Telesat update -- proposal for a larger constellation, Canadian and DARPA contracts, a planned IPO and more

Telesat has a number of unique advantages and, if LEO broadband truly is a half a trillion-dollar addressable market, there will be room for multiple providers.

Blue satellites are in polar orbits and
red satellites are in inclined orbits.
Click here for animation.

I've discussed Telesat's LEO broadband project in earlier posts, but the project has progressed, so an update is needed.

The original plan was to launch 117 satellites but that has changed. The phase 1 constellation will now have 298 satellites and the second phase will add 1,373 for a total of 1,671. The revised plan has been submitted to the FCC, and they expect it to be approved next year.

While Telesat applied to increase the number of satellites, the macro architecture remains the same as originally planned. There will be two sub-constellations, one with 351 satellites in polar orbits (98.98 degrees/1,015 km) and another with 1,320 in inclined orbits (50.88 degrees/1,325 km). This patented architecture will enable them to serve the entire globe. (I am not a lawyer, but I wonder whether that is something that can be patented).

The sub-constellation architecture will enable global coverage and low latency but will require sophisticated inter-satellite laser links (ISLLs). It turns out that DARPA is also developing Blackjack, a military LEO communication constellation, and since the military requires low-latency and the ability to quickly establish connectivity at arbitrary, perhaps remote locations, they require ISLLs. Telesat received a $2.8 million study contract for the design of the Blackjack bus in 2018 and was awarded $18.3 million to develop and test Blackjack last October. In that role, Telesat selected Mynaric to supply ISLLs and may use them in their satellites as well.

The Canadian government has granted Telesat C$85 million to support research and development and another C$600 million to subsidize Internet connectivity in rural Canada. The R&D funds will go to early satellite tests and will support approximately 500 professional jobs and the rural connectivity funds are like those in the US where SpaceX was awarded $885 million.

While Telesat will have global coverage, they will focus on Canada and the north at first and that will put them in competition with OneWeb which plans to do the same. OneWeb will have a head start since it already has a distribution partner and plans to begin service in the north next fall, but Telesat will need fewer ground stations because of it's ISLLs and it already has 10 GEO teleports in North America and two others in Hawaii and Austria.

Telesat has run tests and done demonstrations of many potential applications since launching a test satellite in 2018 and Lynette Simmons, Director of Marketing and Communication, says the system design is complete and they expect to announce the prime contractor very soon. They will finance the constellation by restructuring and a public stock offering. President and CEO Dan Goldberg is confident that they will be able to raise sufficient capital based on their track record. The company is over 50 years old and is a large, global GEO satellite operator that has been broadcasting televiion since 1978, providing Internet connectivity since 1996 and they have been doing advanced research for both the US and Canadian governments. Goldberg thinks LEO broadband is a half a trillion-dollar market and you can see his pitch in the following video.

Let me add a little speculation. Nearly two years ago, Telesat signed an agreement to use the software defined network (SDN) platform Google had developed for Project Loon, which provides connectivity using baloons in the stratosphere. If Telesat's system design includes Google's SDN, Telesat LEO satellites may be able to interoperate with Google's baloons. Going a step further, they may one day interoperate with Telesat's GEO satellites, creating an integrated three-layer network routing packets between as well as within layers depending upon the service level required by a customer or application. An integrated network could also provide fallback in the case of equipment failure.

A reader recently commented on my Twitter feed that Telesat was "moot," because SpaceX has superior launch capability and a head start, and OneWeb, which, like Telesat, is forsaking the consumer market for commercial applications like 5G backhaul, is a direct competitor. He was wrong. Telesat has a number of unique advantages and, if LEO broadband turns out to be anywhere near the half-trillion-dollar addressable market Goldberg expects, there will be room for multiple providers.

Updates 12/28/2020

A reader pointed out that Telesate has also committed to investing the revenue from their sale of C-band spectrum in the LEO constellation. That spectrum will be used for 5G mobile connectivity and will enlarge the prospective mobile-backhaul market.

Speading at a webinar on "Building NewSpace," Michel Forest, Telsat Director of LEO Systems Engineering says there is significant demand for LEO among their current GEO customers who want low latency and more capacity in specific places like airline hubs and ports. (33:37)

For a threaded discussion of this post on Reddit, click here.

Update 2/23/2021

Telesat received $344 million for their share of the C-band auction and C$400 million from Quebec (C$200 grant and C$200 loan) for economic development.

OneWeb is out of bankruptcy, but not out of the woods.

OneWeb, which declared bankruptcy in May, has reorganized and emerged from bankruptcy. Bharti Global, an Indian telecommunication conglomerate, and the British government each own 42.2% of the new company, and most of the rest is owned by previous investors SoftBank and Hughes Network Systems.

Hughes will continue work on ground infrastructure and marketing and the original joint venture with Airbus, which designs and manufactures OneWeb satellites, was re-activated and the production lines brought back into service.

The company has new top management. Neil Masterson, who was COO at Thomson Reuters, will be the new CEO at OneWeb and Sunil Bharti Mittal, Founder and Chairman of Bharti, will be the Executive Chairman. The previous CEO, Adrian Steckel, has been appointed Adviser to the Board. Notably, OneWeb founder and previous Executive Chairman Greg Wyler was not mentioned so may not be involved -- perhaps that is related to the shift from the end-user market to government, enterprise, maritime, aviation and other markets that may be less price-sensitive and not require low-cost terminals. (The first million terminals may be costing SpaceX as much as $2,400 each).

OneWeb has permission from the FCC to operate 2,000 satellites -- 720 in low-Earth orbit (LEO) at 1,200 km and 1,280 in medium-Earth orbits at 8,500 km and a 45° inclination. They currently have 74 LEO satellites in near-polar orbit and recently shipped 36 to Russia's Vostochny Cosmodrome for a December 17th launch on a Soyuz rocket. (While they have permission to launch 720 LEO satellites, they seem to be only planning to launch 648).

