Starting late in the race for setting up high-speed data-broadband satellite systems may put a company at a disadvantage. For Celestri and SkyBridge, which both waited until this year to apply for a place in the spectrum sun, a comeback rests on how craftily and how quickly they can slip data into others’ spectral streams.
Every satellite systems needs frequencies to transmit on, and these don’t come easy from the folks who oversee their distribution – the Federal Communications Commission and the International Telecommunication Union. To succeed, the companies will have to design their networks around existing systems on the communications spectrum, a task that can require a lot of resourcefulness and creativity. The good news: those are two traits valued by regulators when it comes to approving new licenses.
“There’s a continuous debate about the use of bands and how bandwidth is being used,” said Aberdeen Group analyst Travor Kennedy. Anything in this environment that “creates” bandwidth is going to get the attention at the FCC and the ITU’s World Radio Conference. “Using digital technology and pushing it out effectively creates bandwidth.”
Like Teledesic, Celestri and SkyBridge want to use their satellites to offer high-speed Internet and intranet access, voice, and video for business and consumers applications. The two newcomers have two roads to the spectrum necessary for all satellite systems. They can apply to the FCC for access to the chunk of Ka-band spectrum the US worked to set aside to give low-earth orbit satellites priority. Or they can apply for room on another band, such as the lower-frequency Ku-band or C-band where larger geostationary orbit satellites have priority.
The two new entries to the Internet-in-the-Sky fray have opted for different strategies. Celestri has decided to go for the Ka-band. The catch here is that Teledesic was the first to win the license to this spectrum along with the FCC’s blessing to design its system without worrying about competition. Celestri and all other newcomers to this part of the Ka-band face the onus of fitting their own system around Teledesic’s. SkyBridge, meanwhile, has decided to work with the Ku-band, the turf of the higher-orbit GEOs.
The licensing hopes of SkyBridge and Celestri may ultimately hinge on the appeal of their sharing designs. By showing they can fit their systems into space without asking for yet more spectrum – and meanwhile introduce nifty spectrum-sharing technologies – Motorola and SkyBridge contend they’ve upped their licensing odds.
“The ancillary presentations we’ve made have been very well received,” said John Pientka, general manager of Motorola’s Advanced System division. “The last thing they want to do is grant a global monopoly. Their position is to let the market make a decision.”
SkyBridge, too, is optimistic that the FCC will be pleased with its plan. “For the first time, a satellite operator is proposing to share scarce spectrum and orbital resources, rather than insisting on an exclusive license,” said Phillip Spector, an attorney with SkyBridge. The result, he said, is “very strong interest at the FCC. They think this is almost a revolutionary development.”
Celestri is backed by Motorola, which has seen the LEO game before when it set up its wireless phone system, Iridium. Despite this know-how, Motorola waited until June, some two years after Teledesic’s plan started to take root before it filed its own application with the FCC for a broadband satellite system. Motorola said it was focusing its energies on Iridium. “Teledesic is nice, but we’ve got to make this one work first,” was the prevailing attitude, as Pientka phrased it.
“They have enough brain power and cash to pursue both,” said Jim Gifford, editor of Satellite Communications magazine. “It probably took them longer to see the validity of the broadband market for their own corporate purpose.”
SkyBridge’s core service – providing high-speed Internet access to homes and small businesses – is less focused on high-bandwidth-intensive applications and transglobal traffic than its competitors are. “It’s different if you’re trying to go across the world rather than say just trying to connect to an ISP,” said the Aberdeen Group’s Kennedy.
For SkyBridge – a partnership among 10 companies, including Loral, Qualcomm, and France Telecom – the Ku frequencies both meet the system’s needs and have significant advantages. “It’s a better band, a more efficient system, at a lower cost,” Spector said. Among the technical advantages SkyBridge cites for its band is less deterioration of signal in rain and snow, problems which increase in higher-orbit satellites. The cost “is about one-third of Teledesic’s. And the significance is that one way or another that has to get passed onto the consumer,” Spector said.
Alan Simpson, who maintains the communications-focused Web site ComLinks, agrees. “Every time you get to a new technology you have to develop new equipment. If you’ve got proven technology, then you’ve got a huge leap in your factors – you know it’s going to work,” he said. “That’s a built-in risk for Teledesic.”
But with all these points in Ku’s favor, its promoters can’t do much about one huge Ka advantage: it fits more data. Ka’s higher frequency means that any chunk of data can be sent in less time, meanining faster transmissions. “Technically, SkyBridge is doable, but it’s harder because that band is busier,” said Motorola’s Pientka, who also questions whether it’s necessarily a more economic approach.
Celestri has higher-bandwidth aspirations, with connections as fast as 155 Mbps as well as broadcast and multicast services that can meet the needs of small businesses and large multinational corporations alike. Motorola’s Pientka said Ka fits this model: “It is not as crowded as the other frequencies, and it enables smaller antennas.”
Spectrum real estate is not the only difference among the LEO competitors; another is that SkyBridge’s and Celestri use far fewer low-earth-orbit satellites than Teledesic, which once planned more than 900 satellites, a number since trimmed to a “mere” 288. This drop lends credence to the notion that the critical mass for broadband LEO satellites is far from absolute.
Unlike Teledesic’s system of 100 percent LEO satellites, SkyBridge and Celestri employ a hybrid of orbits, with LEOs passing off data duty to a higher ceiling of a few GEO satellites. That – along with larger and more powerful satellites – allows them to rely on fewer LEOs, 64 for SkyBridge and 63 for Celestri. Compare that with the 288 LEOs Teledesic plans to launch – or the 900-plus it initially planned to launch.
Will smaller systems suffice? Will sharing work? No observer seems to think either of the proposed sharing systems are out-of-reach technically. To most observers it comes down to the regulatory framework, and working out the cooperation.
And even if there’s room to share, how many systems will the market support? Much of the answer rests on developing countries and sparsely populated areas of developed countries. These folks would have to wait decades – or forever – before someone justifies the expense of landlines serving their less-than-thriving markets. Satellites can link up any home anywhere faster and cheaper. Even if it means all but giving away service to poor markets, the long-run global payoff for satellite networks will probably be worth such market break-in strategies, some observers argue.
And until these far-flung regions are ready to get wired, will there be enough companies in developed countries willing to plug into the sky for Net access? Probably, observers say. “A lot of companies with a lot of sites would spend $1,000 to get connected,” Satellite Communications editor Gifford said. “If someone came to you and said, ‘I’m going to spend a billion dollars to build a better Internet backbone,’ you’d say they were out of their mind. But when you compare it to just basic telephony, and mobile communications around the world, it’s not that much money – even at $12 billion.”
And to the general question – Who needs it anyway? – Gifford poses the same question asked two decades ago: “Who needs a PC to type words? Who needs cable?” Satellite companies are banking on the hope that the answer is the same for broadband data.
