Two New Chinese Internet Service Constellations and Their Market

China's G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor, the home of two new Internet-service mega-constellations

Chinese plans for low-Earth orbit Internet service constellations began with two projects, Hongyun  (156 satellites) and Hongyan (864 satellites). These were eventually sidelined for Guowang, an ambitious, 12,992 satellite constellation that is expected to begin launching satellites this year. But, that is old news.

China's five-year plan designates satellite Internet as a strategic emerging industry and two new constellations have emerged, G60 (12,000 satellites) and Honghu-3 (10,000 satellites). 

Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology (SSST), aka Yuanxin Satellite, located in Shanghai's Songjiang district, was founded in 2018 and launched two test satellites in 2019. SSST recently raised 6.7 billion yuan ($943 million) from several sources for its 12,000-satellite G60 (aka Qianfan) low Earth orbit (LEO) Internet service constellation. (Also see this excellent context video). 

Their first phase constellation, called Spacesail, will consist of 1,296 satellites. Regional service will be provided by 648 satellites by the end of 2025, and global service will be provided by 648 additional satellites by the end of 2027. By 2030, they hope to have 15,000 satellites in orbit and offer direct-to-mobile service. Shanghai Gesi Aerospace has begun production of the G60 satellites and expects to produce 300/year. (Also see). I've not heard any news about Guowang lately -- it feels like G60 has taken the lead. (Also see).

The satellites will orbit at 1,160 km, which is higher than all the other announced LEO satellite competitors except Telesat. While this will increase latency, collision risk, satellite lifespan, handoff frequency, and coverage footprint should improve. 

Like SSST, Shanghai Landspace Hongqing Technology Co, Ltd. (aka Hongqing Technology) is located in the Songjian District and is planning a third Internet service constellation. The May 24th ITU filing lists the satellite name as "HONGHU-3," but specifies a constellation of 10,000 satellites in 160 orbital planes. Since they have launched two satellites previously, the constellation may simply be called "Honghu." They are constructing a satellite manufacturing facility in Wuxi City near Shanghai. The Chinese launch company Landspace owns 48%, so, like SpaceX, they may launch their own satellites.

It is not a coincidence that both Honghu and G60 are being developed in the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor between Highway G60 and a high-speed railway line in the Yangtze River Delta (Also see). Local governments play a major role in funding and developing Chinese industry. Shanghai has published "The Shanghai Action Plan to Promote Commercial Space Development and Create a Space Information Industry Highland (2023-2025)".

Can China support three Internet service constellations?

Planned Starships (source)

These companies are commonly touted as China's answer to Starlink, but they are far behind Starlink in launch cost and rate, rocket and engine manufacturing, international licensing, marketing, etc. The gap will widen when SpaceX's Starship is in production, increasing the ability to launch full and mini v2 satellites and whatever comes after that.

However, the success of these companies will not depend solely on catching or competing with Starlink because of global politics. The Chinese companies will not compete with Starlink or any of its Western competitors for Chinese government and military business. (The Ukraine war has demonstrated both the military value of satellite Internet and the drawback of being dependent on a private company).

Starlink will not offer service in countries like China, Russia, Cuba, North Korea, or Iran. Similarly, the Chinese companies will be prohibited from operating in countries like the US and European nations, which currently ban or restrict Huawei equipment. Whether motivated by a desire to encourage domestic industry, promote security, or achieve and maintain technological self-reliance, market separation is increasing, 

Belt and Road participant nations (source)

However, there are many nations where these Chinese companies will compete with Starlink and its Western competitors. The Chinese companies will have an advantage in nations participating in the Belt and Road Initiative -- home to about 70% of the world population and 40% of global GDP. The Chinese advantage is even greater in the 26 Digital Silk Road nations.

Update 6/27/2024

China is expected to launch the first 18 G60 satellites in early August. The launch vehicle was not specified, but "the Long March 6A would be the most capable option from Taiyuan in terms of capacity to low Earth orbit and payload fairing."

The Long March 6A has a carrying capacity to orbit of 4,500 kg, which could accommodate 18 250 kg satellites, around the mass of the first-generation SpaceX Starlink satellites, but significantly less than the V2-mini satellites Starlink is currently launching. SpaceX is currently testing its forthcoming Starship rocket, which will launch full V2 satellites. 

While China lags far behind SpaceX, G60 seems to be moving faster than Honghu and Gwowang and will launch satellites sooner than Project Kuiper or Telesat.

Update 8/5/2024

China has launched the first 18 Qianfan (aka G60) Internet service satellites:

The satellites launched were produced by Shanghai Gesi Aerospace Technology (Genesat) in Shanghai and In an interview with the Shanghai Securities News in June, an executive from GeneSat revealed plans to “explore launching configurations of 36 and 54 satellites per rocket to accelerate the pace of launches”.

What launch vehicles are they considering? Non-Chinese perhaps?

Update 8/29/2024

CGSTL satellite factory

Ace China space watcher Blaine Curcio has spotted a possible dark-horse Chinese communication satellite provider. CGSTL, China’s leading remote sensing satellite manufacturer, has built and launched ~100 satellites in 2 years and has been working on space-ground optical communication since 2022.

CGSTL aims to have 1,200 employees and a manufacturing capacity of 1,000 satellites per year by the end of 2025. They plan to launch 28 remote-sensing satellites in 2025 and 100 in 2026. How will they use the 1,000 satellites per year manufacturing capacity? Will they launch their own communication satellite constellation or perhaps manufacture satellites for one of the service providers mentioned above? Something else?