OneWeb's first priority is building out its first-generation broadband network and providing coverage down to about 50 degrees latitude next year and to complete the full constellation the following year. The plan is to begin commercial services starting at the end of 2021 to the UK, Alaska, Canada, Northern Europe, Greenland, Iceland, and the Arctic Seas.

The company is seeking landing rights in India and Mittal said they plan to begin testing Internet service there in 6-8 months. (Those will be test satellites with intermittent connectivity). The plan is to offer service in India in May/June 2022.

OneWeb is starting over with new partners, assets that had cost the previous company $3.3 billion, and priority spectrum rights, but they are not yet out of the woods.

For a start, they've booked sixteen launches with Arianespace but will need about $2-2.5 billion to complete the constellation.

They have also lost time. They had initially hoped to begin Alaskan service in 2019 and serve the entire state by the end of 2020, and are now far behind that schedule. In the meantime, Telesat, their stiffest competitor for Alaska and the polar region, has made steady progress.

Whiile Bharti's participation gives OneWeb an advantage in terms of distribution and business and government relationships in developing nations in Asia and Africa, they will face stiff Chinese competition in the "Digital Silk Road" nations.

They are also under time pressure to manufacture and launch satellites in order to retain their ITU spectrum rights -- 360 satellites by June 2023 and 720 by June 226. While OneWeb has maintained it's manufacturing joint venture with Airbus, the BBC reports that "components exist for a further three batches of satellites, and the new owners have been busy in recent weeks re-establishing old supply chains to fully ramp up production to pre-bankruptcy levels."

Other than Hughes and Airbus, I don't know which of their prior contracts, MOUs, and relationships are still in force. For example, they had agreements for distribution and cooperation in Alaska, Hawaii, Russia, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and surely others I am unaware of.

Finally, there has been discussion of the possibility of OneWeb generating revenue by modifying their satellites to double as a high-precision global navigation satellite system (GNSS) that is difficult to jam or spoof. Mittal told BBC News: "For Generation 2, we will of course have full-scale precise, navigation and timing. And if the UK government wants some other payloads critical to the needs of security, we will do whatever is required." By the time they are ready to launch the next-generation satellites, they may face competition from Xona Space Systems's forthcoming 300-satellite GNSS as well as the possibility of similar offerings by SpaceX.

I hope OneWeb survives and thrives -- billions of people live in unserved areas and competition is good for all.

Starlink will be priced to be affordable

Charging more in affluent markets will increase revenue and tend to reduce the "digital divide" -- good business and good karma.

SpaceX is now serving customers (aka beta testers) in the northern United States. They will soon be doing so in Southern Canada and recently announced that Germany, where they have applied for permission and have begun construction on two ground stations, will probably be next. Early customers in the US are paying $499 for their user terminals and $99 per month for Internet service.

But what about the eventual price in Canada, Germany, or, say, a poorer nation like Cuba? When discussing the plan for Germany, SpaceX vice president Hans Königsmann said the price was not yet determined and "we will focus on what the local market allows." At first, that sounds like something an arrogant monopolist might say, but on second thought it is both good business and good karma.

In Econ 101, pricing is simple. In a competitive market, the price or a product or service will be at the point at which the curves for supply and demand as a function of price intersect. A monopolist will set the price at the point where marginal cost = marginal revenue. Things get trickier in a classic oligopoly and even trickier in a dynamic market like satellite Internet service.

The capacity of a satellite constellation increases as technology improves and as new satellites are launched. Today, SpaceX has only around 800 satellites in service which limits both their coverage area and the number of customers they can serve in a covered area, but they plan to add around 120 satellites per month, have permission for around 12,000 and have requested permission for 30,000 more. Furthermore, the technology deployed in the 12,000th satellite will be more sophisticated and have higher capacity than that in today's satellites and most of those 12.000 satellites will have inter-satellite laser links which will further increase coverage and capacity and reduce the need for terrestrial infrastructure.

The fixed cost of a satellite Internet constellation is high -- satellites are expensive to make and to launch -- but the cost of adding and servicing a new customer is relatively low and the market is global. SpaceX satellites that fly over the southern US will also fly over Cuba, but at $500 for a user terminal and $99 per month Raúl Castro may be the only Cuban customer. Perhaps Cuba could justify shared links at clinics or schools, but the individual market would be essentially zero, and excess capacity on a satellite, while it is flying over Cuba, would be wasted. The price in Cuba should be lower than that in the US in order to fully utilize available capacity.

Prices may or may not remain a flat fee per month, other factors like the political situation and vested interests of terrestrial Internet service providers will affect pricing decisions, and end-users will not be the only customers in a nation, but in general, SpaceX and the other constellation operators will charge more in affluent markets than in poorer markets -- they will try to operate at full capacity everywhere. Charging more in affluent markets will increase revenue and tend to reduce the "digital divide" -- good business and good karma.

Update 2/9/2021

SpaceX has invited the general public to sign up for the Starlink service, stating that "Starlink is available to a limited number of users per coverage area at this time. Orders will be fulfilled on a first-come, first-served basis." As with Tesla cars, you can reserve a place on the waiting list with a refundable deposit.

I had predicted that they would charge less in poorer nations and, for now at least, Elon has decided to ignore my suggestion, for now, tweeting that "It’s meant to be the same price in all countries. Only difference should be taxes & shipping." (The price of the terminal is $499 in the US and €499 in Germany and the service is $99 and €99).

We may see lower prices in developing nations when the capacity of the constellation is greater, but for now, they will be serving relatively affluent end users and groups that share a connection. It will be interesting to see the prices when they begin serving India, which Elon Musk hopes will be in the middle of this year.

Update 3/12/2021

I found a tweet confirming this pricing strategy. Furthermore, subsidies from local and national governments, non-governmental organizations, foundations, etc. will also help with affordability in low-income nations.

Update 8/8/2022

Starlink is piloting a low-cost service with throttling in France. This is their first break from their uniform pricing strategy, and it may have been precipitated by reports of oversold capacity in some cells in the U.S. and Canada. This is a pilot study and I expect there will be experimenting with variants in other nations in the future.

