The company has hired Ted Olson, former Bush administration solicitor general, and Eugene Scalia, son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, to help it overcome any regulatory setbacks and salvage its more than $4 billion investment in a new national wireless network.

“We will do all we can to ensure that LightSquared does not lose billions of dollars in investments due to a precipitous, arbitrary reversal by the government,” Olson said in a statement.

Which doesn’t necessarily mean LightSquared will sue, though it’s clearly an option.

“[The FCC's] decision to not allow us to go forward isn’t supported by the law or technical policy,” Jeff Carlisle, LightSquared’s executive vice president of regulatory affairs and public policy, told Bloomberg. “We are confident about that and we are eager to prove our case.”

Well, the Federal Communications Commission would like to take this opportunity to remind you that such products remain illegal, regardless of their obvious appeal.

“In recent days, there have been various press reports about commuters using cellphone jammers to create a ‘quiet zone’ on buses or trains,” Enforcement Bureau Chief Michele Ellison said in a statement. “We caution consumers that it is against the law to use a cell or GPS jammer or any other type of device that blocks, jams, or interferes with authorized communications, as well as to import, advertise, sell, or ship such a device.”

The agency said it has undertaken 20 enforcement actions against online retailers in 12 states for illegally marketing such jamming devices.

“The FCC Enforcement Bureau has a zero tolerance policy in this area and will take aggressive action against violators,” Ellison said.

If only there were a zero-tolerance policy against loudly sharing embarrassing personal details with an entire bus.

Makinen, a hardware test specialist, has been abusing cellphones for years. It’s all part of Nokia’s effort to make sure that the devices can handle the same abuse once they are in the hands of customers.

“The purpose is to break things,” says Teemu Ala-Hynnila, director of quality operations at Nokia. That way, they can spot weaknesses and correct them before the products are released. Plus, he said, they don’t want customers to have to protect the phones with ugly rubber cases.

One room over, more prototypes are enduring other hardships. One chamber cooks phones to 55 degrees Celsius, while another sees how they do at -15 degrees Celsius. A third produces somewhere between 93 percent and 95 percent humidity.

In each case, a Nokia worker is able to pull the phone out, press a button and take a picture without delay.

The torture area is just one part of Nokia’s testing labs in Tampere, Finland. AllThingsD got a rare peek inside an area normally off-limits not only to visitors, but to most Nokia employees.

The labs themselves are a mix of old and new technology. One room resembles a 1970s sound studio. In there, enough sound is pumped in to simulate the noisiest of New York restaurants, while a robot talks into a cellphone. The robot is barely audible in the room unless you get right next to it. On the call, though, the sound is clear.

A few rooms over, a human-shaped plastic mold is filled with liquid, an effort to recreate the human form in order to test how much of a phone’s radiation is making it inside the body of a person using the phone.

Nokia is certified to do its own radiation emissions, a key step in getting new devices approved by the Federal Communications Commission and other regulators across the globe. Having its own labs, while costly, helps Nokia save the time needed to send new devices for outside testing, a move it hopes will help it crank out new devices faster.

The NTIA, a federal agency that oversees government and military spectrum use, ruled on Tuesday that LightSquared will inevitably interfere with other devices, including GPS products, that use frequencies neighboring the spectrum licensed to the company.

As a result, the Federal Communications Commission said it was planning to revoke its conditional permission for LightSquared to operate and reject the application to operate the network.

“NTIA … has now concluded that there is no practical way to mitigate potential interference at this time,” the FCC said in a statement. “Consequently, the commission will not lift the prohibition on LightSquared.”

The FCC, while hoping LightSquared might help with the ongoing spectrum crunch, has said all along that any commercial operations would be conditioned on being able to operate without interference to existing devices.

“The commission clearly stated from the outset that harmful interference to GPS would not be permitted,” the FCC said.

For its part, LightSquared maintained that the NTIA findings were based on flawed studies and said it “remains committed to finding a resolution with the federal government and the GPS industry to resolve all remaining concerns.”

“LightSquared is confident that the parties will continue the ongoing efforts to explore all engineering options and alternatives to find a solution to this difficult issue,” the company said.

LightSquared has asked the FCC to find that the interference is not its fault and allow it to proceed, though that argument appears to be having little sway.

Roku’s founder and chief executive officer, Anthony Wood, has said that Roku users can expect to see more cable apps from providers like Comcast, Verizon, and others working on the platform, as the Saratoga, Calif.-based company ups the number of apps running on its devices from 400 to around a thousand by the end of the year.

