New GPS lobbying group moves on from LightSquared battle

A coalition of GPS companies will launch a new lobbying organization — the GPS Innovation Alliance — on Wednesday.

The founding members will be GPS-makers Deere, Garmin and Trimble.

The group grew out of the Coalition to Save Our GPS, an organization devoted to defeating wireless network startup LightSquared. The new group will lobby on a broader array of issues that affect the GPS industry.

LightSquared invested billions of dollars in its plan to build a nationwide 4G cellphone network relying on frequencies near the ones used by GPS companies. The GPS industry argued that LightSquared would interfere with their devices and lobbied federal regulators to block the plan.

Last year, after fierce lobbying on both sides of the issue, the Federal Communications Commission pulled LightSquared's authority to operate its network, concluding there was no practical way to prevent the interference problem.

The new GPS Innovation Alliance will focus on protecting GPS devices from interference and will work to educate policymakers about the value of allocating spectrum for satellite-based services like GPS.

"Policy makers should not simply assume that high powered terrestrial mobile broadband is the 'highest and best' use of all spectrum," the group wrote in a presentation being circulated on Capitol Hill.

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