Update 9/1/2022

The French price cut with throttling was announced as a pilot study, but several permanent price cuts have now been announced, including:

• Dominican Republic
• Mexico
• Germany, UK, Chile, and Brazil

This crowd-sourced database lists different prices in forty-two nations. The database does not have a column for throttling so, as far as I know, these accounts are unlimited.

For more examples and discussion check this discussion on Reddit.

Satellite and space debris tracking as a service

All spacefaring nations must work together on common issues, such as tracking the thousands of pieces of space debris that could stifle the commercialization of space.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross

On February 2, 1989, the Soviet Union launched its Cosmos 2004 satellite and the Chinese launched a rocket on December 15, 2009. Cosmos 2004 is now defunct as is the third stage of that Chinese rocket, but both remain in orbit. They were long forgotten until recently when LeoLabs, a satellite tracking service, predicted that they had a good chance of colliding at 971 km over the sea near Antarctica.

It turns out that they did not collide but they came within 11 meters of each other. The two objects have a combined mass of 2,800 kg and were traveling at a relative velocity of 52,900 km/h. Imagine what would have happened had those massive objects collided at that speed. Since they are in a vacuum, the collision would have been silent, but large and small fragments would have been scattered into their own orbits, exponentially increasing the likelihood of future collisions.

The Chinese rocket scientists were not thinking about the possibility of a collision with Cosmos 2004 when they launched their rocket in 2009, but today, with SpaceX and others planning to launch thousands of broadband-service satellites into relatively crowded low-Earth orbit, the debris problem is obvious and daunting, but there are some promising developments. (For more on the extent of space debris click here and here).

Governments have been tracking the orbits of satellites and debris larger than 10 cm for some time but a new company, LeoLabs, is using phased-array radar antennas to track objects as small as 2 cm. In a recent interview, LeoLabs CEO and Co-Founder Daniel Ceperley, said their phased-array radar antennas are capable of tracking the approximately 250,000 orbiting objects that are greater than 2 cm within a 100-meter margin of error.  

LeoLabs antennas can switch direction in one millisecond, but since it is difficult to locate and establish control over satellites with only one or a few observations in the first hours and days after deployment, they offer a Launch and Early Orbit service in which they focus more time on the satellites and SpaceX is using that service.

While the first hours and days after deployment are critical, the risk of a collision persists as long as a satellite is in orbit so LeoLabs also offers a Collision-Avoidance service that will report possible collisions a week in advance and follow up with increasingly more frequent and more accurate notices during the week. This will give satellite operators time to test alternative collision-avoidance maneuvers using LeoLab's interactive maneuver-simulation service.

The Collision-Avoidance service works if a satellite operator is trying to avert a collision with debris or a defunct satellite, but if two active satellites are involved, both parties must be informed and able to communicate about planned maneuvers. SpaceX says Starlink satellites will be able to maneuver autonomously to avoid collisions, but what happens if the approaching satellite also maneuvers in the same direction?

Up to this point, I've been talking about terrestrial tracking of satellites and debris, but tracking can also be done from space. A while ago, I suggested that SpaceX might equip their satellites to detect debris while in orbit and they have some autonomous collision avoidance capability, but as far as I know, they have no plans for offering collision avoidance data or service to others.

Northstar, a space-based Canadian startup, plans to track satellites from orbit. They have contracted for three satellites that will be in polar orbits at an altitude of 575 kilometers and plan to launch at least three more batches of three each in different orbits by 2024.

Like LeoLabs, Northstar plans to offer tracking as a service. While Northstar is several years behind LeoLabs, it will use different technology. If successful, Northstar plans to track satellites from low-Earth to geostationary orbits. They will be able to use optical scanners since there are no problems with the atmosphere and weather in space and will have a wide view, enabling them to revisit objects frequently and quickly and accurately predict orbits.

The investment and operating costs may also be different than those of LeoLabs, but I don't know whether it will have cost more to build and operate the 12 LEO satellites Northstar plans to orbit in 2024 or the six radar tracking stations LeoLabs will have in operation next year.

(NorthStar and ExoAnalytic, which tracks satellites and debris with terrestrial optical telescopes, announced a partnership in April 2019, evidently intending to combine their observations, but there is no further mention of that on their Web sites and Northstar has changed it's business model which initially called for dual-use satellites combining both Earth observation and satellite tracing.)

As shown below, many nations now launch, own, and/or operate satellites. (The map is as of 2016 but the database at the site included 68 nations as of August 1, 2020). Whether the tracking is done from the ground or space, it is clear that global data must be shared and collision-avoidance protocols invented, standardized, and perhaps automated. (Holger Krag, director of the European Space Agency (ESA) Space Safety Programme Office hopes to like to demonstrate automated maneuver coordination by 2023).

Achieving global space law and regulation like we have for the seas seems like an impossible technical and political challenge -- exacerbated by the fact that many satellites and tracking services, like the recently completed US "Space Fence," are operated by military and security organizations -- but it must be done. There has already been a close miss between a Starlink satellite and Aeolus, an ESA satellite, in which a software bug led to a communication breakdown between the ESA and SpaceX.

I am amazed to find myself agreeing with and quoting a member of Trump's cabinet, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who said "all spacefaring nations must work together on common issues, such as tracking the thousands of pieces of space debris that could stifle the commercialization of space."

Update 4/27/2021

The Union of Concerned Scientists has updated the satellite database mentioned above. As of January 1 2021, 72 nations have launched and/or operated satellites and there were 3,732 in orbit. The need for global regulation and collaboration will increase rapidly as SpaceX and other low-Earth orbit satellite companies and governments launch mega-constellations.

Update 6/4/2021 

LeoLabs has received an investment of $65 million to add build new tracking stations and add services. The company was also named one of the 10 most innovative space companies of 2021 by Fast Company and their service was named the best space product of 2020 by Forbes Magazine.

SpaceX Starlink beta, phase two

According to an email, Starlink has moved into the second phase of it's beta program, nicknamed the “better than nothing beta,” which feels a bit like monopoly hubris to me. It may be better than nothing, but it is not as good as the initial beta which was free. Participants will pay $99 per month for the service and pay $499 for a terminal, including a tripod and WiFi router. I wonder what the difference is between these "beta testers" and "customers."