Currently, content from HBO GO and Epix plays on Roku boxes — provided that the user is paying for and can authenticate the apps through cable services like AT&T U-verse, Charter, Cox, RCN and Verizon FiOS.

And on the cable side, providers like Comcast and Verizon have introduced their own apps, which, as my AllThingsD colleague Peter Kafka has pointed out, allow subscribers to stream channels to their iPads while they’re in the home — and not too far away from that cable box.

You’ve probably heard a lot about cord-cutting in recent years — though the data on this trend is still somewhat contradictory. With cable companies launching streaming apps, and streaming device makers looking to cable content, both sides of the TV-content coin are acknowledging the same thing: We’re not entirely sure yet that cord-cutting is a real phenomenon, there’s evidence that consumers want both cable TV and Internet streaming options, and the industry could stand to experiment a little bit while it all shakes out.

But for Roku, which brought the first Netflix-centric device to the market and has since sold around two and a half million boxes, it also means trying to take a greater stake on the hardware side. Basically, Wood said, his idea is that users will be able to get most if not all of their cable needs through a Roku product.

Roku also recently announced a cordless “streaming stick,” which is meant to enable Internet video streaming on a non-connected television set. Despite predictions that “smart,” Internet-connected TVs are set to take off over the next couple years, Wood is taking a long-term view with the streaming stick, targeting the consumers who initially won’t be looking to buy new smart TVs. He has also said that the stick, a flash-drive-sized device that plugs into the back of a TV set, will allow for easier, regular software updates to TV apps.

“While we can’t necessarily compete with gaming consoles, we see it as less likely that a family would have an Xbox paired with every TV in the house. But they might have a Roku device with every TV in the house,” Wood said, referring to Roku’s relatively low cost structure.

Wood’s assertions arrive as the Federal Communications Commission is considering a rule change that would require consumers that patch into low-tier or basic cable channels to use some sort of cable set-top box to do so, rather than access cable wires directly (and for free). One start-up, Boxee — which makes the video-streaming Boxee Box and just threw its efforts behind a Live TV stick that’s meant to provide users with basic cable channels — has openly opposed the potential change, saying that it would harm innovation in the set-top box space.

It’s unclear if or when this ruling will come to pass, though VentureBeat reports that it could come within a few weeks.

But Roku’s strategy to bring more cable apps aboard its platform is a different tack than the one Boxee is taking, since Boxee has marketed itself explicitly as a cord-cutting tool, whereas Roku is eyeing the idea of a holistic TV-watching solution.

AT&T said it would turn over the airwaves, or spectrum, along with $3 billion in cash to T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom AG after pulling out of the deal as opposition mounted from the FCC, Justice Department, state attorneys general and rival carriers.

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Julius Genachowski on Wednesday made yet another call for Congress to speedily allow incentive auctions to free up badly needed spectrum for the wireless industry.

But while the content in the FCC chairman’s speech was familiar, his vehicle for delivering it was different. He’s given many speeches reading from a tablet, as he did in Vegas, but this was the first time he had done so on an Android model — a Samsung Galaxy 8.9.

“I’ve only done them on the iPad,” Genachowski said. “On my smartphones I’ve tried to make it a practice to switch them up.”

So how was it?

“It was all good,” Genachowski said, showing off his remarks on the Galaxy tab. His trusty iPad was nearby, which he used to dash off a quick email before our interview. “It was a seamless experience.”

As for the content of his talk, Genachowski focused on several points that are near and dear to his heart — first, that Congress enable the auctions quickly, and second, that it leave the FCC the option of keeping some of the spectrum freed up for unlicensed purposes.

“It would be a very serious mistake to pass incentive legislation and prohibit the FCC from using some spectrum for unlicensed (uses),” he said, echoing comments he made on a Silicon Valley swing late last year.

Such uses, he said, allow innovation that could provide for even more efficient spectrum usage than limiting it only to licensed purposes.

“We may see innovations there that lead to more efficient use,” he said. “To me, it’s a no-brainer.”

Genachowski said that allowing those with unused spectrum to auction it off could allow for the recovery of 100MHz of very high quality spectrum near the 700MHz band used for today’s 4G services.

“The work doesn’t end with incentive auctions, but incentive auctions are a sure way to provide very significant relief to spectrum.”

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Getting FCC clearance is a condition of a 15-year fourth-generation spectrum-and-equipment-sharing accord between the two companies. LightSquared has said the Sprint accord will help it save $13 billion through the end of this decade.

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The decision initially covers only one product, and is limited to the pilot city of Wilmington, N.C.