Update 10/31/2024

The second batch of 18 G60 satellites was launched into polar orbit on a Long March 6A rocket. (They plan to have 108 in orbit by the end of the year, 648 by 2025, 1,296 by 2027, and 15,000 by 2030.). This image shows workers racing to protect a Long March 8 fairing at Hainan commercial spaceport from an approaching typhoon. The lettering says "Spacesail," another name for the G60 constellation. 

This is noteworthy because the Long March 8's carrying capacity is greater than that of the Long March 6A, and Starlink's launch capacity and cadence are much greater than those of the Chinese. (While the Long March 8 is not reusable, several Chinese companies are working toward reusability).

G60 and the Long March 6A have also had other problems. The upper stage of the rocket that carried the first 18 satellites to orbit broke up, creating a cloud of roughly 700 pieces of debris, and astronomers are concerned by the brightness of the first 18 satellites.

Update 12/5/2024

Thousand Sails constellation operator SpaceSail has signed an MoU with Brazil's TELEBRAS for its Internet service starting in 2026. This is their first commercial agreement, and they have initiated business negotiations with more than 30 countries. Brazil is one of the nine BRICS countries, which are economically tied to China. 

Update 12/9/2024

Source

Eighteen Thousand Sails satellites, weighing about 267 kg, have been launched, bringing the constellation up to 54 satellites. While they have had problems with debris, no issues were reported with this launch. 

The dark blue nations on this map are targeted for marketing in 2025, and the light blue for 2026. As reported above, they already have a memorandum of understanding with Brazil.

Update 1/8/2025 

In his 2024 Year in Review, Blaine Curcio reports that Chinese "commercial space continues to grow by leaps and bounds, buffetted by government support and renewed investor interest in the sector" and as major constellations like GeeSpace and Thousand Sails pick up momentum they "create real demand for launchers, satellite systems manufacturers, and other suppliers."

The biggest 2024 funding round "by far" was for Sailspace's Thousand Sails constellation. The ¥6.7B funding round mentioned above ended up being "the world’s largest" and, in December, Sailspace's manufacturer, Gensat, announced a ¥1B funding round to ramp up production. Curcio did not report the exact amount of GeeSpace financing. I queried four AI chatbots, and none knew of any 2024 financing -- Geely is probably able to fund satellite manufacturing and launch on its own.

Update 3/12/2025

Long March 8 with 18 Quinfan satellites (source)

SpaceSail has launched 18 new satellites, bringing the Qianfan Constellation's total to 90 in orbit. They are in near-Polar orbits ranging in altitude from 800 to 1,070 kilometers.

The launch was at China's first commercial launch site, the Hainan International Commercial Aerospace Launch Center. This launch went smoothly, without the kinds of problems they have had in previous launches. It was also streamed on the Internet, and you can see a portion of the video and some still photos here.

Update 6/9/2025

Thousand Sails manufacturer Genesat (aka CGSTL)  plans to invest 1.2 billion yuan in its second factory project. It will have a pulsation production line capacity of 150 ton-level satellites per year or a batch production capacity of 300 satellites under 500 kg per year. Note that both are larger than the 267 kg first-generation satellites, and their production capacities are consistent with Blaine Curcio's mass estimates of 400-500 kg and 1.5 tons for the second and third generation satellites. 

Update 8/17/2025

It's been a year since the first Qianfan launch, but five months since the last one. Is the slowdown due to satellite or launch availability, or are they pausing for some redesign, or both? The upper stage of the first launch fragmented, creating over 300 pieces of trackable debris. Ninety satellites are in orbit, but fourteen have not reached their operational altitude. Furthermore, the satellites are interfering with astronomy and some are tumbling. Regardless of the cause for delays, Qianfan is unlikely to meet its ITU launch deadlines.

Update 4/27/2026

The potential markets for Western and Chinese connectivity differ, as shown in this Venn diagram, which shows the number and GDP of nations with Starlink connectivity, Chinese BRI projects, or both. The BRI projects tend to be in poorer nations, but there are more nations with BRI projects than with Starlink availability. The current success of Starlink suggests that the market is large enough to support it and the Chinese constellations.

How to submit a "complaint of judicial misconduct" on Judge Cannon’s handling of Trump’s classified documents case

You must submit a simple form and a brief "statement of facts" supporting your complaint.

The Form

Click here to download the editable submission form.
The form asks six questions -- complete it with the answer shown in red below.

1. Judicial Council of the Eleventh Circuit
2. Name of Judge: Aileen Cannon
3. Does this complaint concern the behavior of the judge(s) in a particular lawsuit or lawsuits? Yes
4. Court: U. S. District Court for the District of Florida
5. Case number: 23-80101-CR-Cannon
6. Are (were) you a party or lawyer in the lawsuit? Neither

The form also requires your name, address, and phone number.

The statement of facts

You should state the facts as you see them., but as an example, you can see the statement of facts I submitted here. 

You can also use ChatGPT or other "AI" programs for ideas. For example, I asked ChatGPT to "give me reasons for filing a complaint of judicial misconduct in Judge Cannon's handling of the Trump documents trial." It generated this answer.

Mail the form and statement of facts

Print the submission form and your statement and mail them in an envelope marked "COMPLAINT OF MISCONDUCT" to:

Office of the Clerk
Elbert P. Tuttle courthouse
56 Forsyth Street N.W,
Atlanta, GA 30303

(Do not put the judge's name on the envelope).

