Starlink and the seven dwarfs

Source: ChatGPT

In the 1960s, IBM dominated the computer market, which was often referred to as “IBM and the seven dwarfs.” IBM is prosperous today, but no longer dominant. The low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite Internet service market today is reminiscent of that time, but it’s "SpaceX Starlink and the seven dwarfs." 

As of August 2025, Apple's market cap is approximately $3.363 trillion, while IBM's is around $223.03 billion. I do not expect Starlink to drop off that precipitously, but its lead will be significantly diminished. Five of IBM's dwarfs failed, and two merged to form Unisys, which has a market capitalization of $280.18 million; however, I expect all of Starlink's dwarfs to survive.

Let's look at today's dwarfs. 

OneWeb

Bill Gates and two partners founded Teledesic, a would-be LEO satellite Internet service provider, in 1990, but the technology was not yet ready, and Teledesic declared bankruptcy in 2002.

The next would-be LEO Internet service provider, OneWeb, was founded by Greg Wyler, who had extensive experience with networking in developing nations, with the mission of “bridging the digital divide by 2027”, but it entered bankruptcy in 2020. The company was reorganized and emerged from bankruptcy, and in 2023 merged with established geo-stationary satellite (GEO) operator Eutelsat, creating the "Eutelsat Group" company, with subsidiaries "Eutelsat" and "Eutelsat OneWeb.”

In spite of that rocky start, OneWeb is the only company other than Starlink that is offering LEO satellite Internet service today. OneWeb LEO revenue was 187 million euros ($216 million) for the 12 months ending June 30,2025, representing around 15% of total Eutelsat Group sales. Starlink revenue for 2024 was $2.7 billion. OneWeb’s market share, and more importantly, global capacity, are minuscule compared to those of Starlink.

That sounds grim, but given Elon Musk’s political activity, Trump’s MAGA/isolationist policy, and the military value of LEO Internet, Europe will not let OneWeb fail unless there are viable alternatives to Starlink. This is evidenced by European support of OneWeb in Ukraine, including German funding of OneWeb and a recent British investment.

Finally, note that the Eutelsat Group can offer multi-orbit service, switching seamlessly between Eutelsat GEO and OneWeb LEO satellites or offering OneWeb service to other GEO providers. They signed their first multi-orbit contract three years ago and have added others since.

Telesat

Telesat, an established Canadian GEO satellite operator, was the next LEO Internet company. Telesat recognized the trend to LEO, but decided not to offer consumer connectivity. 

Telesat has been beset by delays and has reduced its initially planned constellation size, but they have contracted (with SpaceX) to begin launching satellites next year. Trump’s immigration and tariff policies, along with talk of annexing Canada, assure us that the Canadian government, which, along with Quebec, has invested in Telesat, will not allow it to fail.

The initial “Lightspeed” constellation will consist of 198 satellites with a mass of 750 kg, roughly that of Starlink V2 mini satellites.  SpaceX is slated to deploy them over the course of a year, starting in mid-2026. Telesat has been booking customers, and their LEO backlog now exceeds their GEO backlog. They plan to provide global service with polar and inclined sub-constellations, are seeking a ground station partner, and have terrestrial deals with Vocus, Orange, and Space Norway.

While Telesat will not bundle its own LEO and GEO services, they have tested a hybrid deployment between LEO and GEO using the Telesat Lightspeed emulator, showing seamless integration without any issues. Software like the emulator is part of their strategic decision to use Aalyria Spacetime, a multi-layer, multi-orbit operating system for a temporospatial network, which they acquired from Google when the Loon project was abandoned.

Amazon Project Kuiper

Project Kuiper, which has only 101 operational satellites in orbit today, is far behind Starlink, which has over 8,000, but Amazon has many things going for it. From the time it was founded, Amazonwas an infrastructure company, and Project Kuiper is an orbiting infrastructure that willbe strategically paired with Amazon’s complementary terrestrial infrastructure, like fiber and datacenters. Amazon hasvast experience in manufacturing and logistics that will stand them in good stead with the manufacturing of terminals as well as satellites. 

Project Kuiper is a wholly-owned subsidiary and an initiative of Amazon, and Jeff Bezos is the founder of both Amazon and the Blue Origin launch company, which will launch some Project Kuiper satellites. Amazon itself will also be a significant Kuiper user, and Kuiper will use Amazon’s ground station service. 

That’s the good news, but Amazon faces an FCC deadline to launch half the constellation by July 30, 2026, and the remainder by July 30, 2029. They say they will be able to receive, test, and pack 100+ Kuiper satellites per month into the appropriate fairing and claim to have secured 80 launches, but how fast can they manufacture them? They will apply for a waiver from the FCC, if necessary, and. like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos has a lot of money and attended Trump’s inauguration. Earlier, Musk might have stopped an Amazon waiver, but now Trump is looking into deporting him, and  Bezos has made editorial changes at the Washington Post, which he owns. A political contribution might solve the FCC deadline.

IRIS²

IRIS² (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite) is a €10.6bn project with 61 per cent funded publicly and the balance coming from the SpaceRise industrial consortium, led by Eutelsat, Hispasat, and SES. SpaceRISE will design, deliver, and operate IRIS² for a period of 12 years.

