OneWeb satellite Internet project update

The OneWeb mission is to bridge the digital divide globally by 2027.
Greg Wyler, 2017 Softbank World conference

Whoever gets the most data wins.
Masayoshi Son, 2017 Softbank World conference

Global prices will vary, making connectivity affordable in developing nations.
Greg Wyler, 2017 Senate testimony

Satellites in 18 orbital planes

SpaceX and OneWeb are formidable, experienced competitors in a race to become global Internet service providers using satellite constellations -- routers in space. I posted a status report on SpaceX last week, now let's look at OneWeb.

OneWeb founder and executive chairman Greg Wyler has extensive experience with networking in developing nations. In 2003 his company, Terracom, signed a contract to connect Rwandan schools, government institutions, and homes. Terracom failed to meet their goal, and the difficulty of dealing with terrestrial infrastructure led Wyler to focus on satellite connectivity.

In 2007, he founded O3b Networks (Other 3 billion), which today provides high-speed connectivity to Internet service providers and phone companies using a constellation of 12 satellites orbiting at 8,012 km above the equator. (The geosynchronous satellites used for TV transmission and Internet access in remote areas orbit 35,786 km above the equator). In spite of its name, O3b was not going to connect the entire world and Wyler founded OneWeb in 2012, with the mission of bridging the digital divide, which he hopes to do by 2027.

Satellites will be mass-produced,
reducing cost and cutting production
time significantly.

OneWeb and SpaceX have the same goal, but their organizations are dissimilar. SpaceX is integrated -- building the rockets, satellites and ground stations themselves -- while OneWeb has partners that bring skills and funds to the project. For example, Qualcomm will design and supply communication chips and Airbus will manufacture satellites.

OneWeb also has a symbiotic relationship with Softbank, their largest investor. SoftBank's Vision Fund has invested $1 billion in OneWeb and OneWeb plays a strategic role in SoftBank's vision of the future.

SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son outlined his vision of the future in the keynote session ofth the 2017 SoftBank World conference. He believes the information revolution will be driven by strong, general artificial intelligence (AI), therefore the key material asset for the information age will be AI training data -- "whoever gets the most data wins."

Low-cost, user-installable
terminals will support WiFi, cell
phones, and the Internet. Solar panels
and batteries are optional.

Several Vision Fund investments focus on collecting that training data from Internet of things (IoT) devices. They have invested in ARM, which dominates the IoT and smartphone processor markets, Nvidia which makes processors used in AI, Boston Dynamics which is building intelligent robots and, you guessed it, OneWeb, which will link 1 trillion IoT devices to AI projects.

Wyler and representatives of some other Vision Fund companies made presentations during the keynote. Here is a summary of what Wyler said:

• They have priority rights to 3.55 GHz of globally harmonized spectrum for non-geostationary satellites. (They also have a technique for avoiding interference with geo-stationary satellites when over the equator).
• They will have 49 satellites in each of 18, 1,200 km orbital planes.
• With Airbus, they have devised a novel satellite manufacturing process that will allow mass production rather than hand building.
• Cost per satellite will be under $1 million and they will be able to produce three per day.
• They will connect both Internet gateways and end users.
• The first satellites will have a capacity of 595 Mbps, but that will increase to over 1 Gbps. (More on capacity below).
• Latency will be under 50 ms, making interactive applications like 5G mobile telephony, game playing and Web surfing possible.

The following is a video (9:43) of his presentation:

(You can see the entire keynote session with presentations by several Vision Fund companies (2:12:15) here or just Son's introduction, outlining his Vision Fund strategy (30:17) here).

Satellite footprint 1,080 by 1,080 km

System capacity is a key variable. OneWeb claimed satellite throughput would be "up to" 7.5 Gbps in a June 2016 presentation to the ITU, but Wyler quoted much lower capacity in his Softbank talk. (I've asked OneWeb for clarification on this change, but have not received a reply. I will update this post if and when I do).

That revised capacity estimate may explain Wyler's February 2017 statement that they had sold a considerable portion of the capacity of their planned constellation. The following month they filed an application with the FCC for an additional 720 satellites orbiting at 1,200 km and 1,280 orbiting at 8,500 km. The 720 satellite constellation application has been approved.

I have no idea what their planned customer mix is. They will presumably serve relatively few Internet gateways, but those will require considerable bandwidth. End users like homes and schools will require less bandwidth, but there will be more of them. There will be large numbers of IoT devices, but they will require little bandwidth. Population densities also vary greatly -- between urban and rural areas, continents and islands and, in the extreme, ships at sea. 1 Gbps will go a lot further in Alaska than Bangladesh.

OneWeb seems to be ahead of SpaceX's schedule. They plan to launch their first satellites in March 2018. (That will satisfy the ITU requirement that they are using their spectrum). They will begin offering service in Alaska in 2019 and hope to cover all of Alaska by the end of 2020. By 2025 they expect to have 1 billion subscribers and their mission is to eliminate the global digital divide by 2027.