For a talk on why you should do this, see this presentation by Glen Kirshner.

Starlink service is great on (some) cruise ships.

The Seabourn Venture has six Starlink terminals with three antennas on each side of the top deck.

I recently used Starlink on a cruise along the coast of Northwest Africa and I'll summarize my experience below, but first let me explain why I put some in the title of this post. I posted the following request on the Reddit Cruise group: "What has been your experience of Starlink Internet service on Seabourn or other cruise lines? How was latency? Do video chats work smoothly? Games? etc." Here are some of the replies:

• It was amazing. Streamed video on two devices at once, I was able to log in through my VPN and work remotely across the world, and WiFi calling was seamless. I had no idea cruise Internet could be that great.
• The Internet was great, even in Antarctica.
• It was FAST.
• Zoom was fine. WhatsApp calls crystal clear too.
• Latency was a bit high for something like live multiplayer gaming, but good enough for video chats or video streaming.
• Very good mb/s. Variable latency. 
• It's usually still on the slower side of things.
• It's better than without Starlink, but still pretty terrible.
• It still Sucks.
• It's slow hot garbage.

My experience was positive. I was on the Seabourn Venture for a two-week cruise which went as far south as The Gambia in northwest Africa then followed the coast north to the Mediterranean finally stopping in Málaga, Spain.  The ship had six Starlink antennas and two geostationary (GEO) satellite antennas. The GEO satellites were used for ship navigation, weather tracking, etc. The crew on the bridge said their work was not affected by Starlink.

Seabourn offers two Internet packages, surfing and streaming. The surfing package is free for passengers and the faster streaming package is free for the crew. Passengers pay about $20 per day for the streaming package. As the name implies, streaming sites like YouTube and Netflix were blocked for surfing accounts.

According to the ship's Computer Systems Officer (CSO), streaming users always had Starlink access and surfing passengers used the GEO satellites unless there was excess Starlink capacity. He could not say what the criteria for excess capacity were, but their goal is to always keep the streaming customers happy. (Company policy prohibits crew members from playing games).

My Starlink experience was positive. I tested streaming in my cabin by watching four Netflix videos simultaneously on Android and Apple phones, an iPad, and a laptop. The screens were small and Netflix would have reduced video quality, but it worked smoothly. Video chats using WhatsApp and Zoom also worked well despite latency being consistently over 100 ms unloaded and considerably higher while up and downloading files. 

Latency on the ship was much higher than Elon Musk's stated goal of 20 ms -- what are the sources of that latency? 

First is the WiFi network configuration and your location within the ship. Demand also varies during the day and between port and sea days. The size of the ship and the provisioned Starlink capacity are also factors in determining latency.

Carnival Corporation owns Seabourn and 8 other cruise lines. I was on Carnival's smallest ship, which has six Starlink terminals and can accommodate up to 264 passengers with a crew of 120. Carnival's largest ship, the Mardi Gras, can accommodate approximately 6,500  passengers with approximately 1,745 crew members. I wonder how many Starlink terminals the Mardi Gras has and how satisfied the users are. (I got these passenger and crew counts from ChatGPT-4, but it doesn't know how many terminals the Mardi Gras has).

Since the only ground stations in Africa are in Nigeria, our traffic traversed inter-satellite links for most of the trip. Once on the ground, traffic was tunneled through the Carnival VPN to a public Internet point of presence (POP) in an English-speaking location like London, Sydney, or Miami. 

When Starlink was first installed, traffic sometimes went through Hong Kong and users got Chinese replies. The POP location can also affect copyright restrictions. When Max.com became unavailable during the cruise, the CSO explained that they had been switching back and forth between the London and Miami POPs for maintenance purposes and that Max.com was not available in the UK.

This complexity explains the varied results I reported at the start of this post and no doubt Carnival and other cruise lines monitor and tune their networks constantly. If they are doing well they should advertise performance statistics and customer-satisfaction survey results.

Starlink has begun delivering promised latency cuts

In his January 12th  SpaceX update, Elon Musk said the biggest goal for Starlink from a technical standpoint is to get the mean latency below 20 ms. He expanded by saying that given the speed of light, 8 ms is the absolute minimum latency for a satellite at 550 km. He believes they can optimize terrestrial and inter-satellite links, and minimize queueing delays and dropped packets, to recude the the rest of the time to below 10 ms. He predicted that eventually"Starlink will be more responsive than ground Intenet in most cases."

A month later, we saw early results of the latency-reduction effort. On February 12, Oleg Kutkov tested Starlink's Rev 3 and Rev 4 terminals and, as shown here, he found no latency inflation as background upload and download speeds increased simultaneously when using the Rev 3 terminal. He compared the Rev 3 and 4 terminals and found that Rev 4 upload and download speeds were about 50% faster than Rev3. Average ping times were somewhat improved for Rev 4 (88 vs 93 ms), but jitter was significantly lower (9.2 vs 111.9 ms).

You should also check out Dave Taht's take on Oleg's results. He concedes that Starlink has improved dramatically, and outlines steps they could take to further reduce latency.

Last week, SpaceX released news of progress toward the 20 ms latency goal. They have worked to reduce latency throughout the Starlink system. Since the begining of the year, they have deployed and tested 193 different satellite software builds, 75 gateway software builds, 222 Starlink software builds, and 57 WiFi software builds. 

This is the latency view of the interactive map.