They have contracted for 274 satellites in LEO and 18 in MEO, with first launches anticipated for 2029 and completion in 2030. Eutelsat will act as prime contractor leading the design of the LEO segment and co-leading the development of common system elements. SES will be responsible for procurement, integration, and operation of the MEO satellites, and Hispasat will lead the very low orbital layer (Low LEO) of the constellation and design, deliver, and operate the ground segment, manage operations, and interconnection with terrestrial networks. They also expect to eventually add a GEO sub-constellation.

This is a unique and complex organization that will have to manage suppliers like Airbus, Thales, OHB, Deutsche Telekom, and  Orange. Bureaucracy might be a problem, but Europe can not rely on Starlink as Ukraine has during the war with Russia.

Three Chinese Dwarfs

China has pursued a strategy of competition among government-owned organizations, and it initiated two government-owned constellation projects, Hongyun and Hongyan, in 2016. In April 2020, China’s National Development and Reform Commission included “satellite internet” on its “new infrastructures” list, and China applied to the ITU for a new constellation, called  GW. Hongyun and Hongyan were dropped, and GW, also called China Satnet or Guowang, emerged as China’s global Internet service provider and it was followed by two others, Qianfan and Honghu. These are all far behind Starlink, but they will have protected markets

Gwowang

China’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for National Economic and Social Development and Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035 called for building an integrated communications, Earth observation, and satellite navigation system with global coverage. Guowang is the constellation they called for.

Guowang consists of two sub-constellations, designated GW-A59 (6,080 satellites) and GW-2 (6,912 satellites). GW-2 will orbit at 1,145 km, and  GW-A59 will orbit around half that. The ITU filing was in September of 2020, and after a long delay, the first ten GW-2 satellites were launched at the end of 2024, and they now have 81 in orbit. The cadence has picked up recently -- China has launched another batch of Guowang satellites. This was the ninth Guowang launch this year and the sixth in the last 30 days. Even at this cadence, it is unclear that they can manufacture and launch enough satellites to meet the ITU launch deadlines. Perhaps the Chinese have decided that, given launch and manufacturing resources, they would not be able to meet ITU deadlines for all of their constellations, so they are focusing on Guowang, which can be seen as most critical for the government

Little technical information is available, but considering the capacities of the various rockets used to launch Guowang satellites and the number of satellites in each launch, it seems there are two sizes of satellite: large satellites of around 16,600 kg and smaller satellites of around 889 kg. While these are imprecise estimates, they indicate two classes of satellite with different capabilities and functions. (Note that the relatively high altitude GW-2 sub-constellation has both large and small satellites).

Several Guowang test satellites have also been launched, suggesting strategic government and military applications like Signals intelligence, positioning, navigation, and imaging applications in addition to Internet service.

Qianfan

Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology (SSST), a private company backed by the Shanghai municipal government and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is developing the Qianfan constellation. The planned satellites will orbit at 1,160 km, which is higher than the other announced LEO satellite competitors except Telesat. While this will increase latency, collision risk, satellite lifespan, handoff frequency, and coverage footprint should improve.

Their plan called for 648 satellites providing regional service by the end of 2025 and global service with a second 648 satellites by the end of 2027. By 2030, they planned to have 15,000 satellites in orbit and offer direct-to-mobile service, but it does not look like they will make these goals.

It's been a year since the first Qianfan launch, but five months since the last one. Is the slowdown due to satellite or launch availability, or are they pausing for some redesign, or both? Blaine Curcio reports that they are “having a very hard time finding rockets to send full batches of 18 satellites to orbit, but they have also had operational problems. The upper stage of the first launch fragmented, creating over 300 pieces of trackable debris, and ninety satellites are in orbit, but fourteen have not reached their operational altitude. Furthermore, the satellites are interfering with astronomy, and some are tumbling. Regardless of the cause for delays, Qianfan is unlikely to meet its ITU launch deadlines.

Qianfan is a more direct competitor to Starlink than Guowang, which is primarily focused on domestic telecommunications and national security. SSST has been actively marketing wholesale service through foreign telecom companies under the Sailspace brand name. They had MOUs with several nations in six initial target markets, as shown below, and they have subsequently been actively marketing in Africa.

Honghu-3

Landspace Technology Corporation was founded in 2015, following a 2014 central government policy shift that opened the launch and small satellite sectors to private capital. Landscape owns 48% of Hongqing Technology, which is developing the 10,000-satellite Honghu-3 constellation. Honghu-3 satellites will be in six planes, ranging from 340-550 km. 

Landspace has a pending IPO and is developing the Zhuque-3rocket, which they plan to launch later this year. The Zhuque-3 will carry about 21,000 kg to LEO in an expendable configuration – less than an expendable Falcon 9, but more than a reusable Falcon 9. This connection to a rocket manufacturer is reminiscent of SpaceX's relationship with Starlink and Project Kuiper's with Blue Origin.

Honghu-3 was announced after Guowang and Qianfan, and relatively little is known of their plans and technology, but Landspace has experience as a private company. (I asked the ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot chatbots how much state and private capital Landspace had received since it was founded, and the answers and explanations varied so much as to make them worthless, but they all agreed that the private investment was greater than the public.)