But backers of the technology hope those white spaces prove as big a boost to innovation as the unlicensed spectrum that gave birth to Wi-Fi.

“We see this as a multibillion-dollar industry,” said Rod Dir, CEO of Spectrum Bridge, the company whose database is a key component of the white spaces system approved by the FCC.

White spaces, for the uninitiated, are the spectrum spots in between TV channels. Like the 2.4GHZ spectrum used by several flavors of Wi-Fi, the white spaces are unlicensed spectrum, meaning any device that agrees to play nice with others and gains regulatory approval can operate in the frequency. Devices that are approved to operate in the white spaces spectrum are required to check in with a database to see which channels are available. (For more, check out AllThingsD’s handy FAQ post from last week.)

Over time, analysts imagine a range of wireless and wired devices that can use the white spaces as a sort of “Super Wi-Fi” that can operate over greater distance and perform better indoors.

For now, though, FCC approval is limited to fixed devices using a radio from one supplier, Koos Technical Services. Among the initial uses seen for white spaces are helping bring wireless internet to rural areas and municipal Wi-Fi to smaller cities.

While Wi-Fi often gets spotty after more than 100 meters, and signals often are stymied by walls, white-space signals can carry far further. They can go for several miles, albeit at slower speeds.

“The key element of that for us is the greater coverage that’s possible compared to other services,” said Bill Koos, president of KTS. The company has seen signals that can travel on average two to three miles via antennas that are no more than 30 or 40 feet high.

Some of the uses that have excited officials in Wilmington, Koos said, are the ability to monitor machines, offer wireless Internet access in public places, and even do some video surveillance. Although it doesn’t deliver the kind of speeds needed for, say, streaming Netflix, Koos said the signal is good enough for sending video security footage.

As the radio needed to access the white spaces is brought down to a single chip, the technology should find its way into other products, such as laptops, tablets and phones, perhaps by the middle of 2013. Because of its range and other advantages, Dir said, he expects cellular companies to eventually use the white spaces to handle data-intensive tasks when a signal is available.

“We believe the carrier will eventually migrate to TV white space for offload,” Dir said.

While that is certainly a possibility, wireless analyst Chetan Sharma expects to see the technology far sooner in devices other than cellphones, which are already crammed full of batteries that add cost and sap battery life. That said, the advantages of white spaces, especially its ability to work better indoors, make it a potentially attractive option to carriers struggling with heavy data demands and limited cellular spectrum.

“It remains to be seen,” Sharma said.

(Image credit: iStockphoto | gaiamoments)

This time it’s GoGo Inc., maker of GoGo Inflight Internet service, which you’ve probably used at some point if you’ve ever accessed Wi-Fi during a flight.

The company is filing for an initial public offering that could raise as much as $100 million.

GoGo’s S-1 doesn’t say how many shares it plans to sell or at what price. But it does plan to trade under the stock symbol — you guessed it — GOGO.

There are currently 1,177 commercial airplanes offering Internet access through GoGo: That’s about 85 percent of North America’s Internet-enabled commercial aircraft.

According to the filing, GoGo’s consolidated revenue increased to $113.8 million from $60.1 million, a year-over-year increase of 89.3 percent in the nine-month period ending in September. Despite increasing revenue, the company still lost $25.8 million in the first nine months of 2011.

A large portion of GoGo’s revenue comes from its customers in the business aviation market, for which it provides both broadband connectivity and satellite-based communications systems. GoGo’s business aviation arm has sold approximately 6,000 ATG and satellite-based communications systems for private planes and has signed agreements with all of the largest fractional jet operators, according to the filing.

On the the commercial side, the company cites the emergence of the “connected lifestyle” for consumers, coupled with the projected growth of the worldwide travel market, as evidence of demand for its in-flight product. In 2010, there were approximately 2.7 billion scheduled passengers on commercial aircraft worldwide, with 630 million in the U.S. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the number of passengers worldwide is expected to grow to nearly 3 billion by 2012.

GoGo plans to expand internationally and to penetrate even more of the business aviation market, with the number of business jets in the North American and global business markets expected to grow by 8.3 percent and 16.7 percent, respectively, by 2015.

One of Gogo’s biggest risks is its dependence on partnerships with North American airline fleets for about half of its consolidated revenue. Approximately 45 percent of its commercial airline revenue — generated within a nine-month period ending September 30, 2011 — was acquired through Delta Air Lines; approximately 18 percent came via GoGo’s partnership with American Airlines, whose parent company, AMR Corp., recently filed for bankruptcy.