For a month preceding March 7, SpaceX collected data every 15 seconds from millions of Starlink routers. In analyzing the data, they defined worst-case latency is the point at which 99% of times are shorter and peak hours as 6-9 PM local time. 

In the United States, they found that median latency was reduced by more than 30%, from 48.5ms to 33ms during peak usage hours, and worst-case peak hour latency had dropped by over 60%, from over 150ms to less than 65ms. Outside the United States median latency was reduced by up to 25% and worst-case latencies by up to 35%. The map shown here is interactive and shows availability and upload and download speeds in addition to latency.

SpaceX says it has “tuned our algorithms to prefer paths with lower latency, no matter how small the difference, and to remove any and all sources of unnecessary and non-physical latency." Dave Taht and his colleagues at  LibreQoS might disagree, but latency will improve over time regardless. 

Latency will improve as SpaceX launches more satellites with more capacity and inter-satellite laser links and the launch rate will increase when Starship becomes available. Adding ground stations will also improve latency.  (Note that the only African light-colored areas in the above latency map are within reach of the only ground stations on the continent).

I hope Musk achieves the 20 ms goal for Starlink. Doing so would not only benefit Starlink customers, it would call the attention of the FCC and terrestrial Internet service providers to the importance of latency as a performance and marketing metric.

Civilian Tech Mobilization in Ukraine

Rosie the Riveter, US World War II poster (source)

As was the case in the US during World War II, civilian volunteers are making important contributions to the Ukrainian war effort.

On February 8, 2022, the first truck load load of Starlink terminals arrived in Kyiv. A week later they were being used. By April 2022, there were 5,000 terminals in Ukraine, and 42,000 as of April 2023. (At this point, SpaceX and Ukraine have gone silent. Neither ChatGPT4, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity, nor I could not find a current terminal count).

Whatever the number of terminals in the country, they require support. They were purchased, delivered, and set up. Users were trained and they require real-time access for troubleshooting and assistance. Broken terminals have to be repaired and some terminals have been modified. Civilian tech volunteers are doing much of this work. 

There are several Starlink support centers throughout Ukraine. For obvious reasons, they are secretive about their work, but one large one is Nebogray in Lviv. Neborgray has repaired 5,976 Starlink terminals and converted 516 for portable use mounted on vehicle roofs. In addition to the service centers, there are many individual craftsmen and small services throughout the country.

The work at Nebogry is performed by highly qualified volunteers. For example, Oleg Kutkov. is a senior engineer at Ubiquiti, and he devotes his spare time to Starlink research. He bought what may have been the first Starlink terminal in Ukraine on eBay before the war and does teardowns and research studies like this recent unboxing and review of the Version 4 Starlink terminal on his blog. Oleg is an active participant in the Starlink mailing list and the 15,700-member People's Starlink Facebook group.

The Facebook group was created by The People's Starlink project, which is involved in refurbishing, adapting, repairing, and providing technical support, as well as procuring and upgrading satellite communication terminals from SpaceX's Starlink for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other defenders of Ukraine. 

With the help of many contributors, including Oleg, People's Starlink founder Vladimir Stepanets has written a 246-page Starlink Handbook for Military Users, which begins with a message from the author “Greetings defenders of Ukraine!”

Starlink Handbook for Military Users

The handbook is divided into eight, richly illustrated modules:

• What is Starlink?
• Starlink Terminals
• Powering Starlink terminals
• Expanding and collapsing Starlink terminals
• Terminal management and settings
• Safety of using Starlink terminals
• Diagnostics and problem-solving
• Starlink in network infrastructures

This is the second (and first public) edition of the handbook and it will continue evolving. It is currently available in Ukrainian, but Stepanets is discussing translations into several other languages and plans to publish it as a book.

Point of invincibility in Bucha, Ukraine

In response to Russian attacks on critical infrastructure, Ukraine has established thousands of Points of Invincibility, tent structures equipped with generators. The government is working to provide a Starlink terminal for each of them in addition to heat, water, lighting, and more.

The IT Army of Ukraine is an international, loosely connected organization of Ukrainian and foreign ethical hackers. They have created an online service that Ukrainian allies can use to generate denial-of-service attacks. Of course, one man's "ethical hacker" is another man's "terrorist," and Ukraine has petitioned The International Criminal Court to investigate Russian cyberattacks as war crimes. The International Committee of the Red Cross has published rules of engagement for civilian hackers involved in conflicts and the IT Army will make a best effort to follow the rules.

It was obvious from the early days of the war that two technologies -- Starlink and drones -- were going to play major roles. Model airplane hobbyists created an air reconnaissance unit within the army when fighting began in 2014 and Starlink enabled surveillance drones to relay target coordinates to artillery units. 

Today, non-technical people like Violetta Oliynyk, an artist and jeweler, are assembling drones in their spare time. She learned drone assembly by taking an online course from Prometheus, a nine-year-old education site with over 400 courses online. (The course was developed for the Victory Drones project). Social Drones UA is another volunteer drone assembly project. They vet then train and support potential assemblers with a how-to video and online support. 

Ukrainians are also assembling battery packs from batteries in discarded vapes, which is reminiscent of Americans saving and turning in excess cooking fat to be used in explosives during World War II.

Civilian volunteers and Ukrainian tech companies have pivoted to military innovation and production. Ukraine was technologically advanced before the war and has been forced to innovate and improvise. If Ukraine survives, the tech sector will thrive when peace comes. 