SpaceX warns that data speeds will vary from 50 to 150 Mb/s and latency from 20 to 40 ms and service may be intermittent at times, but performance will improve as more satellites are launched. I'm not sure of the service area, but I had applied to be informed when service would be available at a home at around 34.4 degrees north and I was not invited.

They have also created apps to guide users throught the process of plugging the terminal in and pointing it to the sky. As you see here, one must avoid trees or other obstructions which can be problematical in mountainous or forested areas. One downside to Starlink and other low-earth orbit constellations may be that they will discourage the deployment of fiber in wooded and mountain areas.

Finally, here is a link to the terms of service. In particular, pay attention to the Governing Law section. It foreshadows Starlink connectivity to a constellation of satellites orbiting the moon (and why not the International Space Station?) as well as establishing Mars as a free planet "that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over." I don't know that Elon Musk has the authority to make such a "law," but it foreshadows issues that will have to be dealt with in the future

SpaceX Starlink is on a roll

This is an impressive list of achievements, but bear in mind that we are still in the early days of a yet-unproven technology and market in a complex geopolitical environment.

Why Elon is smiling

The last two months have seen a flurry of Starlink activity, including the following:

Bill Gates has a history of interest in satellite Internet and in September, Microsoft announced their Azure Obrital ground station service, which enables satellite access to its Azure cloud services. SES, Viasat, and Intelsat were announced as initial partners and SpaceX just signed up. Starlink+Azure Orbital will compete with Amazon's satellite constellation and its ground-station service. (For more on Azure Orbital, check out this podcast interview and transcript of product manager Nora Zhan).

SpaceX did some good and got good publicity by providing seven user terminals to the Washington State Emergency Management Division for deployment in at least one region hit hard by summer wildfires. Richard Hall, the emergency telecommunications leader of the Washington State Military Department’s IT division said he had “never set up any tactical satellite equipment that has been as quick to set up, and anywhere near as reliable” as Starlink.

This month, SpaceX provided connectivity to the Hoh Indian tribe west of Seattle. I don't know how many terminals were provided or the speed and latency of the service, but the response and publicity have been positive.

SpaceX has been running beta tests in the US at latitudes between 44 and 52 degrees north. SpaceX reported that it has observed a median latency of approximately 30 ms and a 95th percentile latency of 42 ms in over a million observations.

The FCC will award up to $16 billion over ten years to support fixed broadband service in unserved rural areas. They were initially skeptical of satellite service providers, saying they had not proved that they could meet the requirement for the low-latency, under100 ms bidding tier, but this month, after considering beta test results, the FCC invited SpaceX to bid in the rural broadband funding auction.

After receiving over 700,000 expressions of interest from all 50 states, SpaceX requested an increase in the number of authorized user terminals from one million to five million. They also announced that they are able to manufacture 120 satellites per month, keeping up with their target launch rate.

The capital cities of 17 relatively affluent European nations fall between 44 and 52 degrees north and SpaceX has applied for 3 internet gateway ground stations in France and is said to be looking for roof space on European datacenter roofs.

While the current beta test is in the US, a number of European capitals are between 44 and 52 degrees north and SpaceX is able to serve them as well as the northern US.

SpaceX has begun the process of being able to offer service in Canada, but the final approval will not be considered for around 130 days.

SpaceX has registered 14 shell companies in 13 foreign nations (click here and enter entity number 10143028). I checked the street address of one and it seems to be a postal box rather than an office, but I have been assured that establishing shell companies is common practice. Eight of them are named "TIBRO" (orbit spelled backward) so I assume they are at an earlier stage of development than the others.

SpaceX successfully tested a laser link between two satellites, but, as far as I know, did not reveal details like transmission rate or time to establish a connection. I assume that the links were between two satellites in the same plane. (They initially planned five lasers per satellite and are now committed to having four -- forward and backward in the same plane and two others linking to adjacent planes).

In an interview at the Mars Society Convention, Elon Musk spelled out a timetable for an unmanned Mars landing that included high volume Starship flights, each capable of launching up to 400 Starlink satellites, in 2022.

Perhaps as a result of the above, Morgan Stanley just raised its valuation of SpaceX from $52 billion in July to over $100 billion, and speculated that it might be as high as $200 billion.

The above is an impressive list of achievements, but bear in mind that we are still in the early days of a yet-unproven technology and market in a complex geopolitical environment. Furthermore, we lack the sort of regulation and harmonization that has evolved over the years to govern the seas, and global problems like space debris and collision avoidance remain unsolved.

Update 10/28/2020

SpaceX has opened a second beta test phase. Users will have to pay for both the service and their terminal and the speed, latency and even connectivity will vary at times, but will all improve as more satellites are launched and put in service. They also have created iPhone and Android apps to guide users through the installation process -- avoiding trees and other obstructions. The terms of service are forward looking implying a constellation around the moon and raising the question of Marian sovereignty.

Elon Musk interview -- management philosophy, rocket design, and a tentative timeline for an un-crewed Mars mission

Musk predicts high-volume, re-usable Starhip flights in 2022 -- each capable of launching 400 up to Starlink satellties.

Elon Musk was interviewed during the virtual convention of the Mars Society. The interview covered SpaceX technology and management and space travel. I'll summarize some of the former here and recommend taking the time to watch the full 55-minute interview.

Here are some of the key points Musk made:

Clear, ambitious objectives drive rapid innovation and his goal it to create a self-sustaining settlement on Mars as soon as possible.

Achieving that goal requires getting a lot of tonnage to Mars, so expendable rockets are a joke, a waste of time. Fairings too.

Scale matters -- large rockets are efficient. Avionics for a large rocket are no larger than for a small rocket and you gain gauge advantages with size -- you can afford thicker, more accurate castings and skins on a large rocket. (The same goes for trucks and ships).

Their current Falcon 9 is close to a local maximum for a kerosene-burning rocket which is limited to a 12-foot diameter because of road transport constraints and its length is constrained by the skin thickness required to avoid bending.