Update 10/28/2017

The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) and OneWeb have signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on rural connectivity. Greg Wyler, Founder and Executive Chairman of OneWeb, promised that “Starting in 2020, OneWeb will be able to deliver everyone in Saudi Arabia, regardless of their location, high-speed broadband at their home, office, or school."

The Saudi National transformation plan calls for extending connectivity to nearly all rural areas and OneWeb is expected to help them reach 30% of rural homes. No details were released, but since this is a deal with the government, the strategy may be to use OneWeb for a national "backbone" and provide backhaul for local area networks rather than serving consumers directly.

Note that OneWeb investor and partner Richard Branson is witnessing the signing.

OneWeb's Greg Wyler signing an MOU with the Saudi MCIT

Update 11/3/2017

Greg Wyler testifying

Greg Wyler, Founder and Executive Chairman of OneWeb, testified before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing on "The Commercial Satellite Industry: What’s Up and What’s on the Horizon."

In his introductory remarks, Wyler said their schedule had slipped by two months and they will launch their first ten satellites next May. By 2019, they will be able to offer service throughout Alaska and will cover the entire US in 2020. Their first constellation will offer connections of up to 500 mbps and have a total capacity of 7 tbps. The second constellation, planned for 2021, will offer speeds up to 2.5 tbps and bring total capacity to 120 tbps. (High speeds will be possible in lightly populated regions). The third constellation, planned for 2013, will cover 1 billion potential consumers by 2025 and have a total capacity of 1,000 tbps. By 2027 they will cover the globe.

Wyler said they and their partners will invest $30 billion and provide many high-paying jobs. They will partner with local ISPs and phone companies in marketing their service. He also spoke of space debris and reentry casualties.

After the introductory remarks, the senators asked questions of the panelists. Mr. Wyler said the US is the technology leader among spacefaring nations and, if we take the lead in regulation, other nations and the International Telecommunication Union would follow. For example, he feels that a 125 km orbital altitude separation should be maintained between satellites and they should be limited to a five-year lifespan.

Several senators asked about pricing and data caps and Mr. Wyler responded that their partner ISPs, not OneWeb, would set prices that were affordable in their regions -- we can expect a customer in a high-GDP nation to pay considerably more than a customer in a low-GDP nation. He also stressed the importance of safety, saying investments would dry up if there were a satellite collision and he said prolonged uncertainty over spectrum-sharing would also dampen investment.

You can read Wyler's written testimony summarizing their plans, expected benefits and policy recommendations here or watch his oral testimony, beginning 1:02:50 of the archived video of the hearing. Representatives of OneWeb, Intelsat and ViaSat also testified, but, Boeing was noticeably absent.

Update 12/11/2017

OneWeb is deepening ties with partners.

Softbank has invested an additional $500 million in OneWeb, bringing their total investment to $1.5 billion. They previously had a 40% stake in OneWeb and their share will remain under 50%

Boeing is also developing ties to OneWeb. They will build satellites for O3b, a company Wyler founded. It has also been reported that Boeing wants to give one of its V-band satellite broadband FCC filings to SOM1101, a Wyler-controlled company. Boeing recently announced a rapid acceleration of their Mars exploration program. Might OneWeb team up with Boeing, which is developing a very large rocket for Mars missions, in order to compete with SpaceX and their large rocket, the BFR?

Update 3/14/2018

Liquid crystal display antennas

Hughes has shipped a new satellite-Internet gateway to OneWeb. It is capable of making 10,000 handoffs per second -- times have changed since antennas moved to track satellites! (Hughes has contracted to deliver 40 of these gateways to OneWeb).

Isotropic Systems has announced that they will be making a low-cost, consumer terminal that will be available to OneWeb in 2019. Note that they have developed a novel optical antenna technology.

It looks like both Isotropic and Alcan Systems are shooting for the consumer edge-terminal market with novel technologies -- Alcan antennas utilize low-cost, mass-produced liquid crystal displays.

SpaceX and OneWeb have different strategies. OneWeb is working with partners like Hughes and Isotropic Systems while SpaceX is vertically integrated; however, even if they are designing their own edge terminals, SpaceX may use components from companies like Isotropic and Alcan.

Update 3/25/2018

OneWeb has joined the Seamless Air Alliance, which is developing standards for in-flight Internet connectivity through low-Earth orbiting satellites to terrestrial Internet gateways. Early members are mobile network operators Sprint and Bharti Airtel, Delta Airlines and Airbus.

Will SpaceX Starlink join the alliance? Will medium-Earth orbit satellite Internet service provider SES-networks (O3b)? An open standard for connectivity and billing will facilitate competition.

OneWeb's Greg Wyler expects standard communication with LEO in-flight Internet service to disrupt the industry. He says they will be offering service in 2020 and there will be several competing terminal manufacturers at that time.

Update 12/16/2018

OneWeb has made two major changes to their plans.

Citing pressure from national regulators who insisted on being able to control the routes of all traffic coming into or out of their nations, OneWeb has dropped inter-satellite laser links from their design. Doing so will simplify satellite design and save money and weight, but will lead to increased latencies and require more terrestrial gateways.

