A Globally Accessible Internet is One Step Closer to Reality Through A Number of Providers

March 19, 2019 – A number of competing companies have plans to wrap the planet in a blanket of satellites delivering global connectivity. These are not the satellite TV dish providers, but a new generation of companies planning to send hundreds if not thousands of dedicated satellites placed in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) providing a “globally harmonized spectrum” of seamless connectivity almost anywhere on the planet.

A number of companies including Iridium, Telesat, LeoSat, SpaceX, and OneWeb are in a competition to create Internet coverage worldwide. Each is taking a slightly different approach in providing a total global solution.

Iridium – The company has completed its deployment of a satellite network comprising 66  placed in LEO, not including a number of spares. The company appears to be first to market providing global Internet coverage and describes its crosslinked architecture as capable of providing real-time transit of data to and from any location on the globe without the need for a large number of supporting ground stations and providing coverage over the oceans and polar regions.

Telesat – A Canadian company, it has already launched a test satellite and plans to launch some 300 more into LEO 1,000 kilometers, or 620 miles above the Earth surface. Telesat currently has 17 geostationary satellites in synchronous orbit providing telecommunication services. But the new satellite network will be capable of providing blanket faster Internet coverage for the whole planet from space. It is partnering with a Google subsidiary, Loon, Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ rocket company, and Airbus. First launch on a Blue Origin rocket will deploy 30 satellites with subsequent launches planned to create a fully operational network by the end of 2022.

LeoSat – This Washington-based company plans to launch a network of telecommunication satellites for business users with the focus on delivering high-speed data 1.5 times faster than terrestrial-based fiber optic networks, and do it from LEO. Its satellites will be deployed in polar orbits with the first two to be launched in 2019 and the rest to follow by the end of 2022. It promises 1.6 to 5.2 Gigabits per second feeds and speeds. Total deployment will be between 78 and 108 satellites creating a global interlinked network.

SpaceX – The company that has made reusable rockets a reality has ambitious plans to deliver a global data network using a network of small satellites deployed between 511 and 1,125 kilometers above the Earth. Called Starlink, this space-based network currently has the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s permission to launch more than 7,500 of these small form-factor satellites into orbit with eventual deployment reaching some 12,000.

OneWeb – This Northern Virginia-based company plans to be first to market with a 5G-ready space deployed network of LEO satellites. It recently launched its first satellites and plans to complete deployment of 650 in a global network by 2021.

What do all of these satellite Internet providers have in common?

• LEO deployment rather than satellites in geosynchronous orbit.
• Much smaller satellite form factors, cheaper and faster to build.
• Capable of multiple satellites being delivered per single launch.
• Interlinked mesh networks providing continuous communications with latency (small signal delays) of 20 to 30 milliseconds versus geosynchronous presently at 700 milliseconds.
• New bandwidths increasing the overall capacity of telecommunications
• Speeds in excess of 1 plus Gigabits for upload and download.
• 5G network support.
• Satellite spares in place when any satellite in the network goes down to maintain 5 “9s” (99.999% uptime which translates to loss of signal of less than 2 minutes per year) or better levels of service.

Can all of these providers economically survive?

That’s an interesting question. In the past, satellite Internet service providers have failed. Iridium remains one of the stalwart holdouts, but others fell by the wayside because the cost of providing the service could not be recovered through revenues earned. Big geostationary satellites were expensive. And as ground-based broadband and fiber-optic cable operators expanded areas of service, space-based telecommunications became cost prohibitive for only but a few select users.

In 2016, global Internet traffic surpassed one zettabyte. That’s equivalent to a trillion gigabytes. And forecasts project by 2020 we will reach 2.3 zettabytes. That can only mean that there is room for a number of players to join in delivering Internet services including those wanting to do it from LEO. A recent article in PC Magazine stated that LEO satellites are becoming all the rage. The cost of building satellites has gotten a lot cheaper. OneWeb states they can produce 30 a month. And ground stations have gotten smaller and cheaper as well so that they are easier to put in place. That is making access to the Internet more affordable in areas of the Developing World that today are currently underserved. And with governments offering auctions on even more bandwidths, the capacity to grow telecommunication Internet services is becoming far more attractive.

With all this latent telecommunication capacity emerging in LEO, one wonders if it will be ground-based providers that will find themselves squeezed by market forces.