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Wisconsin pilots, land surveyors and farmers have joined critics of a plan to cover the nation with high-speed Internet service, saying the new system would mess up global positioning system devices used in airplanes, automobiles and commercial applications.

LightSquared Inc.'s plan to build 40,000 towers transmitting 4G broadband signals has brought warnings that it would create GPS dead zones across the nation.

That's because strong signals from the towers would drown out weaker signals used for satellite-based navigation, including GPS units in every type of aircraft, cars and trucks.

A recent government report warned that LightSquared's system would cause interference in up to 75% of GPS devices, including equipment used by the military. The report fueled critics of the broadband plan, including the Oshkosh-based Experimental Aircraft Association.

"It's very much a concern for aviation," said Sean Elliott, EAA's vice president of industry and regulatory affairs.

Any GPS signal interference is a significant threat to an airplane when it's on an instrument-guided approach to landing, according to Elliott.

"This is not a good path to go down," he said about the interference.

LightSquared, based in Reston, Va., says it wants to give 260 million Americans access to high-speed Internet service - including people in rural areas and places where there's little broadband competition.

Billionaire Philip Falcone has bet more than $3 billion of his Harbinger Capital Funds money on the plan that's facing an end-of-the-month deadline for government approvals.

LightSquared says the concerns over interference could be solved, and it says the GPS industry is to blame by using a wireless spectrum where it doesn't belong.

The company says it licensed the spectrum, and that it warned GPS device-makers not to infringe on its territory.

Now the GPS industry is crying foul, LightSquared spokesman Chris Stern said.

It's like someone building a house on a vacant lot and then complaining when the lot's rightful owner tells them to tear it down because he's ready to use the lot, according to Stern.

LightSquared says it expects to deploy the 4G-LTE network this year, and that it will be completed a year ahead of the Federal Communications Commission's mandate for nationwide broadband service by 2015.

The company received an FCC waiver in 2011, but final approval has been held up by a barrage of protests, including by the U.S. military, which says the service would jeopardize GPS systems used in fighter jets.

Opposition adamant

Critics, including GPS users in Wisconsin, aren't backing down.

LightSquared's signal would disrupt land surveying equipment, said Joyce Fiacco, Dodge County's land information officer.

"It would set our surveyors back 20 years," she said. "If this proposal goes through, our equipment would be pretty much unusable."

Dodge County, like other counties, uses high-precision GPS equipment to survey property boundaries and plan road construction.

It could cost the county thousands of dollars to modify equipment to block LightSquared's signal, provided such filters were available.

Surveyor crews would be less efficient, since it would take more people to cover what's done by one or two people and a GPS unit, said Francis Thousand, executive director of the Wisconsin Society of Land Surveyors.

"There isn't an easy solution," he said. "The consumer, who has no idea this is going on, would ultimately pay the additional costs."

GPS navigation devices in cars, trucks and boats could be thrown for a loop by interference from LightSquared transmitters. The navigational units in tractors and construction equipment could become unusable, and systems that monitor river flowage and provide storm warnings could be jeopardized.

Farmers use GPS units to plant crops and apply the right amount of fertilizer and pesticides.

"It benefits not only the farmer's bottom line but also the environment and consumers," said Casey Langan, spokesman for the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation.

LightSquared says it would not bear the costs of signal filters because the GPS industry has trespassed onto a wireless spectrum the company has licensed to use.

"Commercial GPS device-makers have had nearly a decade to design and sell devices that do not infringe on LightSquared's licensed spectrum. They have no right to complain in the eleventh-hour about incompatibility when they had ample time to avoid this problem," Jeff Carlisle, a LightSquared executive vice president, said in a petition to the FCC.

Retrofit expensive

Equipment retrofits would cost billions of dollars and would take years to implement, according to the Coalition to Save Our GPS, an ad hoc group organized to fight the LightSquared plan.

The towers could disrupt signals for miles in every direction around them, according to the coalition.

"LightSquared insists that new equipment can reduce interference to high-precision GPS devices but completely ignores the massive retrofit and replacement effort that would be required," the coalition said in a news release.

U.S. Rep. Tom Petri (R-Wis.) has urged the FCC to block LightSquared's plan, saying the company wants to use spectrum meant for GPS devices.

The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates the GPS interference could result in nearly 800 fatal airplane crashes (from 2014 through 2023) and would cost over $100 billion, according to Petri.

The company has said it could reduce the power of its transmitters so they would not affect many GPS devices.

More government tests are due this month, which the company says will prove that its signal won't cause widespread interference.

The plan isn't going anywhere until the government is convinced the signal won't pose a threat to aviation and the military. That's partly because the Defense Authorization Act, passed in December, bars the FCC from approving systems that interfere with military GPS systems.