They have also decided to cut the number of satellites in their initial constellation from 900 to 600. After seeing better than expected results in their satellite ground tests, they concluded that they can achieve global coverage with only 600 satellites. The satellites will cost a little more than the initially budgeted $500,000 each, but this represents a significant overall cost reduction. They have also decided that their initial priority will be connecting boats and planes before focusing on the Internet for the masses.

They have not decided whether or not the next 300 satellites will be the same design as the initial 600 or a next-generation, higher capacity design. Their first 10 satellites will launch next February and while company founder Greg Wyler said he hopes to begin service next year, that could slip to 2020.

Update 2/6/2019

OneWeb founder Greg Wyler announced that his self-funded side project, Wafer LLC, has developed $15 antenna module, paving the way for user terminals priced between $200 and $300. (The antenna is only one component of the Earth station, but it has been a sticking point). Wyler said that “The entire antenna is less than an eighth inch thick -- you can have an extremely light, thin, low-power antenna that’s very cost effective and can be produced in large volumes.” Wyler said tests of prototypes showed 50 Mbps capacity per antenna "tile" and said multiple tiles could be combined. It is not clear how many tiles there are per antenna, but presumably, combing them would cut into the number of satellites that could be visible at any one time. SpaceX just asked the FCC for permission to deploy 1 million Earth stations and is slated to begin launching their constellation in 2019. They must be capable of mass producing cheap antennas too.

Update 2/20/2019

OneWeb has pushed their launch date back to February 26 and the British Space Agency is providing them with 17 million pounds in funding. The article refers to OneWeb as UK-based -- they have operations in the US, but must be incorporated in the UK. It also describes LTE-based ground stations that could be deployed in emergencies as establishing 200-meter coverage circles.

Update 3/29/2019

Nine-minute launch timeline (Source)

In February, a Russian Soyuz rocket launched a cluster of six OneWeb test satellites. Shortly after the launch, all the satellites were reported to be healthy.

Once the testing is complete they plan 20 more Soyuz launches, each carrying up to 36 satellites. Virgin Orbit, which has a 39 mission contract, is also expected to begin launches this year. OneWeb plans to have 150 satellites in orbit by the end of this year, start regional service in 2020 with around 300 satellites and have global coverage in 2021 with 600 operating satellites and 48 spares in orbit.

The test satellites were placed in a 1,000-kilometer orbit and they will climb to 1,200 kilometers during the 60-90 day test. Perhaps the two-altitude test is related to the conflicts over sub-1,200 km orbits and spectrum between OneWeb and SpaceX. (At one time, OneWeb founder Greg Wyler and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk planned to work together, but today they are said to be personally hostile in addition to being business competitors).

OneWeb, formerly known as WorldVu Satellites, was founded in Arlington, Virginia in the US but is now headquartered in London and the UK Space Agency has given them an £18 million grant to work on 5G cellular integration through the European Space Agency. OneWeb's mission is to bridge the digital divide by 2027, and moving its headquarters to London emphasizes its position as a global company. (Airbus, Virgin Orbit and Softbank are collaborators and investors in the OneWeb project). Ironically, both the US and England are distancing themselves from Europe at this time.

Update 4/27/2019

Tim Farrar reports that Elon Musk is telling potential investors Starlink terminals will cost $500, dropping to $150 over time. If that is the case, OneWeb may have an advantage since they are reporting steady low-cost antenna improvement. (The OneWeb antenna shown here is much smaller than the tablet it is resting on).

That being said, an investment of $500 is a relatively small part of the cost of ongoing broadband Internet service to a home or a school or other organization.

Update 6/25/2019

The FCC has granted OneWeb's application for an experimental license to operate 75 earth stations across the US.

Update 1/13/2020

OneWeb hopes to establish three ground stations in China. They have signed a "framework agreement" for one in Sanya, a city in southern China, and hope to have that and two others approved. They are also seeking partners to market and support their service. They plan a total of 45 global ground stations.

Update 1/20/2020

Pacific Dataport Inc, a subsidiary of established geostationary satellite company, Microcom, has signed an agreement to distribute OneWeb Internet service in Alaska. (The Web site refers to it as an "exclusive agreement with Alaska and Hawaii," but the press release does not mention Hawaii or exclusivity). Regardless, you can sign up to be notified when the service becomes available now. The service will be available "as early as" the fourth quarter of 2020.

Update 2/17/2020

The team with sats ready to go source

On February 7, Arianespace launched the first 34 of 648 Internet-service satellites for OneWeb. The satellites were deployed in nine batches at an altitude of 450 km and they will self-propel to their operational orbit of 1,200 km. altitude and 87.4° inclination. OneWeb confirmed signal acquisition with all 34 satellites within hours after launch.

They plan one more launch in March and then they will take a "breather" to produce a newly designed element of the satellite. They expect to conduct customer demos by the end of 2020 and to provide full commercial global services for maritime, aviation, government and enterprise in 2021.

Update 3/3/2020

OneWeb has obtained the permit -- signed an MOU -- for working in Armenia, Georgia, and Kazakhstan. I wonder if it is exclusive? This sort of thing is necessary along with launches and technology.