Methane is a better fuel than kerosene -- a rocket goes further if it shoots gas out the end faster and a bigger percentage of its mass is propellant. Furthermore, oxygen is cheap and you can go to a higher oxygen/propellant ratio with methane and you can make both oxygen and methane on Mars.

He gave some timetable guesses with the caveat that they assume exponential innovation:

• 80-90% confident of reaching orbit with Starship next year.
• 50-60% confident of ship and booster reuse next year.
• High volume flights in 2022 -- each capable of launching up to 400 Starlink satellites.
• Refuel in orbit in 2022.
• Two or three years for a moon ship -- after refueling in orbit.
• An un-crewed Mars mission in maybe four years (at the time of the second Mars transfer window from now).

(Note that they might not choose to launch 400 satellites at a time since a loss of 400 satellites or 28 booster rocket engines would be very costly and mixed-purpose launches are also possible).

The above assume a non-linear rate of innovation. When asked what makes SpaceX so innovative, Musk first said "I don't really know," but went on to credit having ambitious sub-goals like:

• Full and rapid reuse.
• Orbital refueling.
• Propellent production on Mars.

He said SpaceX will not have competitors unless someone else is shooting for Mars.

A new Chinese broadband satellite constellation

Can we afford the wasted capacity and idle investment of SpaceX satellites remaining dormant while flying above China and GW satellites remaining dormant while flying above the US?

In an earlier post, I described three Chinese low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations that seemed to be oriented toward broadband communication. 

• Hongyun, which plans 864 satellites and will emphasize service in China's remote regions. 
• Hongyan, which plans around 320 satellites, seems to be looking at applications like maritime, aviation, and mobile backhaul service. 
• Galaxy Space seems to be focused on 5G backhaul and Internet of things applications. 

None of those companies seem to be pursuing the global consumer market that SpaceX and OneWeb hope to serve, but a new Chinese company code-named GW, which I have been told stands Guó wang (国网) or National grid), seems to plan on doing so. 

GW has filed a spectrum application with the International Telecommunication Union for two constellations with the cryptic names GW-A59 and GW-2. They requested permission to use the following frequencies:

• 37.5-39.5 GHz (space-to-Earth)
• 39.5-42.5 GHz (space-to-Earth) 
• 47.2-50.2 GHz (Earth-to-space) 
• 50.4-51.4 GHz (Earth-to-space) 

for communication with 12,992 satellites:

The size of the constellations implies an intention to compete in the end-user broadband service market. Where might they fit in that market segment?

In a recent podcast, consultant Blaine Curcio pointed out that a long history of government infrastructure investment has left China with a strong terrestrial network. Hongyan might be able to serve much of the remaining domestic market, but with 12,992 satellites in orbits ranging from 30 to 85 degrees inclination, GW seems to be interested in the global market where they would compete with SpaceX and OneWeb. (Telesat will also compete in these markets but is focusing on mobile backhaul and hotspots for education, telemedicine, and community access).

SpaceX, which is off to the fastest end-user start, is focusing initially on the lucrative markets of North America, followed perhaps by Europe. OneWeb would seem to have an advantage in the Asian and African nations where part-owner Bharti has a presence as well as the United Kingdom due to the government's stake in the company. GW would be in a strong position in the nations where China already has "Digital Silk Road" (DSR) projects, as shown below.

DSR IT infrastructure projects as of 12/2018 (source)

The DSR is part of China's ambitions Belt and Road initiative with infrastructure projects in around 70 nations. In late 2016 they added space infrastructure -- the Belt & Road spatial Information Corridor. While they are currently concentrated in Eastern Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, I've speculated that the DSR may extend to Latin America.

Over half the people in the world live in or near China and India. Many of those have no connectivity and some are paying very high rates for geosynchronous satellite service. If the LEO satellite business works out, there is room for GW, OneWeb, SpaceX, Telesat, and others. 

I have painted a speculative picture of a politically bifurcated LEO Internet with GW serving one set of nations and SpaceX and OneWeb others, but I am certainly not endorsing that future. Satellite constellations are by definition global and we are facing massive global challenges today -- can we afford the wasted capacity and idle investment of SpaceX satellites remaining dormant while flying above China and GW satellites remaining dormant while flying above the US?

Update 3/9/2021

Bao Weimin, a Director of the Science and Technology Commission of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) has confirmed their committment to going forward with the GW LEO constellation. Chinese space expert Blaine Curcio said that while no details were released in the announcement other than "we will build a GW," official recognition is big news.

What became of the ARCOS undersea cable connection to Cuba?

Will Trump kill the proposal before the election?

Proposed 56km link between the
ARCOS undersea Cable and Cuba

Cuba's primary connection to the global Internet is through the ALBA-1 undersea cable linking landing points on the south-east shore of the island to Venezuela and Jamaica; however, the bulk of Cuban traffic originates in Havana which is on the north-west coast. Traffic from Havana and other cities in the west travels over a backbone to reach the cable landing points. A landing point near Havana would reduce the load on the backbone, speeding connections, providing redundancy, and saving capital investment.

At one time, there seemed to be bipartisan support in the US for improving Cuban Internet access. During his second term, President Obama pursued detente with Cuba and much of that effort was focused on the role of the Internet and undersea cable connectivity was part of the plan. Daniel Sepulveda, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy, who led two US government delegations to Cuba during the Obama administration, said there were at least a half-dozen proposals — from US and non-US companies — to construct a north-south undersea cable between the US and Cuba. There had even been discussion of one day allowing Cuban access to the US cable at Guantanamo, GTMO-1.

At first, Trump seemed to agree -- consider the following timeline:

• October 20, 2017, The State Department issued National Security Presidential Memorandum, NSPM-5, stating that it was our policy to "Amplify efforts to support the Cuban people through the expansion of internet services" and directing government departments and agencies "to examine the technological challenges and opportunities for expanding internet access in Cuba."
• January 22, 2018, The State Department established a Cuba Internet Task Force "to examine technological challenges and opportunities for expanding internet access in Cuba." (Disclosure -- The Task Force formed two sub-committees and I was a member of both).
• July 23, 2018, The consortium that owns the ARCOS cable applied to construct a branch from the cable to an ETECSA supplied cable landing spot in Cojimar, Cuba.
• August 10, 2018, The FCC found the application "to be acceptable for filing and subject to the streamlined processing procedures" obligating them to take action "within forty-five (45) days" unless upon "further examination" the application is "deemed ineligible for streamlined processing."