I've presented a few examples of civilian tech support for the Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion. There are many others, and if you are so inclined, the Internet makes it possible for you to contribute to them. Many project Websites have contribution links and you can also consult Reddit's list of vetted Ukrainen charities.

Update 3/8/2024

I believe Oleg is by Volodymyr Zelenskyy's ear.

Oleg Kutkov was among the "people embodying the spirit of Ukraine," chosen by Time Magazine as Person of the Year for 2022. Time wrote:

Ukraine first came back online when Elon Musk activated his low-­altitude Starlink satellite internet, as he would later do in Iran. The net was crucial to Ukrainian forces, who were issued the compact, portable Starlink antennas. But in Kyiv, self-­described “tech and space nerd” Oleg Kutkov reconstructed a Starlink dish from eBay, and after contacting SpaceX support, caught a signal. “I was the first civilian user of Starlink here in Ukraine,” says Kutkov, 34, who began a Face­book group that has grown to 8,700 people. “They read about me in the news, and they were all worrying about connectivity because the internet is really important here to get all the news, to get notifications and so on.”

Update 2/6/2025

Oleg Kutkov reports that there are now dozens of Starlink service centers in Ukraine. He says his friend runs the first and biggest service center specializing in Starlink in Ukraine (and most likely worldwide). They are currently doing nearly 100 Starlink repairs per week. They also modify and produce automotive versions of REV3, REV4, and Mini terminals for military use. 

 

Amazon Project Kuiper vs SpaceX Starlink

Amazon's Project Kuiper is far behind Starlink and is under time pressure, but Amazon has several things going for it.

In 2019, I wrote that Amazon would be a formidable satellite-ISP competitor. I still think so, but I didn’t expect it would be over four years until they launched the first test satellites. In the meantime, SpaceX has put over 5,000 satellites in orbit and has over two million Starlink customers.

Amazon has permission to launch 3,236 satellites. They must manufacture and launch at least half of them by July 2026 and the remainder by July 2029. Can they do it? After many delays, they have finally launched two test satellites, confirming that inter-satellite laser links (ISLLs) worked at 100 Gbps while sending traffic “in both directions from the internet over an AWS fiber-optic connection to our ground gateway station, up to our satellites, and then down to a customer terminal at our test location.” All Starlink satellites launched since September 2021 will have ISLLs, so by the time Kuiper is complete, all or nearly all Starlink satellites will have them, and they will have a much larger constellation.

Amazon has not launched any production satellites and they will have to hurry to meet the 2026 and 2029 deadlines. They have signed contracts for 83 launches over a five-year period, which they say will provide capacity for “the majority” of the constellation. SpaceX was conspicuously not one of the vendors, and a shareholder lawsuit pointed out that Amazon had not considered SpaceX as a provider and nearly 45% of the overall value is for launches and engines from Blue Origin, a rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos. Subsequently, Kuiper signed a 3-launch contract with SpaceX.

(Note that Blue Origin has not yet launched their forthcoming New Glenn rocket, which was initially scheduled to fly in 2020. The New Glenn will have greater capacity than SpaceX’s current Falcon rocket, but significantly less than their forthcoming Starship.

Amazon's Project Kuiper is far behind Starlink and is under time pressure, but Amazon has several things going for it:

• In his first letter to stockholders, Jeff Bezos stressed that Amazon was an infrastructure company and that has been borne out by subsequent investments in facilities and services. Amazon will bundle Kuiper access with data storage and cloud computing services.
• Kuiper will offer service-level agreements to non-consumer customers.
• Amazon will be Kuiper’s largest customer. With over 1.5 million employees staffing offices, warehouses, and other facilities, Amazon will use the Kuiper constellation internally as will their fleets of delivery trucks, planes, shipping containers, and perhaps delivery drones someday.
• Amazon is already in the space business with its satellite ground station service.
• The US, Taiwanese, and other governments and militaries will see Amazon as a more reliable supplier of critical infrastructure than Starlink given Elon Musk’s political activism and Tesla’s dependence on China.
• Some potential customers may not approve of Elon Musk’s political involvement.
• Re-usability gives Starlink a large launch-cost advantage, but if Elon Musk can afford Twitter, Jeff Bezos can afford Kuiper.
• Amazon's New Glenn rocket is designed to be reusable and eight Chinese private and state-owned entities are developing reusable rockets.
• Kuiper will be launching state-of-the-art satellites and selling state-of-the-art terminals.
• Satellite antennas are expensive, and Amazon has experience designing and manufacturing consumer devices like the Echo and Kindle. 
• Amazon has announced three Kuiper antennas.
• A user terminal is more than just an antenna, and Dave Täht, Chief Science Officer at LibreQoS, has been calling attention to Starlink’s latency problem for years. It now seems Elon Musk is ready to listen. Amazon should talk with Täht.
• Amazon is already talking with enterprises, governments, schools, hospitals, and mobile operators. They have contracts with Verizon, Vodafone, and NTT and licenses to operate in more than 15 countries, including Brazil, Canada, France, Mexico, and the US.

I could go on, but you get the idea -- I think Kuiper will survive despite a rocky start and will eventually offer Starlink healthy competition.

Update Feb 9, 2024

I listed Jeff Bezos’s wealth and the expected use of the Kuiper constellation among the causes of my optimism. A report on the capital expenditures by the three major cloud service companies puts Amazon’s commitment to invest $10 billion over several years in Project Kuiper in context. In 2023 alone, “Amazon’s (relative) CAPEX austerity continues, as the company spent a measly $53.7 billion, a decline of 20%" and it has invested around $380 billion since 2000.