Update 3/20/2020

Bloomberg reports that OneWeb is considering filing for bankruptcy. If that is the case, it is bad news. We need a competition. I would not want to see SpaceX or Hongyun or any other company become a monopoly ISP in any nation or region.

Might Amazon acquire OneWeb?

Update 12/13/2020 OneWeb has emerged from bankruptcy and chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal says they planned to offer coverage in most of northern Europe by October or November of next year and would cover the entire world by may or June of 2022. He also said the current 648 satellites would be able to provide precision timing service and that the next generation would offer positioning, navigation and timing services.


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Click here for a couple of earlier posts on OneWeb.

Two approaches to routers in space -- SpaceX and OneWeb

Competing global ISPs would be of great value to mankind.

OneWeb collaborators and investors (Source)

Two companies hope to revolutionize the Internet by providing global connectivity using constellations of low-earth orbit satellites -- Elon Musk's SpaceX and Greg Wyler's OneWeb. It seems that SpaceX gets a lot more publicity than OneWeb, but both are formidable.

They have the same goal, but their organizations are dissimilar. SpaceX is integrated -- building the rockets, satellites and ground stations themselves -- while OneWeb has a number of collaborators and investors, including Bharti Enterprises, Coca-Cola, Intelsat, Hughes, Totalplay Telecommunications, Virgin Galactic and Softbank.

One strategic investor, Softbank, invested $1.2 billion last December and was given a board seat. OneWeb says they have now raised enough capital to finance the remainder of the project with loans.

OneWeb had planned to build 900 satellites and initially launch 648, but Wyler says Softbank has encouraged them to be more aggressive and he is considering adding an additional 1,972 satellites. Doing so would dramatically increase the total capacity of the system. Regardless, their goal is to connect every school by 2022 and "fully bridge the digital divide" by 2027.

Teledesic animation

Critics of the SpaceX and OneWeb projects argue that they will not be able to compete with terrestrial wireless and they also run the risk of causing "space junk" collisions in low-earth orbit. Others counter that it will be decades before ubiquitous, high-speed wireless connectivity reaches the majority of the people on Earth and the odds of such collisions are very small at such high altitudes.

(Teledesic, a similar project, failed in the 1990s, but launch and communication technology have improved dramatically since that time and Internet connectivity has become much more valuable).

What if one of these companies succeeds and the other fails? That would leave the winner with a monopoly in much of the rural and developing world. It is even conceivable that they could compete effectively with terrestrial ISPs -- in access or backbone networks. Would global ISPs require unique regulation and, if so, what should it be and who has the power to do it?

Los Angles - Punta Arenas 5 satellite hops, 14 terrestrial hops

I'm not smart enough to answer the critics who raise difficult questions, but I hope SpaceX and OneWeb both succeed -- competing global ISPs would be of great value to mankind.

(For more background and news on this topic, click here).

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Update 3/1/2017

The satellite Internet strategies of OneWeb and SpaceX have diverged further with a proposed merger between OneWeb and Intelsat. (Softbank is an investor in both companies).

If the merger is completed, they will integrate their geostationary (Intelsat) and low-earth orbit (OneWeb) networks, enabling them to have global coverage quickly with mixed high and low-latency service, depending on the customer's location and requirements.

Presumably many current Intelsat broadband customers would transition to the OneWeb network as it becomes available and OneWeb customers will be able to offer mixed-speed service globally. As shown here, Intelsat would also bring regulatory approval access to 200 countries and territories to the combined company, but I wonder if those agreements would have to be renegotiated.

If the merger is approved, they will face a stiff challenge in integrating both the communication technology and the marketing/business models, but this is an interesting twist.

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Update 6/4/2017

Intelsat bond holders and OneWeb were unable to agree to terms, so their merger has been called off. Greg Wyler said the failure would not slow them down at all and he was still seeking other partners, but I would think the loss of Intelsat's global marketing and support organization and their complemetary service offering is a disappointment.

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Update 3/16/2018

Softbank is a major investor in OneWeb and managing director Alex Clavel says they will be underwriting their investment by contracting with GSO satellite Internet service providers to market OneWeb service.

Satellite Internet update -- Airbus will make satellites for OneWeb

OneWeb and SpaceX are using different technologies and have different organizational strategies.

Two companies, OneWeb and SpaceX, are in competition to offer global Internet access and backhaul over constellations of low-earth orbit satellites. (A third company, Leosat, plans to focus on high-end business and government organizations).

Unlike SpaceX, OneWeb is working with a team of investors and partners. Five companies bid for the contract to build OneWeb's satellites and Airbus won. They will build 900 150-kilogram satellites, 648 of which will be used in OneWeb's initial, near-polar orbit constellation, as shown in this animated video:

The Airbus announcement raises a lot of questions, that are addressed in a terrific in-depth interview of
Brian Holz, OneWeb’s Director of Space Systems. Holz talks about the reasons for producing the satellites in the US and the factors in choosing a factory location, the cost of the satellites ($4-500,000 each), the need to have global participation in a global project, launch services, satellite reliability and plans for eventually deorbiting them, financing and the business case, the search for manufacturers of millions of user terminals and antennas, etc.

