TECH TALK
satellites along with the initial large deployment of a piece of the constellation occurred in May 2019 when the first 60 operational satellites were launched. The initial commercial operation of the constellation could begin in 2020. SpaceX intends to provide
broadband internet connectivity to remote regions of the world, as well as provide competitively-priced service to urban areas. The company has indicated that selling satellite internet services would be essential to fund their plans for their missions to Mars.
TELESAT Ottawa, Canada-based Telesat has announced plans for a constellation of 298 satellites to be used to provide global Internet connectivity, with plans to begin offering regional service that will include Canada in 2022, with global service following in 2023. The government of Canada will invest 85 million Canadian dollars ($64.7 million) into Telesat’s research and development needs, through the Government’s Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF). The government also agreed to purchase up to 600 million Canadian dollars ($456.6 million) later for broadband services. The first Telesat LEO satellite was launched in early 2018. In May of this year they successfully conducted the world’s first live test of 5G services with together with Vodafone and the University of Surrey (UK) which demonstrated that Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites can provide effective backhaul transport for mobile network operators (MNOs), including advanced backhaul solutions for 5G. This test had a network reaction time (round trip latency) of 18-40 milliseconds, on par or better than results reported by OneWeb. According to Telesat, their LEO constellation will utilize the company’s global, priority spectrum
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rights in Ka-band and priority access to 4 GHz of scarce radio spectrum with fiber-like high speed services into rural/remote communities, and accelerate the expansion of 5G networks and set new levels of performance for their customers in their key maritime and aeronautical markets. Telesat is developing a new network optimized for airline connectivity, but no other details were available regarding this.
AMAZON’S KUIPER SYSTEMS Amazon’s wholly-owned subsidiary Kuiper Systems requested in July 2019 for FCC authority to launch and operate Ka-band non- geostationary satellite orbit fixed- satellite service system to provide high-speed, low-latency broadband services to businesses and consumers globally. Amazon’s Kuiper System will consist of 3,236 satellites in 98 LEO orbital planes at altitudes of 590 km, 610 km, and 630 km. These will be launched in five waves, but firm expected dates were not identified. Theoretically, such an arrangement will allow Kuiper to reach approximately 95 percent of the global population in unserved or underserved areas. This includes millions of Americans, many with slow Internet connectivity. Parts of northern Alaska will not be reachable from this constellation, so Amazon is seeing an FCC waiver for this. Amazon plans to target business and consumer markets, emergency/ disaster relief operations and even provide high-throughput mobile broadband connectivity services for maritime vessels, aircraft, and land vehicles. It was not clear in its filing if Amazon will sell services directly to customers, or via wholesale to existing communications providers thus allowing mobile and data providers to integrate this as a service to their customer bases.
No launch dates were identified,
but Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon also controls the launch company Blue Origin, and their initial rocket is scheduled for a first launch in 2021. According to the recent filing, the
Kuiper System’s ground segment will consist of customer terminals and gateway earth stations, along with software-defined network and satellite control functionality, including satellite operations centers and earth stations. Customer terminals will be safe, reliable, and easy to install at end-customer locations. A range of customer terminal models will be available with various performance capabilities tailored to different types of customers (i.e., residential and business customers). Mobile terminals will be supported for specific types of mobility applications (i.e., aeronautical, maritime, and land- mobile) and will be compliant with earth stations in motion rules. Lynk (formerly named UbuitiLink) This Falls Church, VA-based
startup, intends to launch thousands of satellite ‘cell towers’ that connect to the average cell phone. Lynk proposes a unique approach for its mega-constellation of satellites into low orbit above Earth. The company is solely focused on cellphone service (and assuming that this means data access via a cellphone as well), with the goal of using its small satellites to reach mobile phones seamlessly, without any modifications to the phones themselves. “We have built the world’s first “cell tower in space”, and proven the fundamental technology to connect a satellite to a standard unmodified phone on Earth”, according to Charles Miller, Co-founder and CEO of Lynk. Their plan is not to entirely supplant the need for ground-based cell towers since these will always provide better coverage and latency than a satellite can. Lynk will focus on augmenting
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