Ligado to Test Alternate Means of Distributing NOAA Weather Data
Looking to assuage concerns from the weather community about how its LTE network plans could affect weather data transmissions by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Ligado hopes to have an alternative content delivery network (CDN) in operation this fall, Chief Legal Officer Valerie Green told us. After discussions with the weather community during an American Meteorological Society (AMS) meeting last week in Alabama, the company hopes in the same time frame to put together an advisory committee of weather world representatives from the private sector, academia and elsewhere that would help Ligado understand issues raised by its proposal and that NOAA-provided services are protected, she said.
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That prototype CDN could face a steep uphill climb. The Obama administration's push to free up 1675-1680 MHz for flexible use, subject to sharing with federal weather satellites, by 2020 (see 1602090067) "makes a lot of sense [but] it can't come at the expense of disrupting critical communications channels" used for weather content and data, said Jonathan Porter, AccuWeather vice president-innovation and development and co-chair of a panel at the AMS meeting on Ligado's plans. "Based on the information we know right now, there is no clear path that is going to address all the mission-critical needs with regards to sharing the information" that comes from NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) system, Porter said.
The weather community "was clear" about its recommendation that NOAA spectrum shouldn't be shared except if Ligado can demonstrate conclusively there won't be any missing data or latency and all parties are receiving the data at the same time, Porter said, adding both sides left the meeting having agreed to "collaboration and further discussions."
GOES data is transmitted to NOAA earth stations, with 100-some entities -- from weather businesses to academic institutions -- having installed their own receivers that let them also get the raw weather data that they process and analyze and, in some cases, repackage and sell, Green said. The prototype CDN would employ IP delivery of the data being received by the NOAA earth stations "so we can see what kind of capabilities it has and where it meets ... and falls short of expectations," she said. Ligado is considering using protection zones around the NOAA earth stations, she said.
The prototype alternative CDN would be cloud-based and experiment with different distribution methods, such as via the internet, the secure internet, a cloud connection and direct connection, Green said. The aim is to replicate what comes from GOES directly without any disruption, she said, though the company also would be open to suggestions about enhancements or "some value add [the weather community] would like and we can deliver," she said.
Much of the weather community has voiced concerns about NOAA's sharing 1675-1680 MHz with Ligado's terrestrial LTE network and how that could interfere with data transmissions from GOES and the GOES-R satellite set to launch later this year (see 1606200046 and 1606220041). With the prototype alternative CDN and the existing GOES CDN, "if you have a side-by-side picture, you can conduct a comparison," Ligado counsel Gerard Waldron of Covington & Burling said. "That is something we would very much invite, to do a side by side."
If the alternative CDN addresses weather community concerns, Green said Ligado would recommend that, in the event of an auction of 1675-1680 MHz, the FCC attach license conditions to whoever gets rights to the spectrum that it maintain the cloud-based CDN.
Ligado also broadly committed to supporting anything that needs to be studied, be it financial or other support, Green said. She said that was a general statement in response to NOAA-raised concerns about not having resources or time for testing.