Brian Holz, OneWeb’s Director of Space Systems

Holz and CEO Greg Wyler have experience -- they were together at O3b Networks, which is already delivering industrial-scale connectivity using medium-orbit satellites -- and are worthy competitors for Elon Musk's SpaceX effort. While seeking the same goal -- global connectivity -- OneWeb and SpaceX are using different technologies and have different organizational strategies.

SpaceX plans to have around 4,000 smaller, cheaper, shorter-lived satellites orbiting at only 645 kilometers. SpaceX will also keep more of the project in-house than OneWeb. OneWeb is becoming a coordinated coalition of partners. Virgin Galactic, Qualcomm, Honeywell Aerospace and Rockwell Collins are already on board and Airbus will not be a mere supplier, but a partner in a joint venture, which will include others for finance and marketing as well as technology.

Both projects are extremely ambitious, expensive and risky. I don't know which, if either, will "win," but the best possible outcome would be for both to succeed and compete with each other and with terrestrial ISPs.

I worry about the problems of capitalism with its massive concentration of power and income inequality, but this is an example of capitalism at its best.

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Update 6/25/2015

OneWeb founder Greg Wyler announced that they have received $500 million in funding from a group that includes Airbus and is seeking to raise that much or more in their next round of funding. Previously announced partners Qualcomm (communication technology) and Virgin Glactic (launch services) are also investors.

Their plan will require an estimated $2-2.5 billion, and it does not seem they will have trouble raising it. I'd like a few shares myself :-).

OneWeb founder Greg Wyler

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Update 4/19/2016

SpaceX has (rightfully) been in the news lately because they succeeded in recovering a booster rocket by landing it on a barge at sea. If they can do that consistently, it will dramatically lower the cost of their plan to offer Internet service using a constellation of low-earth orbit satellites.

But, let's not forget OneWeb -- they are also making steady progress toward their own constellation of Internet service satellites. OneWeb just announced that they (in a joint venture with Airbus) will build a factory to mass produce small satellites near NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (SpaceX is also designing satellites suitable for mass production).

One Web plans to place Internet satellites in 18 orbital planes at an altitude of 1,100 kilometers. They plan to build about 900 of these 150-kilogram satellites -- 720 for use and the rest spares -- at a cost of $500,000 each. (See the animation above).

They will also build satellites for other customers at the new plant and they hope to be able to launch up to 36 satellites on a single flight.

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Update 12/19/2016

The Japanese conglomerate Softbank is investing $1 billion in OneWeb, giving them a 40% share of the company. They are joining Richard Branson, Qualcomm, Airbus and others as OneWeb participants.

OneWeb and Elon Musk's SpaceX are both planning to launch constellations of Internet service satellites, but OneWeb is doing so in conjunction with technical and financial partners, while SpaceX is building their own satellite and launch technology.

I hope they both succeed, giving us an oligopoly rather than a monopoly. Regardless, a global Internet Service Provider presents difficult regulatory questions.

Click here for more on OneWeb and Internet service satellites.

Greg Wyler reports OneWeb progress

Think about the possibility of a WiFi network with a low-latency, 50 mbps back-haul link to the Internet in every school or rural clinic in the world.

I've been tracking Greg Wyler and Elon Musk's satellite Internet projects for some time. Both have been relatively quiet (most of what I know of Musk's SpaceX project came from an unauthorized cell phone video of a recruiting talk he gave), but Wyler talked about his company OneWeb in a keynote at the Satellite 2015 Conference yesterday.

Wyler plans a constellation of about 650 satellites in low-earth orbit (about 1,200 kilometers). He said that they plan to launch satellites in 2017 and hope to begin offering service in 2019. (It seems that OneWeb is ahead of the SpaceX schedule).

They will offer 50 mbps, 30 ms latency connectivity to $250 ground stations that will also serve as hot-spots, providing WiFi, LTE, 3G or 2G connectivity.

As shown below, a terrestrial route between Los Angeles and the tip of Chile requires 14 hops. The same route via satellite may require only five low-latency hops. (The figure is drawn to scale).

Think about the possibility of a WiFi network with a low-latency, 50 mbps back-haul link to the Internet in every school or rural clinic in the world.

Wyler showed a prototype of one of his ground-stations and also showed how easy it is to set up. The operator just spreads the solar panels and turns it on -- five seconds install time. Here we see one on the corrugated roof of a building:

This ease of deployment would be terrific for establishing ad hoc communication in the wake of disasters that had disrupted terrestrial communication.

While I have focused on OneWeb's primary goal of providing Internet connectivity in developing nations and rural areas, Wyler also spoke of providing connectivity in aircraft (and ships at sea).

Of course, all of this is speculation for now. Some conference attendees and presenters were skeptical about Wyler's project, pointing out that his low-cost satellites would have to be replaced every five years or so -- a recurring expense. Critics also pointed out that much of the time, the low-earth orbit satellites will be over oceans, polar regions and other sparsely populated areas.