Well, it seems the application must have been deemed ineligible since as far as I know nothing happened until earlier this month when The Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the United States Telecommunications Services Sector (CAFPUSTSS), which Trump established in an executive order on April 4, 2020, notified the FCC that it is planning to conduct 120-day security reviews of the ARCOS application.

I reached out to the FCC and the attorney who filed the request for the cable branch to ask why the application had not been acted upon but got no reply. I can think of two possible explanations:

• Trump changed his policy with respect to Cuban Internet connectivity without, as far as I know, telling anyone.
• Trump held this application up in order to grab a Florida headline between now and the election when the CAFPUSTSS rejects the application showing how tough he is on Cuba in an effort to win Cuban and Venezuelan votes.

I'm unfamiliar with FCC procedures and workflow -- is there another explanation?

Finally, note that on March 15, 2018, Deep Blue Cable Inc. applied for a Caribbean cable with 19 landing points. While none of those were in Cuba, they planned a second phase with two Cuban landing points, but the Deep Blue application was withdrawn on November 11, 2019.

Update Nov 30, 2020:

Denise Coca, FCC Division Chief, informed me that the ARCOS-1 application had been withdrawn on October 20, 2020, about two weeks before the election. When asked why the FCC had taken so long to process the application, she did not answer.

I wonder whether this might be re-submitted to the Biden FCC. Since the administration sought Cuban rapprochement during his time as Vice President, I imagine Biden would favor the link. One can argue that doing so would be a net political win among Florida voters. Would Cuban president Díaz-Canel approve it? It would reduce traffic on the Cuban backbone and improve international connectivity, but might be construed as a security threat and neutralize one of his complaints against the US.

Update 12/2/2022

The CAFPUSTSS has finally finished the "120-day" study they began on April 4, 2020, and they recommend that the FCC deny the ARCOS application. The delay and the conclusion reek of politics. For a discussion and criticism of the ruling, click here.

Bill Gates has not forgotten Teledesic

Might we see another broadband LEO constellation?

Proposed Teledesic constellation:
12 planes of 24 LEO satellites
(source)

Teledesic was the first company to plan to offer broadband connectivity using a constellation of low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellites. Craig McCaw, who had sold McCaw Cellular to AT&T, founded Teledesic in 1990 and it got a big visibility and credibility boost when Bill Gates made a small ($5 million) investment in the company. 

McCaw and Gates were able to attract capital -- $200 million from a Saudi Prince, $750 million from Motorola, and $100 million from Boeing, which signed on as the prime contractor. When Boeing and Teledesic finished the final design, the constellation had been reduced from the originally planned 840 to 288 satellites. (Later, Motorola replaced Boeing as prime contractor). The FCC approved Teledesic's Ka-band spectrum application in March 1997 and 37 counties submitted supporting proposals for the December 1997 World Radiocommunication Conference. Teledesic hoped to provide "fiber-like" connectivity to an "Internet in the sky," but was unable to deliver and gave up in 2002. 

I don't know what motivated Gates' investment in Teledesic, but today the Gates Foundation is devoted to fighting poverty and providing health care and education in developing nations. Nearly 20 years after the demise of Teledesic, satellite, launch, and communication technology are vastly improved, the entire world is aware of the Internet, we have applications that can utilize "fiber-like" speed and latency and Gates is clearly aware of the value (and downside) of connecting the unconnected.

Bill Gates might be thinking that it is time for another try.

Last September, Microsoft announced that customers of Viasat, Intelsat, and SES would be able to access Azure cloud services. Their focus is on government, enterprise, maritime, and airline applications and the announcement states that "each of the partners brings different strengths, for example, choices between Geostationary (GEO), Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) and, in the future, Low Earth Orbit(LEO) satellites" so it seems they are talking with possible LEO partners. (Maybe not with Amazon given its recent challenge to Microsoft's JEDI defense contract).

Earlier this month, the FCC authorized Microsoft to establish a proof-of-concept connection between two ground stations in Washington and DEIMOS-2, a Spanish imaging satellite. If successful, the test will demonstrate satellite connectivity to Microsoft's Azure cloud services as well as the rest of the Internet. They plan to run the demonstrations before, during, and after the Ignite conference, which starts on Sept. 22, and if the demonstration results in significant market interest, they will apply for regular ground-station authority which would put them in direct competition with Amazon's ground-station service. (Microsoft may have a fear of missing out on space).

Terminals with electronically steerable antennas are a critical LEO broadband component. High-end fixed and mobile users will be able to justify relatively expensive terminals, but success in the consumer market will require user-installed, reliable, low-cost terminals. It turns out that Bill Gates was the lead investor in electronically-steerable antenna manufacturer Kymeta at the time of its launch in 2012 and he is now leading a new $85 million investment round in support of a new high-end mobile service using Kymeta's new LEO-ready U8 terminal. The expensive U8 is sold for high-end fixed and mobile applications today, but they will surely be able to produce a low-cost fixed-service terminal in the future.

If the LEO broadband business case turns out to be viable, these are early days and there is room for competitors. The Gates Foundation endowment is nearly $50 billion, Bill Gate's net worth is $115 billion and Microsoft is on a roll. Might we see another broadband LEO constellation? 

The TikTok ban in context

The TikTok affair is unimportant when compared to Trump's general tariffs and high-cost trade war against Huawei.What is our long-run goal with respect to China?

Donald Trump recently issued an executive order banning TikTok on the grounds that it was necessary to deal with the national emergency he had declared in an earlier executive order. He says he is concerned that TikTok might turn user's "information such as location data and browsing and search histories" over to the Chinese government.

