However, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican from California, pressed Carlisle on the fact that LightSquared got its spectrum license as a satellite company in 1989, before the FCC held spectrum auctions.

"My sympathies might be a little bit greater if I would have learned that your company had actually paid a great deal of money out of their pocket for the right to this to begin with," Rohrabacher said. "This was a publicly owned asset that was transferred ... to your company for nothing." Carlisle said the company had invested billions in satellites to use that spectrum and had invested $4 billion so far in its current plan.

The IDG News Service