Agencies' Memo Not Their Final Word on Ligado: Iridium

The Commerce, NASA and DOD memo Ligado submitted to the FCC (see 2108030054) "plainly recognized" that Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee (IRAC) and the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Executive Committee (PNTEC) hadn't reached a decision about the feasibility of its terrestrial low power service plans, Iridium said in docket 12-340 Thursday. The memo instead designates the proposed uplinks to IRAC and the lower 10 MHz to PNTEC for review, and wasn't final agency input on Ligado's plans, Iridium said. Iridium said the 2013 email Ligado filed from then principal director within the DOD Office of Chief Information Officer mischaracterized the memo. The memo "clearly" shows interference effects from Ligado's uplinks to GPS, and the memo itself is irrelevant to the pending reconsideration petitions of the 2020 Ligado approval, it said. Ligado didn't comment.