Update 5/26/2025

Tech CEOs at the Trump  inauguration (source)

Amazon launched its first batch of production satellites on April 28, 18 months and 22 days after its test satellites. (Starlink launched production satellites 15 months after its test satellites.) It remains to be seen whether they can meet the FCC deadlines for having 3,216 satellites in operation by July 2029 and half that by July 2026. 

If they fail to meet one or both deadlines, they will request a delay and may face political pressure from SpaceX. Amazon's Jeff Bezos has made Trump-friendly editorial changes at the Washington Post and supported Trump financially, but has not paid as much as Elon Musk. Both had VIP seats at Trump's inauguration along with Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, and Tim Cook.

Update 7/16/2025

SpaceX launched a batch of 24 Project Kuiper satellites, bringing the constellation up to 78 satellites in orbit. 

Amazon has contracts with United Launch Alliance for 47 launches, Blue Origin for 12 with options for 15 more, Arianespace for 18 launches, and only two more launches from SpaceX, which are expected to take place this year. 

The small SpaceX contact was precipitated by a lawsuit filed in 2023 claiming that Jeff Bezos and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy “consciously and intentionally breached their most basic fiduciary responsibilities” by not selecting any launches that used the Falcon 9 rocket, "the most obvious and affordable launch provider, SpaceX, from its procurement process because of Bezos’ personal rivalry with Musk.” 

It's the latency, FCC

Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 orders the FCC to “encourage the deployment on a reasonable and timely basis of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans.” On October 25, The FCC issued a notice of inquiry (NOI) into how well we are doing and invited comments.

The NOI points out that COVID and the concomitant increase in the use of interactive applications has “made it clear that broadband is no longer a luxury but a necessity that will only become more important with time" and proposes “an increase from the existing fixed broadband speed benchmark of 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload (25/3 Mbps) to 100/20 Mbps." They also seek comment on a long-term speed goal of 1,000/500 Mbps.

The focus is clearly on speed. They mention latency on page 12 and jitter and packet loss on page 15, but the FCC made no metrics recommendations on those metrics and requested comments.

Dave Taht, Chief Science Officer of LibreQOS and an embedded Linux developer and consultant since 1998, drafted a comment arguing that the FCC should “balance its near-term efforts on achieving Internet resilience and minimizing latency, instead of only increasing speed.” Taht invited experts to suggest edits to and sign his draft and the submitted comment has 63 signatures, many of which would be familiar to CircleID readers. 

Taht says “Calls for further bandwidth increases are analogous to calling for cars to have top speeds of 100, 500, or 1000 miles per hour” and the "only way to improve responsiveness is to robustly and reliably reduce the latency, and especially the 'latency under load'.” He points out that low latency, not speed, is critical for today’s interactive applications and high latency reduces aggregate network efficiency and increases variability in the user experience. 

Much Internet latency is caused by bufferbloat – packets working their way through queues that build up in routers and other network equipment. Taht has spent years developing tools to measure latency and reduce bufferbloat and he documents his work and that of others in his 27-page NOI comment.

How much speed does one need? 

That depends on the applications you use, which is a moving target. My first home Internet terminal was a 10-character per-second (CPS) ASR-33 Teletype with an acoustic coupler. I used it for email, FTP, Telnet, and network news and I was able to collaborate with distant colleagues. I loved it and 100 CPS would not have made a big difference because 10 CPS was about as fast as I could read and faster than I could type. My first connected computer used a 300-bps modem, and modem speeds increased to 56 Kbps driven by applications like Web, and voice over IP.

Today, Poa Internet in Kenya offers uncapped 4 Mbps service which is sufficient for downloading software, articles, books, movies, etc., shopping, making voice-over-IP calls, listening to podcasts, reading newspapers, etc., and, importantly, creating content and inventing and developing applications and services that are relevant to Africa.  

Netflix speed recommendations (source)

Streaming video is the most speed-intensive application I use today and Netflix recommends 15 Mbps for viewing UHD 4k movies. Poa Internet customers might be able to view 720p video.

Spectrum, my ISP today,  offers three plans – up to 300, 500, and 1,000 Mb/s.  I have a 300 Mbps cable connection which is more than I need. M-Lab's Internet performance test service, which measures speed and latency unloaded and while simulating background activity reported that my latency increased from 16 to 53 ms when downloading was active and 41 ms when uploading was active. Speeds were 355.3 Mbps download and 11.2 Mbps upload. Considering Netflix’s recommendation, it is unsurprising that streaming two movies on my home WiFi network while running the M-Lab test did not make much difference.

As long as I only watch one movie at a time, I suspect I would not notice much difference if Spectrum only provided me with the current FCC benchmark of 25/3 Mbps. This raises the question of opportunity cost. How much capital and operating cost could Spectrum have saved if they had only provisioned, say, a choice between 25/3 and 50/6 Mbps? Would the savings be sufficient to fill in white spaces in their national broadband map? 

Spectrum dismisses latency, writing:

Latency is typically measured in milliseconds, and generally has no significant impact on typical everyday internet usage. As latency varies based on any number of factors, most importantly the distance between a customer's internet connected device and the ultimate internet destination (as well as the number, variety, and quality of networks your packets cross), it is not possible to provide customers with a single figure that will define latency as part of a user experience.