The company also cites as risks the increasing demand for in-flight WiFi, and the possible incapacity to meet that demand, as well as the need to keep up with rapidly advancing technologies in network infrastructure.

Low on the risk list, though still worth noting, is that in June of 2006, Gogo purchased at auction a $31 million, exclusive 10-year license for three megahertz, air-to-ground spectrum, outbidding at the time JetBlue LiveTV LLC and a company called Space Data Spectrum Holdings. GoGo expects to renew that license, but the FCC could, in the future, decide to auction additional spectrum for ATG use that is not currently designated for that purpose.

Illinois-based GoGo Inc. was originally incorporated in Texas in June of 1991 as Aircell Inc., and later became Aircell Holdings Inc. On June 15 of this year, Aircell Holdings Inc. officially changed its name to Gogo Inc.

Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, UBS, Allen & Company, Evercore Partners and William Blair & Company are listed as the underwriters on the IPO filing.

Lest it remain a gray area to you, here are some answers to the most common questions:

What is this “white space,” anyway?

White space refers to the range of spectrum available in between the signals used by television stations. By allowing companies to build wireless devices in this area, the Federal Communications Commission is paving the way for new kinds of wireless devices.

What kinds of devices and services could run there?

Unlicensed spectrum opens the door to all kinds of uses, but the use most commonly talked about is to provide fixed and wireless broadband Internet services. It could also prove a good technology for moving video and other bulky data types around the home.

What advantage does white space technology have over today’s Wi-Fi?

Because the white space is in the lower frequencies, devices running in those frequencies could carry signals over longer distances and work better through walls and in other indoor environments.

Why hasn’t anyone used them before?

Although the FCC voted to go ahead with plans to allow devices in the white space as far back as 2008, it has taken until now to approve the first devices and address concerns about potential interference.

What are the concerns?

The biggest concerns have come from the TV industry, which had questions about interference with its signals and equipment; and from performers, broadcasters and others that use wireless microphones that operate in a similar frequency. Even Dolly Parton expressed some concerns early on.

How are these concerns being addressed?

The FCC is creating a way for those who are using wireless microphones to register them. Also, devices that want to access the white space range have to check in with a database to see what spaces are free in their particular area. In addition to approving the first device on Thursday, the FCC also approved the first such database.

“Interference issues won’t go away, but I think it is proven that the industry can use this kind of a model,” said wireless industry analyst Chetan Sharma.

How big a market could this be?

Microsoft, a big backer of opening up the spectrum, commissioned a study in 2009 that found that availability of white-space technology could increase just the Wi-Fi-like device market by $3.9 billion to $7.3 billion per year.

So, will this solve all of those worries about spectrum that Verizon and AT&T talk about?

Not directly. The White Space spectrum is unlicensed, meaning any approved device and service can run there. However, it could pave the way for phones and tablets to someday take advantage of white-space capacity on occasion, as is done with Wi-Fi today.

Sharma said to expect the first devices to use white spaces to be noncellular devices. By late 2012 or early the following year, though, we could start to see cellular phones and tablets that have the ability to use white-space services, where available. The big challenge there is it is yet another type of radio that would have to be built into phones — adding cost and complexity.

(Image credit: iStockphoto | gaiamoments)

The product getting the okay is designed to offer broadband service, and is made by a company called Koos Technical Services. KTS has been among the companies heavily involved in working with the FCC to test white-spaces devices.

The white spaces, though not without their challenges, are seen by proponents as offering some of the same potential uses as the unlicensed regions used by Wi-Fi. Because they operate at a lower frequency range, they offer the potential to work over a longer range and perform better indoors.

“With today’s approval of the first TV white spaces database and device, we are taking an important step towards enabling a new wave of wireless innovation,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement. “Unleashing white spaces spectrum has the potential to exceed even the many billions of dollars in economic benefit from Wi-Fi, the last significant release of unlicensed spectrum, and drive private investment and job creation.”

Approval is limited, for now, to service in Wilmington, N.C. But it’s a first step for an area that has long been talked about as rich for new innovation.

The FCC said the approval will be expanded nationwide once the government finishes establishing procedures for those using wireless microphones (which also operate in these areas of spectrum) to coexist with devices running in the white spaces.

Regulators have been looking to open up the spectrum for some time, and have worked to address objections from the TV industry (and performers including Dolly Parton), who have worried about potential interference. The FCC voted last year to formally open the spectrum up to devices, after granting initial approval back in 2008.

(Image credit: iStockphoto | gaiamoments)

“Leave the FCC the flexibility to make sure there is efficient use of spectrum, including unlicensed spectrum, so that we can adjust to the needs of the future,” Genachowski told AllThingsD in an interview. Genachowski was in town for an event announcing winners of a contest to develop community apps that make use of government data.

