While wireless broadband providers race to close the digital divide and service more hard-to-reach areas, they may face a new competitor — satellite-delivered broadband internet. Launch services provider SpaceX plans to deploy more than 4,000 non-geostationary satellites in a low orbit within five years to deliver affordable broadband service; the company, founded in 2002, by entrepreneur Elon Musk who remains CEO, hopes to begin testing a satellite by the end of the year and launching a prototype next year.
“Satellites will substantially alter access and competition,” SpaceX VP of Satellite Government Affairs Patricia Cooper told members of the Senate Commerce Committee at a broadband infrastructure hearing this week. “Our plan is to build fiber-like services at much lower cost.” The incremental cost of adding a rural customer to a satellite network is much lower than adding that rural customer to a ground-based cellular network, she testified.
Some 34 million Americans don’t have access to 25 Mbps broadband, according to the FCC, and half of Americans who do, can only get the service from one provider in their market. The company says its technology will be spectrum efficient and enable a viable business.
Satellite-delivered broadband eliminates many of the infrastructure siting hassles discussed at the hearing, like negotiating property rights and the need to dig trenches to lay fiber, according to Cooper. Plus, a new user would need “minimal” ground infrastructure. “Satellites will connect on a rooftop terminal that’s a little larger than a laptop.”
The Ka- and Ku-band satellite spectrum SpaceX plans to employ can be re-used, she said, and noted that SpaceX has also applied to employ V-band spectrum. However FCC rules for non-geostationary satellites need to be updated and reward spectrum efficiency. Launch regulations were written when satellite launches were “rare,” said Cooper. Now, they occur some twice a month and currently the agency issues short-term launch authority. SpaceX would like to see a streamlined process.
Cooper urged lawmakers to direct the FCC to finish processing the company’s pending application to license a new non-geostationary satellite orbit broadband internet constellation. SpaceX wants to bring its satellites closer to the earth to reduce latency, getting closer to 35 milliseconds as opposed to the current “hundreds of milliseconds.” The company proposes to build multiple satellites that each have several satellites in-view. “Small beams that use spectrum efficiently will allow us to adapt to where demand rises and falls,” added Cooper, and direct more capacity into space or on the ground.
May 5, 2017
Reader Interactions