Trump does not site evidence of TikTok having shared data with China and TikTok says they have never shared user data with the Chinese government or censored content at its request. Furthermore, Kevin Meyer, CEO of TikTok and COO of its parent company Byte Dance, is an American, and TikTok US user data is not stored in China.

TikTok publishes a transparency report on government information requests and the report ending the second half of 2019 shows that the US government made 100 requests for information on 107 accounts, and 82% of those resulted in the transfer of data. Only India, with 302 requests on 408 accounts 90% of which made data transfers, requested more than the US. (Facebook received 51,121 US requests during the same period).

The format of the data TikTok reports to the police is shown below and its terms of service note that the company may also send law enforcement logs of a user's videos, comments, and interactions (source) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security actively monitored TikTok for signs of unrest during the George Floyd protests. It seems they are cooperating with the US government.

This background and Trump's track record convince me that the TikTok ban was politically motivated -- he wants to seem "tough" on China and get revenge for the way TikTok users tricked his campaign into projecting huge crowds for his disastrous Tulsa campaign rally.

Regardless, let's zoom out.

The TikTok affair is unimportant when compared to Trump's general tariffs and high-cost trade war against Huawei. What is his goal for US-China relations in general and for the Internet in particular? Is he seeking total self-sufficiency and independence from China? A bifurcated Internet?

When one considers the cost of reciprocal tariffs, the supply chains for manufactured goods, and the Chinese market for US goods like iPhones, it is clear that financial and industrial disengagement from China would be an economic disaster for both China and the US. 

The Internet is already bifurcating.  China already has more Internet users than the US, Russia, Mexico, Germany, UK, France, and Canada combined, and the US trade war on Chinese technology has accelerated its push toward self-reliance. China is also innovating --  Huawei, Tencent, and Xiaomi are among Derwent's  top 100 innovators and China has passed the US as the top scientific publishing nation in the world.

The Internet was conceived of and has served as a tool for collaboration, and existential global threats of economic inequality, climate change, pandemics and biological and other weapons require global collaboration. We need them and they need us.

Let me be clear -- there are no good guys here. China bans Facebook and Twitter, plays dirty tricks on the Internet, and imprisons and surveils citizens, but we seem to be caught in a prisoner's dilemma game in which both sides have defected and that could be fatal. 

There may not be a way out of our dilemma, but our recent relations with Cuba suggest a strategy worth considering. President Obama published a new Cuba policy and began rapprochement negotiations. He visited Cuba and made several Internet-related announcements, but the response was disappointing while Raúl Castro was in charge. His successor, Miguel Díaz-Canel, is a pro-Internet engineer and there may have been an opportunity for change when he replaced Castro if Trump had continued President Obama's policy, but that did not happen. Trump has made no substantive Internet-related policy changes regarding Cuba, but his politically-motivated rhetoric and Cuba Internet Task Force have assured continued hostility. 

We will never know how Díaz-Canel would have reacted had Trump continued President Obama's policy, but the outcome could not have been worse for the Cuban people or better for the expansion of China's Digital Silk Road. 

Whether we try the sort of engagement Obama tried with Cuba or something else, we cannot do it alone -- we must work with like-minded allies, which is surely not Trump's way. 

It's time for a change.

Update 8/26/2020

TikTok has answered Trump's executive ban and filed a law suit challenging it on the grounds that they were denied due process. They say they have never shared data with the Chinese, opened their publishing algorithm to show there has been no censorship, employ many Americans, provide a platform that is used by Americans for expression and income, and more.

While the suit asserts that TikTok was banned without due process -- claiming that the Administration has "ignored their extensive efforts to address its concerns," I wonder about the First Amendement guarantee of press freedom. TikTok is a publisher. What is the essential difference between banning TikTok without presenting evidence that it posed a threat to national security and banning the Washington Post because it had publishhed or might one day publish fake news that undermined national security?

In another twist, it turns out that Microsoft had been negotiating to purchase TikTok, and shortly before issuing the ban, Trump said the U.S. Treasury should collect a “very substantial” portion of the sale price. That sounds like a mob shakedown -- if you don't sell your company and give me cut I will shut it down leaving you with nothing. I can see the tweet -- "I got the Chinese to sell their company to Microsoft, created THOUSANDS of American jobs, stopped espionage and got a cut for the taxpayers as well."

Update 5/27/2021

Comparatech Editor Paul Bischoff points out that Trump’s executive order set a deadline of 45 days, but it was largely ignored and is techcally still in play. He reports that US national security officials are in talks with TikTok's parent company ByteDance about data security and preventing US user data from being accessed by the Chinese government.

In the meantime, TikTok was the most downloaded app in the first quarter of 2021 and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee unanimously passed a bill that would ban U.S. federal workers from downloading the TikTok onto U.S. government devices.

This puts President Biden in a political bind. Young voters like TikTok but the President is concerned about China's economic and political power. That being said, TikTok is insignificant in the long run -- we need to learn to cooperate and coexist with China in the face of global challenges like climate change, epidemics and economic inequality.

Trump wants to change the Communications Decency Act

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), says that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."

The law was passed in 1996 in order to shield ISPs that transported content or platforms that hosted it from lability. Bloggers were not responsible for comments on their posts, YouTube and Facebook were not responsible for things users posted, etc. However, ISPs and content hosts have the right to set their own acceptable-use policies and can label or censor material that violates those policies.

For example, when Donald Trump posted unsubstantiated claims about mail-in ballots on Twitter, they added a fact-checking link reading "Get the facts about mail-in ballots" to the post:

(Note that Trump has tweeted the same claim about mail-in ballots on other occasions and those were not marked).

Trump's response to Twitter's labeling of his tweet was to file a petition requesting that the Federal Communications Commission clarify that the CDA "does not permit social media companies that alter or editorialize users’ speech to escape civil liability." Trump evidently wants to be able to sue Twitter for appending a fact-check link to his post.

This is a familiar Trump tactic, as made clear in the book "Plaintiff in Chief: A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3,500 Lawsuits" by former federal prosecutor James D. Zirin, a Republican. Click here for an American Bar Association review of the book.

