Ligado sues the government, claims US military stole its spectrum

Ligado Networks on Friday filed an explosive lawsuit essentially alleging that the US government took $39 billion worth of its spectrum without paying for it.

"High ranking US government officials have acted deliberately to deprive an American company of its rightfully licensed property," said Ivan Seidenberg, chairman of Ligado's board and a former chairman of Verizon, in a release.

Ligado's lawsuit claims that the US military is secretly using its L-band spectrum holdings – which sit in the 1525-1660.5MHz range – and that Department of Defense (DoD) officials are therefore working to prevent the company from launching its own 5G operations in that band.

The DoD "has taken Ligado's spectrum for the agency's own purposes, operating previously undisclosed systems that use or depend on Ligado's spectrum without compensating Ligado," the company wrote in its 69-page lawsuit. The company does not disclose what the DoD might be doing with the spectrum.

According to The Wall Street Journal, federal officials including those at the DoD either declined to comment on the lawsuit or cited a policy of not commenting on litigation.

The background and the allegations

Ligado initially launched in 2010 under the name LightSquared. It planned to build a 4G LTE network with its L-band spectrum holdings that it would resell to other companies. However, that plan fell apart after the FCC ruled that the proposed network would interfere with GPS signals.

The company fell into bankruptcy as a result – but Ligado arose from LightSquared's ashes in 2015 with a plan to build a 5G network using that same L-band spectrum, this time focusing on the Internet of Things (IoT). Importantly, the company managed to score approvals from the FCC for its plan.

But, according to the company's lawsuit, the DoD embarked on a "misinformation and disparagement campaign" against Ligado starting shortly after the company received its FCC approvals in 2020. That campaign, according to the lawsuit, sought to revive concerns that Ligado's 5G plans would interfere with GPS services.

"Former and current senior government officials have acknowledged that the DoD and DoC [Department of Commerce] withheld information from the FCC and the White House and now want Ligado's exclusively licensed spectrum for DoD's own purposes," according to Ligado's lawsuit. "Government officials have also confirmed DoD permanently wants the entirety of Ligado's FCC authorized spectrum in the L-band and that DoD's undisclosed activities cannot co-exist with Ligado's authorized use of its spectrum."

Ligado said it based its lawsuit on a variety of statements and sources, including an unnamed DoD whistleblower who was "a senior engineer in the office of DoD Chief Information."

The company also said that two US senators confirmed the existence of the DoD's "undisclosed systems," operating in Ligado's spectrum, in a letter to several top officials in the Biden administration, including Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo.

And there are plenty of tantalizing tidbits in Ligado's new lawsuit. For example, the company identified the deputy CIO for Command, Control and Communications at the DoD, Frederick Moorefield Jr., as "responsible for managing spectrum across the DoD" and one of the officials who initially spearheaded the DoD's campaign against Ligado. Moorefield's appearance in the lawsuit is noteworthy considering a federal grand jury earlier this month indicted Moorefield and another man "with conspiracy to engage in an animal fighting venture and other charges related to their alleged establishment and promotion of a dog fighting ring."

Struggling forward

According to the WSJ, Ligado's complaint comes shortly before the company will owe about $4 billion in bond payments in November. 

That's not a surprise. Ligado managed to raise $4 billion in new debt and convert $6 billion of existing debt to equity in October 2020, after scoring the FCC's approval for its plans. However, the company said it wasn't able to entice any customers to its plans due to the DoD's campaign against the company. "Ultimately, no one agreed to partner with Ligado to support their 5G connectivity plans," the company said in its lawsuit.

To be clear, Ligado isn't the only company in the wireless industry to stumble into troubles with the US government in recent years. For example, Verizon and other C-band spectrum owners spent years battling the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) over concerns that 5G in C-band spectrum might affect aircraft altimeters at some airports.

Separately, a startup named Rivada became tangled up in a fight over spectrum in the 3.45-3.55GHz band for 5G.

Based on those troubles, spectrum officials in the Biden administration have made it a point to tout their efforts to create ties across various government agencies stretching from the DoD to the NTIA to the FCC to the FAA. Their clear goal is to avoid the spectrum interference disputes that deviled the Trump administration.