An example of effective government support for new communication technology

Based on their questions and comments during the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing on the commercial satellite industry, one could not tell whether a senator was a Democrat or Republican.

The US government has a history of support of telecommunication. On March 3, 1843, the US Senate passed a bill "to test the practicability of establishing a system of electro magnetic telegraphs by the United States." The bill provided $30,000 for Samuel Morse to conduct the test. He built a telegraph link between Washington and Baltimore and the rest is history.

Source

US government R&D, procurement, regulation, and expertise also played an important role in the development of the Internet -- see Seeding Networks, the Federal Role. (If you do not have access to the paper, send me a request for a copy). Government collaborated with universities and industry on the development of the Internet up to the time they phased out support, as shown below:

Federal funding prior to the NSFNet phase out
Source: my ACM bibliography (scroll down)

The October Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing on the commercial satellite industry provides a current example of effective government support of new communication technology.

The hearing focused on broadband access, primarily from low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. Witnesses from four companies -- Intelsat, OneWeb, ViaSat and SpaceX -- testified and the tone of the hearing was set by the opening statements of Committee Chairman John Thune and Ranking Member Bill Nelson. Thune began by saying "I believe we are at a critical moment in the development of satellite capability, and I am excited to hear from our panel of distinguished witnesses today." In his opening remarks, Nelson echoed Thune's optimism and among other things stated that he "would like to thank our witnesses for being here today and I look forward to discussing how we can work together to bring about this new Space Age."

The senators were sincere in their desire to serve the American people and they were asking for recommendations as to how they could craft legislation to realize the potential of satellite broadband service. A short introductory statement by each witness was followed by questions and answers. The senator's questions were constructive -- trying to learn from the witnesses, not score political points with their constituents. Based on their questions and comments, one could not tell whether a senator was a Democrat or Republican. They were all constructive.

I was also struck by the degree of overlap in the recommendations given by the four executives, for example:

• They are all in favor of sharing spectrum among themselves and with terrestrial service providers. They agree that dividing frequency bands among operators is the least desirable and most inefficient way to avoid interference.
• The four agree that satellite safety and debris mitigation will be critical in an era of large constellations of LEO satellites and that we need to work with International agencies to establish standards. They understand that a disastrous collision would set the entire industry back so they have a common interest in satellite safety.
• Global standards are needed for debris mitigation, spectrum sharing, etc. and the US, with its history and expertise at NASA and the staffs of agencies like the FCC and NTIA, can and should take the lead in establishing those international standards.
• The government definition of "broadband Internet" should be technology neutral. Today's geostationary satellite service is slower than terrestrial service, but speeds of coming LEO services will be comparable to terrestrial service.
• OneWeb is also working on a grappling mechanism for retrieving spent satellites and Greg Wyler said they "hope to open source" the design. No other witnesses mentioned open source, but given Tesla's open source policy, we might expect open source designs from SpaceX as well.

The only explicit disagreement I heard was OneWeb arguing against the Connect America Fund subsidy, but, if it is not limited, I am sure they would like to receive funds. In general, the satellite providers have many common interests and they would like procedures and policies adjusted to allow them to compete on a level playing field with terrestrial ISPs.

Watching this hearing reminded me of the collaboration between Intel, Digital Equipment Corporation and Xerox to create the Ethernet standard. Potential competitors grouped together to define a standard that would enable a large, competitive market as opposed to several small proprietary markets. LEO satellite broadband feels like a startup industry -- reminiscent of the early personal computer days in the US, the ARPAnet and Internet in the days of the Acceptable Use Policy or even the Cuban start-up scene today.

You can see the hearing yourself -- the senators' opening statements, the written testimony of the witnesses and a video of the entire hearing, including questions, answers, and discussion among the senators and witnesses may be found here. SpaceX and OneWeb are both planning large LEO satellite constellations and you will find summaries of their testimonies at the end of these progress reports: SpaceX and 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.