Page load time as a function of latency (source)

If we could come up with a "single figure" to define and measure latency, ISPs would have an incentive to improve it, and the FCC could adopt benchmarks. While a single figure may be impossible, could tests isolate the latency in an ISP network and the customer premises equipment (CPE) they supply? Could we use imperfect surrogates for latency like page-load times? Could we benchmark components like the CPE an ISP provides?

While the FCC and ISP marketing are focused on speed today, attention to latency and its measurement is growing within the technical community. To learn more and get involved, check Dave's Bufferbloat.net site and LibreQOS and watch Dave's talk here. You can also give the FCC feedback by commenting on Proceeding 22-270 on the FCC Express Comments Page.

Update 1/18/2024

Elon Musk summarized SpaceX's 2023 accomplishments in a recent talk at Starbase in Texas, He covered many topics including Starlink. He stated that their biggest single technical goal for the year was to get mean latency under 20 ms. (He estimated that 10 ms was the theoretical minimum given the speed of light). Doing so will require a combination of steps including launching satellites with inter-satellite laser links, adding ground stations, and heeding the advice Dave Taht has been offering for years.

Update 7/15/2014

SpaceX Starlink has begun delivering on Elon Musks commitment to reduce latency and they are letting users know by including latency values and distribution in the Starlink app. (The 100 ms latency spike at the end of the distribution must reflect handoffs between satellites).

All ISPs should report and advertise latency as well as throughput, which is less important than latency in many applications. 

Space-ground optical (laser) communication

 

Inter-satellite laser links are in use now, but the technology for optical links to the ground is still being developed and tested. 

Optical frequency laser communication links have many advantages over radio frequency (RF) links:

• Optical transmission is much faster than RF communication.
• Optical terminals are smaller and cheaper than RF terminals and use less power.
•  It's harder to intercept or jam optical signals, so they are more secure and, conversely, better for clandestine use.
• Multiple optical beams can be transmitted simultaneously to multiply the speed.
• Optical transmission is license-free. (There isn't enough RF spectrum to accommodate all of the currently proposed satellites.)

SpaceX is equipping its new satellites with inter-satellite laser links (ISLLs). They now have over 8,000 optical terminals in orbit (3 per satellite), and they communicate at up to 100 Gbps. The other low-Earth orbit Internet service providers will follow SpaceX's lead.

Optical communication works well between satellites in the vacuum of space, but optical signals are weakened and distorted by clouds, rain, water vapor, dust, heat gradients, pollen, etc. in the atmosphere so today SpaceX and others use RF frequencies for communication between space and the ground.

Optical space-ground projects

Given the long list of optical advantages, many organizations are working on technology to adjust for atmospheric interference and use optical communication between space and the ground. The following are a few examples of optical communication research and development by NASA, universities, the military, private industry, and the Chinese. 

Ten years ago, NASA demonstrated optical communication between a satellite orbiting the moon and Earth, and they are updating that now. They have a data relay satellite in geosynchronous orbit for relaying data from other satellites to the ground and they are working on transmission from deep space beyond the Moon so we will be able to see video from Mars when we land there. They have also transmitted data between a cubesat with a 2.3 kg payload and the ground at a rate of 200 Gbps. 

ETH Zurich test site

Researchers at ETH Zürich have transmitted data from a mountaintop to their lab 53 kilometers away at up to 0.94 Tbit/s/channel. (Note that the top of the stratosphere is only 50 km from the ground). They adjust for atmospheric variance using sophisticated algorithms and terminals with adaptive optics that can correct the wave phase 1,500 times per second. Their technology can scale up to 40 channels and they are working on more efficient modulation schemes.

The ETH Zürich transmission was from a fixed point on top of a mountain to their lab – how about from a moving satellite? LEO satellites move across the sky at an angular tracking rate of ∼1 deg/s and researchers at the University of Western Australia have demonstrated that they can maintain contact with a drone moving back and forth at that rate. 

In Ukraine, SpaceX Starlink has demonstrated both the military value of satellite Internet and the drawback of being dependent on a private company.

SDA Tracking Layer constellation (source)

The Space Development Agency (SDA) of the Space Force is developing two constellations, a Tracking Layer constellation for warning of, tracking, and targeting advanced missile threats and a Transport Layer constellation providing connectivity to the full range of warfighter platforms. 

There will be ISLLs, using SDA standard optical communication terminals, within and between the early constellations. The early satellites will use RF links to the ground, but optical links are planned.

Tracking plus transport to intercept missiles with planned
optical links to the ground (source)

Space Force policy is to scale up its use of commercial capabilities and Mynaric has been awarded Tracking and Transport Layer contracts for their CONDOR Mk3 optical terminal. CACI International and Tesat terminals have also been certified and will be used -- standards enable competition.

Mynaric has also been selected to participate in a demonstration of links between various space-based optical terminals and an optical ground station they will design. 

The SDA is also working with Aalyria, a startup with two products, Tightbeam and Spacetime, that are based on intellectual property acquired from Google. 

Tightbeam is an optical communication technology that sounds similar to that of ETH Zürich. Using adaptive mirrors and proprietary algorithms, they have transferred data to and from a local mountain at 400 Gbps per channel, (They can use four channels simultaneously). They recently signed a maritime contract for connectivity "starting at" 100 Gbps. 

