Hasta La Gadget!

Following a navigation system’s instructions without driving into a ravine is hard enough as it is — can you even imagine how hard it’d be if you kept losing GPS reception every time you drove within range of an LTE tower? There have been a few anecdotal concerns raised over the last several weeks that LightSquared’s proposed LTE network — which would repurpose L-band spectrum formerly used for satellite — is too close to the spectrum used by the Global Positioning System, leading to unintentional jamming when the towers overpower the much weaker GPS signals. Things have gotten a little more interesting, though, now that the US Air Force Space Command has officially piped in. General William Shelton has gone on record saying that “a leading GPS receiver manufacturer just … has concluded that within 3 to 5 miles on the ground and within about 12 miles in the air GPS is jammed by those towers,” calling the situation “unbelievable” and saying he’s “hopeful the FCC does the right thing.”

Presumably, the USAF thinks that “the right thing” would involve pulling LightSquared’s license, but for its part, the company says it believes Shelton is referring to a test conducted by Garmin (possibly explaining that recent outage in the Southeastern US?) using simulated interference filters — not the actual filters that it has spent several million dollars developing and perfecting. Regardless of how effective the filters might be, the idea that the only thing standing between a functional GPS system and a constellation of space-borne paperweights is a private company’s privately-developed, privately-operated filtering equipment… but then again, we love LTE. Decisions!

[Thanks, Brian]

US Air Force raises concerns over LightSquared’s LTE network messing with GPS originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 Feb 2011 22:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Audi’s had grand designs on the connected car for years now, and is presently looking to upgrade to LTE, but first it’s time to address the most important consideration — marketing the stuff effectively. To that end, Audi’s unifying its infotainment initiatives under the brand Audi Connect, so it will be absolutely clear how you can pimp your ride with tech when you walk into an Audi dealership. That is, if you don’t already have Audi Connect, because the company claims it’s already present in the A8, A7 and A6. Those three automobiles can presently add an optional UMTS modem for online apps, though Audi’s also working with Alcatel-Lucent to bring faster LTE connectivity by 2014. Expect a software update sooner than that: this summer, Audi hopes to add live traffic data and voice commands to control a suite of Google services as well. Find more details at our source links.

Audi starts calling its vehicular broadband plans ‘Audi connect,’ partners with Alcatel for LTE internet originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Feb 2011 04:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve already heard Sprint do some talking about LTE at Mobile World Congress this week, but the company’s Senior Vice President of Networks, Bob Azzi, has now gone even further in an interview with PC World, where he seems to have suggested that a switch to LTE is all but inevitable. In fact, Azzi is reported to have said that “with the spectrum holdings we have, WiMAX is not an option,” and he further went on to note that even with Sprint’s majority stake in Clearwire, it still only has “indirect ownership” of Clearwire’s spectrum holdings. So what’s it going to do? Azzi suggested that an LTE network which complements its current WiMAX network might be the answer, and he even suggested that we could see tri-band LTE phones with a WiMAX radio “velcroed on.” He did, of course, point out that no decision has been made just yet, simply stating that “the question is how to keep growing,” and that “it’s about having a plan.”

Sprint talks seriously about LTE, suggests it could complement WiMAX originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Feb 2011 14:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LightSquared has faced something of an uphill battle in getting its wholesale 4G LTE network off the ground — even including accusations that it’s a threat to national security — but it looks like it’s having fairly good luck attracting some customers. According to Chief Marketing Officer Frank Boulben, LightSquared has signed agreements with five companies so far, including two carriers, one website, a national retailer, and a device manufacturer — none of which it’s able to name, of course. Boulben also revealed that the company, which plans to compete with the likes of Verizon, AT&T and Clearwire, is finished raising money for the “short term,” and that it plans to begin trials later this year in Las Vegas, Baltimore, Denver and Phoenix once it finishes its lab testing in Dallas.

LightSquared says it has signed up five companies for its wholesale LTE service originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sprint has had an on again / off again relationship with LTE for some time now, but it looks it may finally be nearing a commitment one way or the other. Speaking in a roundtable discussion at Mobile World Congress this week, Sprint’s Senior Vice President of Networks, Bob Azzi, said that the carrier would be studying the rate at which its customers migrate from EV-DO to mobile WiMAX over the next four to six months, and that it would evaluate the best way to use its existing spectrum before it reaches a firm decision on a possible switch to LTE. As we’ve heard previously, that switch would be a fairly straightforward one from a technical standpoint due to the carrier’s recent upgrades to its network, which allow it to upgrade its gear to LTE simply by swapping in a new baseband card and issuing a software patch.

Sprint evaluating switch to LTE over the next four to six months originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 15:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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