Trump, the most powerful victim on the planet, tweeted the following, presumably to justfy his action:

I am not a lawyer or an Attorney General, but it seems clear to me that Twitter and others have the right to publish fact-checking material on their Web sites and I doubt that this petition will prevail if challenged.

OneWeb rises from the ashes -- maybe

A consortium of the UK Government and Bharti Enterprises bought bankrupt OneWeb, a company that had raised $3.2 billion and had acquired valuable spectrum rights, for $1 billion. That is a good start, but a BBC article says experts believe that at least $3 billion is needed to complete the OneWeb constellation.

Will they make it?

The UK government will be a source of further funding. OneWeb's primary goal is closing the digital divide by bringing broadband connectivity to rural areas around the world including, of course, the UK. That is obvious, but the UK government has other hopes for OneWeb. One frequently mentioned application is global positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT).

With Brexit, the UK lost access to the secure, encrypted Public Regulated Service (PRS) of the European global navigation system, Galileo and the possibility of equipping OneWeb satellites for secure, encrypted PNT has been suggested as an immediate application. Tyler Reid and his colleagues showed that OneWeb satellites could provide excellent PNT performance if they reset relatively cheap atomic clocks once per orbit using the precise clocks of a civilian global navigation system and, while PRS is reserved for European Union governments and defense users, the UK retains access to Galilieo's public civilian service. (Reid is co-founder of Xona Space Systems which plans to offer precision PNT service using a constellation of small satellites).

The UK expects OneWeb to be profitable. Science, research and innovation minister Amanda Solloway said “This investment is likely to make an economic return, with due diligence showing a strong commercial basis for investment" and she added that "The deal contributes to the government’s plan to join the first rank of space nations, and signals the government’s ambition for the UK to be a pioneer in the research, development, manufacturing, and exploitation of novel satellite technologies enabling enhanced broadband through the ownership of a fleet of low-Earth orbit satellites.” Perhaps the OneWeb investment will encourage efforts like this potential ground-station service.

What about Bharti? Bharti Airtel is India’s second-biggest telecommunications firm, holding about a third of its market with 320 million customers and they are Africa's second-biggest mobile operator with more than 100 million subscribers across 14 countries. They also offer Internet service in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and the Channel Islands. They obviously bring marketing and operating experience and a distribution channel with terrestrial Internet partners and government regulatory bodies in underserved nations to the new OneWeb consortium.

They also bring deep pockets. Bharti Enterprises is a global conglomerate with interests in telecom, insurance, real estate, education, malls, hospitality, agriculture, food and other ventures. Their ISP business in India faces fierce competitor and they obviously believe in diversification. (They were previously an investor in OneWeb).

When they filed for bankruptcy, OneWeb attributed their failure to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the handwriting was on the wall before that. In Senate testimony on October 25, 2017, OneWeb's Greg Wyler said they would launch their first ten satellites in May 2018, offer service throughout Alaska by 2019 and cover the entire US in 2020. While they had 74 satellites in orbit by the time of their bankruptcy and had signed an ISP distributor for Alaska and Hawaii, they were not offering service in Alaska or anywhere else let alone covering the entire US and were having problems with Russian launch and distribution partners. Furthermore, SpaceX was launching more satellites each month than OneWeb had in orbit and their launch cost was significantly lower. OneWeb was in serious trouble and having trouble raising capital with or without COVID-19.

Now OneWeb has the backing of a government and a strong developing-nations partner and I assume their deals in Alaska and Hawaii and other previous arrangements with maritime companies, airlines, and other nations remain in place. On the other hand, they need to launch satellites quickly and they face stiff competition. SpaceX has a clear launch advantage, Amazon and China have deep pockets, and Telesat has a geostationary-satellite base as well as assets in the north.

I don't know if they will make it, but I hope they do. Billions of people remain to be connected to the Internet, so there is room for all of these companies and competition is healthy.

Amazon Aerospace and Satellite Solutions -- integrating satellites and terrestrial services

At this time, Musk has a clear lead in launch technology and Bezos has superior terrestrial resources and is building the infrastructure to connect them to space.

Since its founding, Amazon has reinvested profit in building infrastructure. They began with retail sales and distribution infrastructure and later added Amazon Web Services (AWS) providing data center and hosting infrastructure. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also established Blue Origin, a company to provide satellite launch service and eventually to support space travel, and last year Amazon filed an application for a 3,236-satellite constellation of low-earth orbit Internet service satellites -- Project Kuiper.

Soon after filing the Project Kuiper application, AWS announced a new satellite ground station service, establishing a link between the two companies and now they have announced the formation of AWS Aerospace and Satellite Solutions. Aerospace and Satellite Solutions (I can’t bring myself to type “AWS ASS”) does not add new physical infrastructure but will be marketing and assisting on the design and implementation of complex space/terrestrial systems.

Organizations from space startups to government agencies like NASA and DOD should be able to save time and cost by building their applications on top of this integrated infrastructure. Recognizing the lucrative government market, Amazon has hired retired U.S. Air Force Major General Clinton Crosier, who was most recently the Director of Space Force Planning, to head the AWS Aerospace and Satellite Solutions. (Hiring General Crosier might also help Amazon in their battle with Microsoft over a ten-billion dollar Pentagon cloud services contract).

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos share a common goal -- making homo sapiens a space-faring, multi-planet species. Bezos stated that goal in his high-school valedictorian speech and believes that it is imperative that we do so because humanity is growing too fast and using too much energy to be sustainable in the long run and the SpaceX Web site states that "SpaceX’s family of launch vehicles and spacecraft were designed from the beginning to take humans to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond."

They both also have plans for an interim step of establishing broadband Internet-service constellations -- Musk's Starlink and Bezos' Project Kuiper. At this point in time, Musk has a clear lead in launch technology and Bezos has superior terrestrial resources and is building the infrastructure to connect them to space. Bezos and Musk could move faster toward their shared goal by collaborating, with SpaceX launching Project Kuiper satellites and Starlink satellites using AWS's terrestrial services. I don't know about Bezos, but Musk seems to be willing to share a market in pursuit of a long-range goal.