Deere, LightSquared Agreement Far-Reaching
A legal and regulatory settlement this week between John Deere and LightSquared includes ending legal claims against Deere by a former LightSquared investor and specific handset and base station power and out-of-band-emission (OOBE) limits. An ex parte filing posted Wednesday in FCC docket 12-340 includes a copy of the 15-page settlement agreement and mutual release announced by the two companies Tuesday (see 1512080022). Deere said in a statement Wednesday that it "looks forward to working with LightSquared and other spectrum users on the important dual goals of expanding mobile broadband networks while protecting GPS and other navigation technologies."
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LightSquared will make an FCC filing this year saying it permanently abandons any terrestrial use of 1545-1555 MHz, the agreement said. The satellite company also can't sign a spectrum sharing agreement or other arrangement for anything beyond downlinks in the 1545-1555 MHz band, it said. Deere in its statement said it won't object to LightSquared's proposed LTE broadband network "as long as the deployment is consistent" with the terms of the settlement. Concerns about interference between that broadband network and GPS spawned fights between the satellite company and the GPS industry at the FCC and in court. Neither Garmin nor Trimble, the other two GPS companies still battling with LightSquared, commented.
LightSquared will ask that the uplink and downlink power and out-of-band emission (OOBE) limits be a condition of any FCC authorization of its LTE service, and that the company annually submit to Deere and the agency data and test measurements showing compliance with those limits for five years after the agency approves a terrestrial network in those bands. That FCC filing -- which also will include amendments to its various applications and petitions for rulemaking on its use of the 1526-1536, 1545-1555, 1627.5-1637.5, 1646.5-1656.6 and 1600-1700 MHz bands -- must be made by March 31, the agreement said. LightSquared under the settlement also commits for five years to providing Deere with at least six months advance notice before it activates its base stations transmitting in the 1526-1536 MHz and 1670-1700 MHz bands.
That settlement and mutual release was also in a LightSquared filing Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan asking that its 2013 lawsuit against Deere (see 1311040060) be dismissed. The suit still stands against Garmin and Trimble, and against the U.S. GPS Industry Council and the Coalition to Save Our GPS. According to the settlement agreement, once LightSquared gets rights and control over separate claims brought against Deere by Harbinger Capital, at one time a major investor in LightSquared, the satellite company will get them dismissed, as well as pick up a portion of Deere's legal fees. LightSquared also filed a notice Wednesday of voluntary dismissal with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims regarding Harbinger's 2014 suit against the U.S. government for allegedly breaching its contractual commitment to let Harbinger operate a mobile broadband network using LightSquared’s spectrum (see [Ref:1407150065]). Under its bankruptcy reorganization plan, the reorganized LightSquared has control of litigation. In an emailed statement Wednesday, LightSquared said it's "committed to working with regulators to identify and implement solutions that enable this spectrum to be utilized. Today's filing is another step forward to achieve that goal."
Along with ending the legal fights, the settlement agreement has LightSquared withdrawing all its objections previously filed with the FCC to Deere licenses, renewals and license modifications, and that it "will exercise commercially reasonable efforts" to get Harbinger to do likewise.