That being said, Wyler has been able to attract backers and partners, each of which brings money and expertise to the table:

• Virgin Galactic: launch services
• Qualcomm: radio hardware
• Honeywell Aerospace: aircraft equipment and airtime services
• Rockwell Collins: satellite communication terminals for aircraft
  

Like a modern Internet company that follows the dictum "do what you do best and link to the rest," OneWeb will focus on the backbone and market through local retail Internet service and cell phone providers.

One can also imagine OneWeb providing competition for conventional terrestrial ISPs in developed nations. I can dream of going over to Best Buy, picking up a OneWeb ground station, installing it on my roof and escaping the clutches of my ISP monopolist Time Warner Cable. I am not holding my breath till that happens, but I will be keeping my eye on OneWeb's ambitious project.

For some background on Wyler's previous satellite company, O3B Networks, and more on his plans for OneWeb, check out this video:


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Update 3/20/2015

FierceWirelessTech interview of Greg Wyler.

Wyler says "We've got a pretty clear path. It's not just a technology problem. It is a technology, regulatory, implementation, education problem. It's kind of a little bit of everything." In the interview, he talks about terminal design, their business model and spectrum.

As mentioned above, he stresses ease of installation and low cost for the terminals. OneWeb has the rights to the Ku and Ka spectrum they will use and patent-pending technology to assure non-interference with geo-stationary satellites in those bands. Scale is critical to their business model -- once the constellation is operating, they marginal cost of a new customer is very low.

Regulation of global satellite Internet service providers

Would global Internet service providers require unique regulation and, if so, what should it be and who has the power to do it?

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who hopes to orbit a constellation of Internet-access satellites, recently gave an invitation-only talk announcing the opening of a satellite-design office in Seattle. (An attendee recorded the talk and posted it on YouTube).

Many invitees were engineers and Musk was recruiting, saying "it's a difficult problem so we need the smartest engineers in the world." Then, he joked "and at the same time to make sure we don't create SkyNet."

The audience laughed, but he was, perhaps inadvertently, alluding to a serious issue. Issac Asimov wrote of Gaia, a sentient planet, and, while the Internet may be the embryonic nervous system of our planet, I am less worried about Musk creating SkyNet than creating Comcast on Steroids.

Two companies, Musk's SpaceX and Greg Wyler's OneWeb, are competing to provide Internet connectivity in locations that are now unconnected -- as Wyler puts it, to connect "the other three billion." If one or both succeed, we might have have a monopoly or oligopoly ISP serving half the Earth's population.

As a Time-Warner Cable Internet customer, that worries me. They would be able to charge monopoly-level prices and offer the same last-place customer satisfaction as American ISPs. They would be global companies with political power and the ability to control half the world's information -- a combination of the Koch brothers, Fox News and Comcast.

Do these potentially global service providers require unique regulation and, if so, what should it be and who has the power to do it?

What might the regulation be? I can ask the question, but neither I nor anyone else knows The Answer; however, one suggestion is to keep both SpaceX and OneWeb out of the retail Internet service market -- restrict them to providing wholesale transport service on an equal basis to any would-be retail ISP. Even if only one of the two companies succeed, that would allow for retail competition and would help out with the monopoly price and crummy service issues.

A possible approach to avoiding political abuse would be to prohibit them from refusing service to any retail ISP in any nation.

Regardless of what we wish to do, who has the authority to create and enforce such regulations? Musk said SpaceX has the ITU's permission to launch the satellites and recognized that he will have to negotiate for the right to provide service on a country by country basis. SpaceX and OneWeb are both US corporations and therefore subject to US law, but is it right for global infrastructure to be regulated by a single nation?

Lest this sound too negative, I hope SpaceX and OneWeb both succeed in connecting the other three billion people on the planet -- the benefit to mankind will outweigh the difficulty of defining acceptable, effective policy.

Update 1/31/2015

Jason Koebler compares Elon Musk to the 19th century railroad barons, saying that being the first to develop technology to soft-land and reuse rockets will give him an unassailable first-mover advantage in space -- for imaging, communication and other applications.

Elon Musk with President Obama

Elon Musk and Greg Wyler's plans for global satellite connectivty

Routers in space

(See the related post on cost savings from re-use of rockets used in launching satellites).

In the early 1990s, cellular pioneer Craig McCaw, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal founded Teledesic, with the intention of providing global Internet connectivity using low-earth orbit satellites. The satellite and launch technology were not good enough and the company failed.

Teledesic animation showing a satellite
constellation that would cover the planet.

But satellite and launch technology have come a long way since that time. In an earlier post, I asked whether Google could connect the "other three billion" in developing nations and rural areas. The post surveyed Google projects involving high altitude platforms like blimps, drones or balloons that hover or circulate in the stratosphere, low-earth orbit satellites used for imaging and telephony and medium-earth orbit satellites used for communications and navigation.

One of those projects was a collaboration with O3b (other three billion), a company founded by ex-Google executive Greg Wyler. O3b began with four satellites in 8,000-kilometer equatorial orbits and planned to serve all parts of the Earth within 45 degrees of the Equator. Wyler has left O3b when he went to Google and O3b and now has 12 satellites in orbit.