Tightbeam is only available through Spacetime, an extremely ambitious network operating system for controlling fixed and mobile assets and the links between them on Earth, in the air, and in space. Spacetime runs a simulation of the network and if an upcoming problem is predicted -- for example a weather event or an airplane banking -- Spacetime will reconfigure the network to route around it in 200 ms. 

(Spacetime is open source with open APIs and Spacetime networks can “federate,” accessing each other’s assets to create a “network of networks.” Sound familiar? APIs are open and they hope to establish standards -- reminiscent of Ethernet vs early proprietary LAN technology. I recommend watching this Spcetime presentation).

Intelsat has provided geostationary satellite communication since the 1960s and is also working with Aalyria on multi-orbit service and space-to-ground optical communication. (They are also considering a medium Earth orbit constellation -- could federating with SES's mPower constellation be an alternative to creating their own)?

I searched for and found two Chinese optical space-ground experiments, one by Beidou in 2021 and a recent test by The Chinese Academy of Sciences with a 10 Gbps transmission rate. I checked with Blaine Curcio, an expert on Chinese space, and he does not know of other tests.

Ground infrastructure

If projects like the above succeed in developing cost-effective space-ground optical communication technology, we will need significant investment in well-designed ground infrastructure. Optical antennas can be added to existing RF ground stations or new optical ground stations can be built.

World cloud cover map (source)

Augmenting existing ground stations makes sense if they are in suitable locations because they already have real estate, power, and Internet connectivity. For example, SpaceX has 75 gateways in North America, several of which are in arid regions of northern Mexico and the US southwest.

New ground stations with optical gateways will also be needed. They should be in relatively cloud-free places and, if possible, near centers of demand and locations with access to high-speed terrestrial Internet connections and power. The current locations of astronomical observatories might be considered.

African gateways

One of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals is "to build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation" -- to reduce the digital divide. The needs of underserved areas should also be considered in locating ground stations. Today, SpaceX has only two RF ground stations in Africa, and there are arid regions in the north and south that might be suitable locations for optical ground stations.

ISLL path between arid areas in Mexico and Africa (source).
Such opportunities will increase as ISLLs proliferate.

Even if locations are carefully selected, routing around unfavorable weather or other atmospheric problems will occur at times. That will be facilitated by the proliferation of ISLLs. Furthermore, the addition of ISLLs to sharply inclined orbits will facilitate routing around winter in the northern and southern hemispheres.

Addendum

This post is based on a presentation at a recent UN Internet Governance Forum panel but it has been significantly revised and extended. You can get a copy of the revised PowerPoint presentation here.

The presentation includes a Frequency terminology cheat sheet.

For an excellent tutorial on the properties of laser light, click here.

Thanks to Brian Barrit of Aalyria and Shane Walsh of The University of Western Australia for their input.

Update 11/3/2023

NASA's ILLUMA-T optical terminal will be delivered to the International Space Station in a SpaceX Cargo Dragon launch scheduled for no earlier than November 5. Once installed on the exterior of the space station it will enable two-way communication through the data relay satellite mentioned above to and from optical ground stations in Hawaii and California at 1.2 Gbps.

Update 1/6/2025

Chang Guang Satellite Technology Co, which owns Jilin-1, the world’s largest sub-metre commercial remote sensing satellite constellation, said it achieved a 100 gigabit per second ultra-high-speed image data transmission rate in testing last weekend. Their goal is to network 300 imaging satellites using optical links to the ground by 2027. The optical payload weighs about 20kg (44lb), and the ground receiving unit is truck-based, making it mobile—an option that could lead to faster applications since it can move to locations that have relatively clear sky.

Update 5/19/2025

Kepler Validates SDA-Compatible Space-to-Ground Laser Links with Cailabs

Kepler Communications Inc. demonstrated space-to-ground optical data relay using its optical Pathfinder satellite and TESAT’s SCOT80 terminal in low Earth orbit (LEO), in partnership with French optical ground station provider Cailabs. This demonstration validates Kepler’s ability to achieve Space Development Agency (SDA) standard data rates in challenging scenarios and Cailabs’ optical ground station technology, which addresses atmospheric turbulence to ensure reliable data transfer. 

I sent a note asking about test results or other details on Cailabs' "optical ground station technology," but did not get an answer.

Update 6/19/2025

Chinese researchers have transmitted data at a rate of 1 Gb/s from a geostationary satellite with a 2-watt laser to a 1.8-meter telescope with 357 micro-mirrors, using both adaptive optics and mode diversity reception. They reported that this combined technique reduced errors significantly, with the chance of usable signals increasing from 72% to 91.1%. 

Data transfer speed is critical for sending high-resolution images from space. In an earlier experiment, researchers from the remote sensing company Chang Guang Satellite Technology Ltd. (CGSTL) achieved a rate of 10 Gb/s from a satellite in sun‑synchronous orbit at approximately 528 km altitude, communicating with a vehicle-mounted ground station, click here and here. 

At the end of last year, CGSTL achieved a rate of 100 Gb/s from low-Earth orbit. CGSTL plans to "deploy these laser communication units across all satellites in [their] Jilin-1 constellation ... with a goal of networking 300 satellites by 2027.” They cannot retrofit satellites that are already in orbit, so it's hard to say how many of the 300 will have inter-satellite and/or space-ground optical links.

You may recognize CGSTL as a manufacturer of Qianfan satellites. Might Qianfan get space-ground optical terminals?

Note that the European Space Agency is actively working on satellite-to-ground optical communication, but, as far as I know, they have not yet run tests comparable to the Chinese.