The House of Representatives has passed a bill that would include something the chairman badly wants: incentive auctions that would free up badly needed spectrum for wireless broadband. However, the bill also includes a provision that would limit the agency’s authority to manage unlicensed spectrum bands, something Genachowski opposes.

At one point during the event, held at the offices of Andreessen Horowitz, I asked for the password to the venture firm’s guest network.

“That’s why we need Wi-Fi,” Genachowski said, a reference to the fact that Wi-Fi is possible only because the FCC has been able to preserve and make available unlicensed bands of spectrum.

In a follow-up interview, he talked about the need for such spectrum.

“It takes spectrum that doesn’t lend itself for the same use (as that licensed to carriers and others) and says ‘Let’s put it out there as a platform for innovaton,’ not knowing exactly what will happen,” Genachowski said. “When the FCC first did this, no one knew that it would lead to Wi-Fi.”

Unlicensed spectrum has been used, he said, to help meet the challenges of lots of groups, including those faced by the wireless carriers that have licensed spectrum, Genachowski said.

“Wi-Fi itself has gone from something that was resisted by the licensed carriers to something that is now embraced because it is such an important part of addressing demands on spectrum. Wi-Fi offload is a critical part of the system.”

That’s Carrier IQ’s claim, anyway.

Responding to a Washington Post report claiming that the company is the subject of an official FTC investigation, Carrier IQ said this is not the case. While it is meeting with federal regulators, the company says it is doing so proactively. It wasn’t summoned to Washington as part of a formal inquiry.

“This week CarrierIQ sought meetings with the FTC and FCC to educate the two agencies about the functionality of its software and answer any and all questions,” the company said in a statement given to AllThingsD. “Although Congressman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), co-Chairman of the Bi-Partisan Congressional Privacy Caucus, has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the practices of Carrier IQ, we are not aware of an official investigation into Carrier IQ at this time.”

In other words, there could be an official inquiry — the company just doesn’t know about it yet. And that may yet prove to be the case. The Washington Post says anonymous federal officials have confirmed the investigation, and the Post doesn’t often make such claims unless they’re bulletproof. So expect to hear more about this in the days ahead.

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The two companies on Monday filed a joint motion to stay their pending federal court case until at least January. The move clearly wasn’t AT&T’s idea, however. The Justice Department said last week it would seek a stay in the case given that AT&T had pulled its paperwork with the Federal Communications Commission.

“If approved by the court, all pretrial and trial deadlines, including depositions and discovery, would be cancelled and a status conference would be held before the court on Jan. 18,” the Justice Department said in a statement. The government said that under the joint plan, AT&T will file a status report with the court by noon on Jan. 12 indicating “whether they intend to proceed with the transaction at issue in the litigation, whether they intend to proceed with another transaction, the status of related proceedings with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and their plans and timetable for seeking any necessary approval from the FCC.”

In a statement on Monday, AT&T said it is working with T-Mobile on “whether and how” to proceed with the deal.

“AT&T is committed to working with Deutsche Telekom to find a solution that is in the best interests of our respective customers, shareholders and employees,” the company said. “We are actively considering whether and how to revise our current transaction to achieve the necessary regulatory approvals so that we can deliver the capacity enhancements and improved customer service that can only be derived from combining our two companies’ wireless assets.”

Until now, AT&T has plowed full steam ahead with the proposed $39 billion deal, despite objections from a long list of competitors and regulators, including the FCC, DOJ, Sprint and C Spire Wireless (formerly known as Cellular South).

With the Federal Communications Commission threatening to block the deal, and the Justice Department already suing to do the same, AT&T last month pulled its application before the FCC, in hopes that a court would take its side in the DOJ case. The company said it would deal with the FCC once a court heard its case with the Justice Department.

However, the DOJ one-upped the telecom giant on Friday, arguing that the court case should be put on hold, now that AT&T has yanked its application to the FCC to acquire T-Mobile’s licenses.

Check.

Your move, AT&T.

Update: For its part, AT&T general counsel Wayne Watts says the company is “anxious to bring to the American consumer the benefits of increased wireless network capacity and efficiencies that can only arise from combining the resources of AT&T and T-Mobile USA,” and is “eager” to present its case in court.

In a statement Friday, AT&T said commissioners won’t be able to vote a proposal announced Tuesday from FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski that the $39 billion merger be sent before an administrative law judge. The carrier announced it had withdrawn its FCC application in the early hours of the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S.

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