In describing the O3b project, I wondered "whether they are considering a low-earth orbit constellation" and it seems they were. Mr. Wyler subsequently left O3b to found WorldVu, which planned a constellation of 300 satellites at between 800 and 950 kilometers in altitude and has acquired Ku-band spectrum. Service will be marketed under the OneWeb brand.

That takes care of the improved satellite technology, but how about launch technology?

The Wall Street Journal recently published an article saying that Mr. Wyler would be teaming up with Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX to provide global Internet access using a constellation of 700 satellites, each weighing less than 250 pounds. Musk confirmed the plan in a couple of Twitter posts, but also criticized the Wall Street Journal reporting.

I hope they will be able to realize Teledesic's 1990 vision using 2020 technology.

I concluded my earlier post on this topic by "wondering whether Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin, Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, and Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic are eyeing those other three billion people." I still wonder about Bezos and Branson.

Update 11/13/2014

After writing this post, I attended a session at Rand Corporation's Politics Aside conference and had a chance to ask Simonetta Di Pippo, the Director of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs, about her take on this proposal. She did not give a direct answer, but said that Elon Musk is a very smart man and he has never failed to succeed at anything he committed to do.

A SpaceX executive overheard my question and said he could not comment, but he reiterated Elon Musk's tweeted statement that the Wall Street Journal article had errors and we would have to wait a couple of months for the full announcement of their plans.

I guess we will have to wait to see, but this could be a Big Deal.

Update 12/15/2014

SpaceX will carry micro-satellites made by Planet Labs to the International Space Station (ISS) for launch into orbit.

Two Plane Labs satellites just after launch from the ISS

The satellites shown being launched are Planet Labs earth-imaging satellites. They are smaller and orbit at lower altitude than those discussed above, but might a constellation of more, smaller satellites in lower orbits and carrying routers rather than cameras be suitable for Internet communication? (That is not a rhetorical question -- I do not know).

For more on Planet Labs, check this terrific Ted Talk by Planet Labs co-founder Will Marshall:



Update 1/14/2015

The competition heats up.

Greg Wyler’s OneWeb satellite-Internet company has received funding from the Virgin Group and Qualcomm and Richard Branson of Virgin Group and Paul Jacobs from Qualcomm will have seats on the board. (If you are a Wall Street Journal subscriber, there is a longer article here).

Elon Musk also announced the opening of a Seattle office for the design of satellites. SpaceX declined to comment on Wyler's announcement.

Whoever builds the rockets, satellites and markets the service, it sounds like Teledesic is being reborn using modern technology and, if successful, it would be a major extension of the nervous system of the Earth and a significant enabler of Bill Gates' work in developing nations.

Greg Wyler wants to bring the Internet to the entire world.

Update 1/17/2015

Elon Musk announced that he plans to deploy a constellation of router equipped-satellites -- evidently in competition with the Greg Wyler's OneWeb project. Musk announced his plan at a closed meeting for potential employees of his new satellite office and state, local and federal government officials.

No details were released and those that were leaked appear to be inconsistent. For example, the Seattle Times reported that they planned to deploy 4,000 geosynchronous satellites and Business Week reported that they planned 700 low-earth orbit satellites.

This effort is not an end in itself, but part of a larger plan to reach Mars -- Musk says he wants to die on Mars.

It is terrific to see two powerful groups competing to fulfill Bill Gates' original vision of global satellite connectivity -- Teledesic. Teledesic failed, but with modern launch capability, micro-satellites and communication equipment one or both of these efforts may very well succeed. If they do, it will be an historic achievement and a significant complement to Gates' current work in developing nations.

Elon Musk will compete with OneWeb

Update 1/19/2015

When this thread began last November, it seemed like Elon Musk and Greg Wyler would collaborate on an Internet satellite venture, but now it looks more like competition.

A post on Ars Technica quotes Musk as saying “Greg and I have a fundamental disagreement about the architecture -- we want a satellite that is an order of magnitude more sophisticated than what Greg wants. I think there should be two competing systems.”

They quote Richard Branson as saying that Musk doesn't have a chance because Wyler has spectrum rights and there is not enough space for two satellite constellations. He thinks the logical thing for Musk to do is work together rather than separately.

Wyler's former employer Google, which has also been working on satellite connectivity, is said to be close to investing in Musk's Space X.

I can't wait to see where all this ends up in, say, five years.

Update 1/20/2015

SpaceX has confirmed an investment of $1 billion from Google and Fidelity for a reported 10% of the company. That leads to an evaluation of around $10 billion. (I may be old-fashioned, but I don't understand markets that evaluate WhatsApp at nearly double the value of SpaceX).

It also seems that SpaceX is considering the use of modulated laser beams to cope with OneWeb's advantage in spectrum holdings.

Regardless of the technology, OneWeb and SpaceX will have to deal with regulators in each nation they serve, which seems inefficient -- would it make more sense to establish some international regulatory rules?

Looking forward -- what if one of these companies pulls their plans off and ends up serving a billion or two billion customers -- should we worry about their power? It sounds like Comcast on steroids. Even if they both succeed and establish a duopoly, they will have immense power.

