Ligado sues DoD, Commerce for $39B in long-running spectrum saga

[Elderberry]

Breaking Defense by Theresa Hitchens 10/13/2023

The lawsuit is the latest in a decade-spanning battle between Ligado and opponents in government.

 Ligado Networks today sued the federal government of $39 billion, alleging that officials at the Departments of Defense and Commerce took “unlawful actions” to, in effect, improperly seize without compensation the firm’s L-band spectrum granted by the Federal Communications Commission in 2020 over department objections.

“The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims against the United States, the Defense Department, the Commerce Department and NTIA, seeks just compensation for the government’s physical, categorical, regulatory and legislative takings of Ligado’s property,” the company said in a press release.

First reported by the Wall Street Journal, the legal action is the latest move in what has been a decades-long saga involving bankruptcies, corporate restructuring, allegations of malfeasance, a plethora of suits and countersuits, government-company duels over the results of scientific studies, and high-level congressional politics.

The current episode of the drama dates to the controversial 2020 FCC decision that one source with ties to the case described as a “rezoning” of spectrum allocated to satellite users for a planned 5G terrestrial cell phone network — overriding concerns from DoD, Commerce, and other federal entities that Ligado’s plans would interfere with GPS receivers.

It also comes as Ligado faces the prospects of defaulting on some $4 billion in loans and bonds that come due next month, telecommunications industry analyst Tim Farrar, of Telecom, Media and Finance Associates, told Breaking Defense.

“The debt holders have got to decide whether to give them an extension or whether to put them into bankruptcy, and I guess there’s definitely different considerations that come into play there. Like, for example, bankruptcy is a quite an expensive proposition,” he said.

More: https://breakingdefense.com/2023/10/ligado-sues-dod-commerce-for-39b-in-long-running-spectrum-saga/

[PeteS in CA]

The L Band is from 1GHz to 2GHz. Since the US military already uses frequencies much higher (4, 5, 10, and 15 GHz, that I am aware of), what is probably going on here is that the military has been using the L Band for a long time, probably even doing the R & D and work to make the L Band commercially viable. This happens a lot, and after some time of military use, the FCC "steals" what the military made usable and assigns higher frequency microwave bands that are not yet commercially usable. So, the military has probably been using the L Band for a long time, and may either be appealing the reassignment or has a lot of equipment to migrate, resulting in delays Ligado doesn't appreciate.

FWIW, a previous employer is a military contractor, where I worked on microwave power modules (MPMs) (specifically, the high voltage power supply sections of the MPMs). The information I posted above is so not secret that some or all of it is on the company's website.

[Elderberry]

My work on microwaves was so long ago, my memory can't call up much of my work on Radar and IFF back in the tube days.

[PeteS in CA]

When it comes to high power and high GHz, tubes - e.g. klystrons and TWTs - still dominate.