s previous incarnation as SkyTerra.
In addition to the devices, LightSquared said it plans to work with public safety agencies to design devices that are compatible with the company’s plans for a LTE-based terrestrial/satellite network that will include both ruggedized construction and push-to-talk capabilities, and continue to support the Satellite Mutual Aid Radio Talkgroup program.
LightSquared said its service will continue to have full interoperability with multiple public safety networks and that it has formed an emergency rapid response team that will travel to areas to assist first responders. LightSquared has said the terrestrial part of the network will cover at least 260 million potential customers by the end of 2015, with the satellite portion providing near-nationwide coverage.
LightSquared has been very aggressive in courting different industry segments for its proposed network, which the company plans to offer access on through a wholesale business model. Those network plans have seen some resistance from the GPS community, which claims the spectrum used for the service interferes with commercial GPS services.