Update 1/26/2015

Business Week has published a background piece on Greg Wyler -- his biography and personality. It is interesting to read for general background, but has a few details that are new to me. He says he plans to orbit 648 satellites at an altitude of 750 miles and hopes to sell the user terminals for around $200. Since there will be several satellites within range of any point on Earth, he says their antennas will not need to be professionally installed or move to track satellites, as is the case with O3B.

The article is accompanied by a 4:33 video in which Wyler describes O3B and his plans for OneWeb -- here are a couple of stills from the video:

Wyler with a mock-up of a user terminal

Wyler illustrates the latency differences between
low, middle and geostationary orbits

Update 1/26/2015

Cell-phone video (25:53 min) of Elon Musk's talk at the closed-door announcement of the establishment of a satellite design office in Seattle. Many high-level details on the project.

Update 2/12/2015

Third time is closer, but still no cigar :-(. "Rocket soft landed in the ocean within 10m of target & nicely vertical! High probability of good droneship landing in non-stormy weather." — Elon Musk February 11, 2015

Update 3/10/2015

Excerpts from a Via Satellite interview of Greg Wyler.

VIA SATELLITE: With industry verticals being served, and O3b connecting the other 3 billion people, where does OneWeb fit in to the communications landscape?

Wyler: O3b Networks does links around 150 Mbps and up, and this is about links that are much lower speeds than that. Our primary core competency will be sub 50 Mbps to small, inexpensive terminals.

VIA SATELLITE: How difficult was it to get investors like Virgin and QualComm to buy into this vision?

Wyler: Qualcomm knows more about communications chips, handover protocols and LTE then any other company. They also have a long background in satellite having built Globalstar and many other satellite communications systems. Virgin has Richard as the leader with a strong understanding of things that you can’t imagine he would have a sense of, and then this deep bench of players.

VIA SATELLITE: I understand an RFP is already out regarding the manufacturer of these satellites? When do you hope to finalize this?

Wyler: We are building satellites at high volume. They need to be done on a production line, rather than a one-off manufacturing process. We are going into a partnership where we will own a portion of the factory and the manufacturer the other portion.

VIA SATELLITE: Is 2017 a realistic timeframe to launch the first satellites? Wyler: I am an optimist. I think 2017 is a realistic time to have our test satellites up. I am not saying the constellation will be working then.

Update 3/18/2015

A third would-be satellite ISP, Leosat, has revealed plans for a constellation of Internet satellites. They will not be marketing to individual end users, but will target government and business -- maritime applications, oil and gas exploration and productions, telecom back-haul and trunking, enterprise VSAT, etc. They (and the others) hope to be able to provide low latency links over long distances. As shown here, a route from Los Angeles to southern Chile requires only 5 satellite hops as opposed to 14 terrestrial hops.

Update 10/7/2016

We have followed SpaceX's efforts to cut satellite launch cost by soft-landing and reusing rockets. Another way to cut launch costs is to use a single launch to place multiple satellites in different orbits and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully launched eight satellites into two different orbits. If rocket reuse and multiple-orbit launches become routine, the cost of creating constellations of Internet service satellites will be significantly reduced.

Single launch places eight satellites
in two different orbits.(credit: ISRO)

Update 11/17/2016

SpaceX has submitted a 102-page technical supplement to their application for permission to launch a constellation of Internet-service satellites.

leaked SpaceX financial documents reveal that Elon Musk expects significant revenue as a satellite Internet service provider:

SpaceX eventually plans to launch 4,000 communications satellites, which would be dozens of times larger than any other constellation, with the first phase of this possibly going online as early as 2018. SpaceX anticipates that the satellite business will become more profitable than the rocket business by 2020, generating tens of billions of dollars by the mid-2020s.

Another post on the same leak was more specific, saying that "SpaceX expects to generate more than $15 billion in profit by 2025."

Update 1/18/2017

Two of the updates to this post were triggered by SpaceX filing a request to launch 4,400 Internet service satellites last November and a leak of SpaceX financial data last week. Each of those events triggered in-depth, informative discussions on Reddit. The Reddit discussion of the request to launch the satellites (here) and the Reddit discussion of SpaceX finance (here) cover launch, radio and IP technology, markets, advantages and disadvantages compared to terrestrial networks and much more. Check them out and join the discussions.

Update 3/11/2017

A 2016 patent by Mark Krebs, then at Google, now at SpaceX, has several interesting figures like this one specifying two constellations, each at a different altitude. As shown here, the lower-altitude satellites have smaller footprints, but would have lower latency times than the higher altitude satellites.

The higher-orbit satellites will be launched in the first phase of the project, enabling SpaceX to bring the Internet to underserved and rural areas of the Earth. The second phase, lower-orbit satellites, will be able to offer faster service and possible compete with terrestrial networks in urban areas. I am not sure, but being at different altitudes might also simplify multi-satellite launches -- launch half at low altitude then proceded to the higher altitude and launch the second half. The high altitude satellites might also enable fewer hops on long, over-the horizon routes (as shown above) and make for smoother satellite handoffs during a session. The following is a neat video explainer of the SpaceX plan: