It is T-minus four days and counting until the FCC launches its new Space Bureau.

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said Friday that the new bureau will launch April 11 with a public event (3 p.m., live streamed at www.fcc.gov/live) celebrating the inaugural staff and talking about the goals of the FCC's regulatory space program.

The goals of the bureau are to promote global communications competition in satellite-based technology--the FCC for several years has been promoting low earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband delivery as a competitor to traditional service, notably efforts by OneWeb, SpaceX, and most recently Amazon’s satellite-delivered broadband company, Project Kuiper.

Those companies will be glad to hear that another of the bureau's charters is to "streamline regulatory processes to provide maximum flexibility for operators to meet customer needs; and foster the efficient use of scarce spectrum and orbital resources."

“Whether it’s bringing broadband to hard-to-connect rural communities, closing mobile dead zones, or linking freedom-seeking people across the globe, satellite connectivity is fundamental to improving our quality of life and maintaining our economic succes," said Rosenworcel, who spearheaded the move to give space its own space in the FCC's organizational chart.

OneWeb said Sunday (March 26) it had successfully launched 36 more low earth orbit (LEO) satellites, bringing its total to 618 satellites. The company said that paves the way for its launch of a global broadband service by year's end.

The satellites were launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India, its second launch from that country. "OneWeb’s satellites separated successfully from the rocket and were dispensed in nine phases over a period of 1 hours and 14 minutes, with signal acquisition on all 36 satellites confirmed," the company said.

OneWeb said its constellation requires 588 satellites, plus some more for redundancy, which it now has in orbit.

Back in June 2017, the FCC unanimously approved OneWeb's request to deliver its service in the U.S. market (as part of a global operation), including particularly hard-to-reach and expensive-to-reach rural areas, after FCC chairman Ajit Pai proposed approving it.

The FCC subsequently approved similar plans by SpaceX, SpaceNorway, Kepler and Theia Holdings.

Closing the rural digital divide is one of the FCC's priorities, even more so in the age of social distancing, as well as providing more competition to wired broadband players who generally built their businesses on exclusive franchises.

OneWeb initial investors included Qualcomm, Virgin and Hughes. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2020 but was able to secure financing and emerge to continue its plans to blanket the globe with LEOs. ■ 

The Republican-led House Energy & Commerce Committee and the Democratic FCC chair are on the same page when it comes to the importance of satellite communications.

Committee chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) said Thursday (Jan. 26) that the first Communications Subcommittee hearing of the new Congress will be on “ensuring America continues to lead in the burgeoning satellite communications industry,” adding, “Next-generation satellite technologies are revolutionizing the communications marketplace, [y]et many of our nation’s laws and regulations haven’t been updated in decades.”

The hearing will be Thursday, February 2, and while witnesses have yet to be announced, the FCC chair clearly has some thoughts on the subject that square with Rodgers.

Also: FCC Approves OneWeb

Earlier this month, the FCC under chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel voted unanimously to create a Space Bureau.

“The satellite industry is growing at a record pace, but here on the ground our regulatory frameworks for licensing have not kept up,” Rosenworcel said after the vote. “We’re working to change that … A new Space Bureau at the FCC will ensure that the agency's resources are appropriately aligned to fulfill its statutory obligations, improve its coordination across the federal government, and support the 21st-century satellite industry.”

The FCC under both Republican and Democratic chairs has supported the deployment of constellations of low earth orbit satellite (LEOs) — OneWeb, SpaceX — to provide broadband competition to terrestrial providers. ■

OneWeb said it has successfully launched another 40 low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellites as it builds a web of broadband birds to deliver high-speed service to the U.S., Europe and Asia.

The launch was courtesy of Elon Musk's SpaceX from Cape Canaveral in Florida. SpaceX has its own StarLink low-latency satellite-broadband play, but that has not prevented Musk’s rocket-launch company from helping competitor OneWeb get its birds into place.

Success means not only launch, but acquiring a signal from all 40 birds, which OneWeb said has happened.

That gives OneWeb a total of 542 satellites, or what it said is more than 80% of its first-generation fleet.

OneWeb is among many such LEO-based satellite broadband efforts the Federal Communications Commission has given its regulatory approval to promote broadband price and service competition; to advance the internet of things (IoT) and 5G for all; and to help close the digital divide in the U.S.

OneWeb’s stated goal is to get broadband to some of the hardest-to-reach areas of the world.

In June 2017, the FCC under then-chair Ajit Pai unanimously approved OneWeb's request to deliver its service in the U.S. market, including particularly hard-to-reach and expensive-to-reach rural areas.

Pai’s successor, Jessica Rosenworcel, also supports LEOs as a way to provide broadband competition.

OneWeb filed for bankruptcy in 2020, suggesting it was on the verge of getting financing when the pandemic hit. It had already invested billions of dollars in the enterprise.

The company was able to get new funding from, among others, the U.K. government, and emerged from bankruptcy late last year. It secured over $1 billion in launch insurance back in September 2021. ■

Charlie Ergen and Elon Musk continue to battle at the FCC over how to divvy up the skies and FCC spectrum.

Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen and other company executives met with FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and the other FCC commissioners last week to update the commission on its 5G buildout status and try to quash any suggestion that opening up the 12 GHz satellite spectrum for more terrestrial 5G real estate threatened to interfere with Starlink's satellite broadband service.

That is according to FCC documents on a series of meetings July 12.

Starlink, which uses a ring of low-earth-orbit satellites to deliver broadband--including famously to Ukraine during the war with Russia--is owned by Elon Musk's SpaceX.

As part of the T-Mobile/Sprint Merger, T-Mobile sold  its prepaid wireless business to Dish and opened its network to Dish for a half dozen years to the company could become a legitimate wireless competitor since the merger was further concentrating the market.

Also: FCC Flooded with Nearly Identical Comments Opposing Opening 12 GHz

Ergen and company told the FCC that as of June 14, Dish was offering 5G to over 20% of the country.

On the 12 GHz front, it said that opening up 500 MHz of midband spectrum would not interfere with Starlink's customers and that Starlink was engaged in an "ongoing misinformation campaign" that was "both scientifically and logically flawed."

Dish said that Starlink's evidence of such interference is skewed because 1) it used a single case--Las Vegas--that had unique "topology and morphology" that could not be extrapolated nationwide; 2) it assumes "overdeployment" of 5G towers; and 3) it says the majority of receive terminals in Las Vegas would be in urban and suburban areas while at the same time having said Starlink is targeted to sparsely populated regions.

Ergen and the executives reminded the FCC that it, too, is a user of the satellite spectrum for its DBS service and has no interest in harming its own customers or anyone else's.

SpaceX has reminded the FCC that Dish was against sharing before it was for it (https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/file/download/DOC-5fe748dcf4800000-A.pdf?file_name=SpaceX%20Further%20Response%20to%20DISH%20re%20Peters%20Studies%20%20(3-18-22).pdf), and calls Dish's defense of sharing now a "bizarre" assertion proffered through "a series of convoluted arguments that misrepresent both the assumptions and conclusions of [SpaceX interference] studies." SpaceX says that Dish's submissions claiming "minimal" interference have been debunked.

Back in 2020, the FCC sought comment on whether and how to allow terrestrial use while protecting incumbent users. The FCC has been all for sharing spectrum to meet the 5G need and is expected to do so with the 12 GHz band as well. In January 2021 it did just that, voting unanimously to propose opening up that 500 GHz midband spectrum for unlicensed 5G use.

The band is currently used for DBS, fixed satellite service multichannel video and data service (MVDDS), like Starlink's broadband service. All are co-primary users, but DBS must be protected from interference. ■

The Federal Communications Commission has granted the application of Elon Musk's Starlink (SpaceX) satellite broadband company to deliver consumer and business broadband access to planes, boats and automobiles. 

But the regulator said SpaceX must accept any interference from incumbent or future users of the 12-GHz band — and there will likely be a few of those — and can cause no interference of its own to those services.

SpaceX had argued that granting the application would allow it to provide high-quality, low-latency broadband service while still complying with FCC rules and spectrum protections. The FCC appeared to be convinced, saying it agreed with SpaceX that it would be in the public interest to do so. The agency also approved a related on-the-go broadband petition by another satellite broadband provider, Kepler.

The FCC is encouraging low-earth-orbit geostationary satellite broadband systems as competition to existing internet service providers and as a way to reach places too uneconomical for wired ISPs to serve.

SpaceX had applied to deliver service on the go using the 12-GHz band for receive stations. SpaceX is currently trying to dissuade the FCC from allowing that satellite band to be shared with terrestrial wireless 5G, arguing it poses an unacceptable interference risk.

Dish Network, among a handful of others, had opposed the applications saying that neither SpaceX nor Kepler could show that their operations could comply with FCC rules. But the FCC said, “We agree with SpaceX and Kepler that their proposed … operations on an unprotected, nonharmful interference basis in the 12 GHz band will not materially impact the interference environment in that band.”

The FCC did impose some conditions. “These services, never before available, promise the potential for expanding reach to remote and rural areas and facilitating higher quality broadband services in the air, on the road, and on the water,” the commission said, adding, “We recognize, however, that the introduction of a potentially significant number of additional end users could affect the 12 GHz spectrum environment.”

Those conditions include that the authorization is granted on a “non-interference protected” basis, meaning it must take an interference punch, as explained above, but cannot dish one out. The FCC said the applications are subject to changes depending on how it finally resolves the 12-GHz 5G/WiFi sharing proceeding. ▪️

Elon Musk's SpaceX (Starlink) and OneWeb, each of which are deploying competing low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellite systems for delivering broadband, have told the FCC in a joint letter that they have come up with a coexistence plan.

The Federal Communications Commission had authorized both companies to launch service in 2016, and both have applied for second-generation systems.

“After extensive good-faith coordination discussions, the Parties are happy to inform the Commission that they agree that their respective first-round systems can efficiently coexist with each other and that their respective second-round systems can also efficiently coexist with each other while protecting their respective first-round systems,” the companies wrote.

SpaceX and OneWeb both asked the FCC to quickly approve their respective second-round applications, saying their agreement negates all prior comments either party had made.

The FCC, under both Republican and Democratic chairs, has been supportive of nascent satellite broadband providers looking to compete with terrestrial ISPs using clusters of small non-geostationary satellites.

Other companies it has given the green light to include Space Norway and Telesat. ■

Only a week after SpaceX's latest launch of satellites for its Starlink broadband service was decimated by a geomagnetic (solar) storm, OneWeb said it had successfully launched its latest batch of broadband-delivering low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites.

SpaceX said earlier in the week that up to 40 of its 49 satellites launched February 3 from Cape Kennedy in Florida had been prevented from making their way to higher orbits due to the storm's affect on atmospheric density and were reentering the atmosphere, where they were designed to "demise" while creating no orbital debris and with no satellite parts hitting the ground.

Also: OneWeb Beefs Up Broadband Delivery System

On the upside for constellations of LEOS deployed to create a satellite broadband service, OneWeb said Thursday (February 10) that it had deployed 34 satellites from French Guiana, its first launch in 2022 and brining its constellation of broadband satellites to 428, or 66% of its planned total fleet of 648.

OneWeb said at press time signal-acquisition had been confirmed for all 34 satellites.

Also: OneWeb Strikes Deal for Launch in India

OneWeb said that came on the heels for new distribution partnerships with Hughes Network Systems and others to "help ensure connectivity is delivered to the most hard-to-reach places globally." ■

Alaskan cable and telecom provider GCI said it has entered into a $150 million partnership with Intelsat to expand its geosynchronous satellite capacity to meet growing demand in rural areas across the state.

According to GCI, the deal provides continued access to Intelsat’s C-band and Ku-band capacity -- already part of GCI’s portfolio -- but also provides new access to Ka-band spectrum across the state. 

As part of the deal Intelsat will supply a multiple-satellite solution over an enhanced managed earth station platform and a tri-band (C, Ku, and Ka) network that will cover the entire state of Alaska.

In a press release, GCI CEO Ron Duncan said the Intelsat deal will nearly quadruple the company’s available satellite capacity and is part of a much broader rural connectivity strategy that also includes its ambitious AU-Aleutians Fiber Project. 

“Today’s announcement is another example of GCI’s continued commitment to our rural customers and our willingness to make the investment necessary to serve small, remote communities across the state,” Duncan said in the press release.

Also Read: GCI Targets 17 Rural Communities for 2021 Broadband Upgrades 

GCI is Alaska’s largest telecommunications company and has delivered satellite-based connectivity for 35 years. The company said the Intelsat deal will ensure it has sufficient capacity to meet the needs of rural customers like regional tribal health care providers, school districts, government agencies, and businesses.

“What sets GCI’s satellite service apart is that we manage the network from end to end, combining Intelsat’s satellite capacity with GCI’s satellite engineering and remote logistics know-how,” GCI SVP of corporate development Billy Wailand said in a press release.

Also Read: GCI Commits to Deploy 2 Gbps Service in Alaska in 2022 

The agreement also adds another tool in GCI’s broadband service approach, which includes a mix of fiber, microwave, GEO satellites and eventually low earth orbit (LEO) satellites. GCI has been actively engaged in talks with LEO providers including SpaceX, OneWeb, and Telesat. 

Also Read: Cable’s Last Frontier 

“We are confident that LEOs will become an important part of GCI’s toolkit over time,” Wailand said in the release. “But before we begin encouraging some of our customers to consider a move to LEO satellites, we need to be confident in their performance and ability to meet our customers’ current and future demands. Our partnership with Intelsat provides GCI and our customers with an immediate solution that addresses capacity needs today, as well as the ability to integrate future technologies like LEOs when they become ready.”

Dish has told the FCC that it can't let SpaceX use the 12 GHz band to fulfill Rural Digital Opportunity Fund broadband subsidy ambitions without resolving potential interference to Dish's satellite-TV operations, an issue that has yet to be resolved.

Dish filed a partial opposition to SpaceX's petition to qualify as an eligible telecommunications carrier (ETC) when it came to getting funding from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF), stating that SpaceX relies on unqualified access to the 12 GHz band that Dish also uses.

Also Read: Dish Says No Partner Needed for 5G Wireless Dance

The FCC has said that the 12 GHz band could potentially be used by ETCs seeking RDOF funds. But Dish said circumstances have changed since the FCC made that determination. First, there is a pending 12 GHz rulemaking, which means that spectrum is in a similar situation as the 5.9 GHz spectrum the FCC declined to allow for RDOF because there was a pending rulemaking.

Dish also said it provided the FCC with an analysis that shows SpaceX's system will exceed FCC power limits (interference protections) for millions of satellite-TV customers, an analysis -- and methodology and conclusion -- Dish said SpaceX has not refuted.

From the Archives: FCC Greenlights SpaceX Satellite Broadband Plan (2018)

Dish said it did not discover until recently that the SpaceX system, a low-earth-orbit satellite constellation called Starlink, would "blow past" FCC power limits.

Dish pointed out that it has paid billions of dollars to buy other spectrum, which it is using to build a fourth facilities-based wireless carrier, which will also tap the 23 GHz band. 

"And, while SpaceX bizarrely accuses Dish of “speculat[ing]” or trying to 'cash in' on spectrum," the company told the commission, "Dish has not sold one Commission license in its entire existence as a company." 

"The commission should make clear that, in light of the pending rulemaking and the unresolved [direct broadcast satellite] DBS interference issues, SpaceX cannot rely on the 12 GHz band to fulfill its RDOF obligations," Dish said.

SpaceX said in reply to the FCC that Dish was trying to obstruct the ETC and RDOF processes and that broadband-needy consumers would suffer harm. "This facially spurious filing is only the latest example of DISH’s abuse of Commission resources in its misguided effort to expropriate the 12 GHz band," SpaceX said.

The FCC has authorized Elon Musk’s SpaceX to move ahead with an ambitious plan to offer broadband service via a constellation of 4,425 low earth orbit (LEO) satellites.

FCC said the action would pave the way for increasing access to reliable, high-speed internet services in the U.S. and boost competition with other providers.

The FCC granted approval for those satellites to use frequencies in the Ka (20/30 GHz) and Ku (11/14 GHz) bands with conditions that SpaceX follow Commission rules and to put up protections for other operations in those bands.

The green light to SpaceX follows other recent approves given by the FCC to OneWeb, Space Norway and Telesat to provide broadband service in the U.S. using a next-generation of non-geostationary satellite systems.

The approval also comes a bit more a month after SpaceX launched two demonstration Starlink satellites tied to its LEO broadband satellite initiative.

It also marks another step in what has become a broadband space race of sorts in a market that is heating up and growing.

RELATED: Broadband Space Race Heats Up

Viasat, for example, recently launched 100 Mbps (downstream) service that uses ViaSat-2, a high-capacity GEO satellite launched last year. EchoStar’s Hughes Network Systems division has reached the preliminary design phase on Jupiter 3 (EchoStar XXIV), another high-capacity satellite that will be capable of delivery 100 Mbps or more. Eutelsat Communications has tapped Tyvak International to build a LEO satellite that’s designed to support Internet of Things-focused apps and services.

SpaceX’s plan met some opposition. Telesat Canada and Viasat, for example, filed petitions to deny SpaceX’s application over concerns about the potential for in-line interference. EchoStar and Hughes Network Systems also brought up concerns about risks of interference to space-to-Earth links that Hughes uses in the U.S.

OneWeb asks for a condition that SpaceX’s application be conditioned by the maintaining a 125 kilometer altitude buffer zone between its constellation and others. “Imposition of such a zone could effectively preclude the proposed operation of SpaceX’s system, and OneWeb has not provided legal or technical justification for a buffer zone of this size,” the FCC said.

While SpaceX agreed that, given the number of satellite systems that will be launched in the coming years, physical coordination between systems could be required. However, it stressed that the tolerances of specified orbital parameters provide enough flexibility to achieve necessary spacing between satellites.

The FCC said its technical review found that sharing will be possible between the SpaceX system, the OneWeb system, and others proposed in all the bands requested by SpaceX, adding that Earth stations communicating with the SpaceX constellation will have directional antennas.

Still, a statement from FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel outlined some concerns that while these new satellite broadband initiatives are “undeniably exciting,” the regulatory frameworks around those efforts are “dated.”

She called on a “comprehensive polity to mitigate collision risks” amid these plans to launch thousands of LEO satellites, and stressed that the FCC should coordinate more closely with others in the government “to figure out what our national policies are for this jumble of new space activity.”

On that point, she said the FCC should have a seat at the table at the National Space Council as it considers policy changes to promote the growth of the commercial space industry.

“Cutting the FCC out of this discussion is an unseemly mistake—and one that deserves a fix,” she stated.

When it comes to the next generation of broadband services, fiber-based gigabit networks and 5G-enabled fixed wireless networks have drawn much-deserved attention. But satellite broadband services and integrated satellite and terrestrial services are becoming potent new sources of competition to the benefit of both residential consumers and enterprise customers.

Advanced geostationary orbit and emerging non-geostationary orbit fixed-satellite broadband providers are fast approaching the ability to reach residential consumers nationwide with high speeds. Competing fixed-satellite broadband services are increasingly offering consumers and businesses access with 25 Mbps, 50 Mbps, and even 100 Mbps download speeds. Near-future satellite broadband technologies are anticipated to reach terabit-level speeds.

According to the FCC’s 2018 Broadband Progress Report, at the end of 2016, about 92.3% of the U.S. population had access to fixed broadband Internet access services offering speeds of 25Mbps/3Mbps for uploads and downloads. Fixed broadband service coverage numbers rose to 95.6% of the population when satellite broadband services are included. Importantly, fixed-satellite broadband services have the potential to quickly close the broadband coverage gap almost entirely and to give consumers who already have access to broadband services new competitive choices.

Since 2017, the FCC rightly has encouraged satellite broadband services, including by granting new market entrant applications and by streamlining satellite service rules. Going forward, the Commission should continue making expeditious approval of satellite-based broadband services a priority. The Commission should follow through with its ongoing effort to streamline rules. Also, the Commission should reduce processing delays and at all times seek to make suitable spectrum available in a timely fashion for new satellite technologies and services, for example, like Ligado’s proposed service to use satellite-terrestrial spectrum on an integrated basis to serve primarily industrial enterprises.

Emerging Competition from Geostationary Orbit Fixed-Satellite Broadband Services: HughesNet and ViaSat
The Satellite Industry Association’s 2017 report indicates that there were nearly two million residential subscribers to geostationary fixed satellite broadband services at the end of 2016. The FCC’s 2018 Broadband Progress Report called specific attention to geostationary fixed-satellite broadband services offered by Hughes Network Systems and ViaSat: “The 2017 launches of the high throughput Jupiter 2 and ViaSat 2 satellites by Hughes and ViaSat, respectively, could further increase 25 Mbps/3 Mbps satellite offerings in the future.”

HughesNet is currently the largest provider of residential fixed broadband service, with approximately 1 million subscribers in 2017. In March of 2017, HughesNet deployed its advanced EchoStar XIX satellite, thereby doubling the capacity of its prior satellite configuration. Hughes’ reply comment in the FCC’s broadband progress report proceeding stated the EchoStar XIX enables it “to deliver broadband-defined speeds of 25/3 Mbps for residential users and 55/5 Mbps for enterprise users across the continental United States.”

Meanwhile, Hughes is planning an early 2021 launch of its EchoStar XXIV/JUPITER 3 ultra-high density satellite, which “will provide residential and commercial Internet and data services, including in-flight Internet and network backhaul for remote cellular towers.” It is reported that the Echostar XXIV/JUPITER 3 will have a total throughput of 500 gigabits per second.

At the end of 2017 ViaSat had about 577,000 residential subscribers to its broadband service, according to a quarterly earnings report. On February 2 of this year, ViaSat announced the availability of its fastest residential broadband service to date. Enabled by ViaSat-2 (pictured), its latest generation satellite, the new satellite broadband service has advertised speed tiers reaching 25 Mbps, 50 Mbps, and 100 Mbps in download speeds.

Via-Sat’s new satellite broadband service is available across the nation and offers unlimited data for all of its plans. A San Diego Union-Tribune story indicates that ViaSat intends to be competing with HughesNet and is also “positioning its service as a higher speed alternative to DSL offerings.” And ViaSat’s future plans include the launch of its ViaSat-3 satellite, which potentially will offer 1 terabit per second download speeds.

Emerging Competition from Non-Geostationary Fixed-Satellite Broadband Services: OneWeb, Space Norway, Telesat and SpaceX
The FCC’s 2018 Broadband Progress Report also highlighted recent agency efforts to close the digital divide by promoting non-geostationary satellite orbit (NGSO) fixed-satellite services with purported terabit-level speed capabilities. In June 2017, for instance, the Commission granted market access to SoftBank-backed OneWeb for its NGSO system. The Commission also granted NGSO applications by Space Norway and Telesat in 2017.

According to the FCC’s OneWeb Order, OneWeb’s system is set to consist of “a constellation of 720 satellites evenly distributed in 18 near-polar orbital planes, at an approximate altitude of 1200 kilometers.” OneWeb intends to use its system of numerous low-orbit satellites “to provide high-speed, affordable broadband connectivity to anyone, anywhere” in the United States, with launches planned for 2018 and 2019. Reports indicate that OneWeb’s plans include “connecting every unconnected school” by the year 2022. OneWeb’s first satellite constellation is projected to reach speeds of seven terabits per second, with successive constellations reaching significantly higher speeds.

Meanwhile, Space Norway’s planned “Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission (ASBM) system consists of two satellites in one orbit,” which would provide fixed broadband service coverage to unserved and underserved residential customers in the Artic region of the United States. Additionally, Telesat was “permitted to access the U.S. market using a proposed constellation of 117 satellites,” and thereby “enhance competition among existing and future” fixed-satellite broadband services.

Furthermore, on February 14, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai proposed that the Commission grant the application of Elon Musk’s SpaceX “to provide broadband services using satellite technologies in the United States and on a global basis.” Reportedly, SpaceX would deliver fixed-satellite broadband services using “4,425 satellites in non-geostationary orbit traveling in a tightly choreographed ballet 700 miles above the surface of the Earth.”

The FCC Should Continue Promoting Satellite-Based Broadband Technologies
The FCC’s 2018 Broadband Progress Report indicates that “[a]s of year-end 2016… over 24 million Americans still lack fixed terrestrial broadband at speeds of 25 Mbps/3 Mbps.” Also, 30.7% of Americans in rural areas as well as 35.4% of Americans on Tribal lands lacked access to fixed terrestrial broadband with speeds of 25 Mbps/3 Mbps.”

Fixed-satellite broadband services – including those briefly surveyed above – can provide an important solution for reaching unserved and underserved areas. Furthermore, fixed satellite broadband platforms can offer additional, competing choices to residential consumers and businesses in those areas already covered by wireline broadband networks and soon to be covered by 5G fixed wireless networks.

Moreover, advanced satellite-based broadband technologies are necessary to fully enable the Internet-of-Things. Satellite services will be essential for transmitting geo-location information to vehicles as well as for transmitting other data to myriad types of smart devices and equipment. Pending before the Commission, for example, is Ligado’s proposed service, which would use satellite capability in combination with a terrestrial network to deliver smart device communications.

If approved, the service would primarily support transportation, energy, electric utility, and public safety industry sectors. Ligado’s proposal, which depends on the use of mid-band spectrum in the 1-2 GHz range, was filed at the Commission back in December 2015. And the public comment period concluded in August 2016. Unless and until the FCC resumes its review process and approves the proposal, valuable mid-range spectrum resources will continue to go unused and generate no economic or other public benefits.

In sum, satellite technologies are poised to become increasingly important competitors in the next-generation broadband services market and essential facilitators of the Internet of Things. Accordingly, the FCC should build on its recent track record of promoting fixed-satellite broadband services. Indeed, prompt approval of new services using satellite-based technologies should remain a top priority. Streamlining of satellite service-related rules and clearing spectrum for commercial usage by satellite services should also remain imperatives.

Seth L. Cooper is senior fellow at the Free State Foundation, a Rockville, Md.-based think tank promoting free-market public policies.

February was a busy month in the world of satellite broadband as a new speedy service was launched, a pair of demo satellites were slung into low earth orbit, and another high-capacity bird took a step toward the launch pad.

-The most significant of these was this week’s launch of a new 100 Mbps (downstream) service from Viasat that enters play roughly nine months after the satellite that is beaming that capacity, ViaSat-2, was launched from Kourou, French Guiana, aboard Arianspace’s Ariane 5 heavy-lift launch vehicle and placed into geosynchronous orbit.

While the new offering will provide unlimited data (customers could see slower speeds in period of congestion after they exceed a monthly soft data ceiling), it’s not cheap either – offered at a promotional price of $150 per month that rises to $200 per month after three months.

-EchoStar’s Hughes Network Systems division said it has reached the preliminary design phase on Jupiter 3 (EchoStar XXIV), another high-capacity satellite that will be capable of delivery 100 Mbps or more. Service on Jupiter 3 isn’t expected to start until 2021.

-A week ago (February 22), Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched two “demonstration” Starlink satellites that are part of an effort to eventually offer broadband using a constellation of thousands of LEO satellites.

Musk also tweeted an update as those two satellites – called Tintin A and Tintin B -- were deployed, later joking that the WiFi passwords for them is “martians”:

First two Starlink demo satellites, called Tintin A & B, deployed and communicating to Earth stations pic.twitter.com/TfI53wHEtz

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 22, 2018

In addition to providing extensive broadband coverage, the LEO approach aims to also cut down one of the issues that’s typical of satellite broadband: latency.

Despite SpaceX’s high-flying ambitions,The Wall Street Journal reported recently that the complexities of the project could play a role in extending the timetable, and that SpaceX still doesn’t have a good fix on what the ultimate costs will be.

Though SpaceX hasn’t announced a new schedule, the current, tentative goal is to start “limited service by 2020 now appears unrealistic,” the paper added, also citing documents from 2015 suggesting that Musk & Co. had projected that the satellite broadband biz is in position to have more than 40 million subs and pull down more than $30 billion in revenues by 2025.

-OneWeb, another LEO-focused satellite broadband initiative backed by investors such as Intelsat, Virgin Qualcomm, SoftBank and Hughes, hasn’t broken any news lately, though Hughes did note that it’s providing gateway equipment for OneWeb’s ground network under a contract currently worth $300 million, and that it might pursue rights to offer service on OneWeb’s network. OneWeb, which has plans to launch hundreds of light, mass-production satellites, plans to support more than 7 Tbps of total capacity in the first phase of the system.

Given the launch of a new 100-meg consumer broadband service, Viasat CEO Mark Dankberg was making the rounds in the media. And, as you might expect, he was asked to weigh in on the competitive threat posed by projects like SpaceX’s.

Speaking on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street, he said SpaceX will present competition “eventually…if they can build a few hundred or a thousand more of them and get them into space.”

Though LEO constellations promise to deliver lower latencies, he also held that Viasat’s use of satellites in geosynchronous orbit bring other benefits.

Larger, geosynchronous satellites like Viasat’s, he said, are placed into fairly safe orbits that don’t change with respect to the Earth or to other GEO satellites. By comparison, LEO systems will be more complex – there will be many more of them, and they will be constantly moving irrespective to each other and to the Earth.

Dankberg agreed there’s some sorting out needed with respect to security and privacy issues when asked what would happen if international law fell behind the pace of technology.

“That is a big issue, and there’s really no global agency that’s dealing with that,” he said.

He also shed some light on the economics of Viasat’s business. Though people make a big deal about launch prices, it’s not the most expensive part of the equation, compared to the satellite itself and the extensive ground fiber network that underpins the system.

[Images: Top (left to right): Renderings of the ViaSat-2 satellite and OneWeb low-earth orbit satellite. Bottom (left to right): The Arianspace Ariane 5 launch vehicle, and SpaceX's Falcon 9 two-stage rocket.]

Kourou, French Guiana — “We have more internets!”

After years of tension and toil, that was the joyful exultation of a ViaSat engineer the night of June 2, nearly 45 minutes after ViaSat 2, a new high-capacity broadband satellite, was successfully launched into orbit aboard an Ariane 5 heavy-lift rocket from Arianespace’s facilities in French Guiana.

The new bird, built by Boeing Commercial Satellite Systems, is equipped to deliver a powerful payload of 300 Gigabits per second of total throughput.

ViaSat 2 won’t enter service until early 2018 (ViaSat announced on June 22 that the solar arrays of the new satellite were successfully deployed), but the company is already laying the groundwork to deliver satellite broadband services of 100 Megabits per second or more.

For satellite-delivered broadband, that will represent a major accomplishment. A 100 Megabits-per-second offering would essentially quadruple the maximum downstream speeds now delivered by ViaSat’s current top end “Exede” service, as well as what’s offered by one of its chief rivals, Echo-Star-owned Hughes Network Systems.

“We’re still working on our plans, but we likely will have service plans that are up to 100 Mbps, and we may have some that are as high as 200 Mbps,” Mark Dankberg, chairman and CEO of ViaSat, said in an interview just hours before the launch, and during a driving rainstorm that, thanks to the lack of lightning, was never truly a threat to scrub the big event. “The satellite’s capable of that. The real issue is how do we price those plans and how many subscribers can we put on them?”

Though a 100 Mbps satellite-delivered broadband service is achievable, Dankberg said he believes most of the company’s subscribers will be on tiers that deliver slower speeds. But the launch of ViaSat 2 will give the company, which has about 659,000 satellite-broadband subscribers, the ability to far exceed what it’s delivering in the U.S. today using a legacy satellite fleet that includes ViaSat 1 and birds acquired in its 2009 acquisition of WildBlue Communications.

In addition to delivering gobs of bandwidth, ViaSat 2, at an orbital location of 22,236 miles above the earth’s equator (at 69.9 degrees west longitude), will enable ViaSat to expand coverage in North America, Central America, the Caribbean and a portion of northern South America. Key transportation routes between North America and Europe also are expected to benefit.

And there’s a lot more to come. “ViaSat has ambitions to be a global broadband services company,” Dankberg said. “This ViaSat 2 launch is a big step along the way for us towards that path.”

Faster and More Competitive
The ability to deliver faster speeds will give ViaSat a way to compete more directly with cable operators, telcos and other wireline internet service providers. But that won’t be the primary focus.

“Our mission is to be a really good choice for the underserved — not necessarily for people who already have access to fiber-to-the-home or the most modern cable [high-speed internet] service,” Dankberg said. “But the qualification I’m going to make to that is, we want to give that same experience to people who otherwise can’t get it.”

ViaSat 2 will help to turn ViaSat into a bigger regional provider of services that will also span government and enterprise customers while also enhancing its ability to deliver high-quality inflight connectivity as well as broadband service to cruise ships.

It will also amp up competition with Hughes Network Systems, which launched its HughesNet Gen5 service in March, and has already added about 100,000 new and upgrading subscribers to the speedier platform, which matches a 25 Mbps downstream with a 3 Mbps upstream. Gen5 is powered by EchoStar XIX/Jupiter 2, a multi-spot-beam, Ka-band satellite made by Space Systems Loral that launched on Dec. 18, 2016, and complements Hughes’s EchoStar XVII and Spaceway 3 data satellites.

Related: Hughes Tees Up Faster Satellite Broadband Service

Hughes, which has about 1.04 million satellite broadband subs and reaches both U.S. continental coasts plus parts of Alaska, believes it’s playing an important role because terrestrial broadband providers are more limited in how rapidly they can expand and generally don’t put a lot of focus on rural areas, according to Peter Gulla, senior vice president of marketing at Hughes.

Gulla said Hughes is also “finding a lot of opportunity” in areas where the telcos are letting their DSL networks languish as many instead focus on new fixed wireless options.

Still, Hughes will keep its target focused mostly on rural areas and where DSL service is weak, rather than applying marketing dollars and other resources in areas where wireline broadband competition is already strong.

“We are starting to see opportunities in the slow DSL areas,” Gulla said. “But you won’t be seeing us dropping a lot of flyers in New York City trying to convince people that they ought to switch to satellite [broadband]. I think we’re being realistic about what our product is and what it’s good for and what it does and what the value is.”

Though ViaSat is getting ready to raise the speed bar for satellite-delivered broadband, Hughes is not yet making any formal commitments to upgrade its capabilities.

“Right now, 25 [Mbps] seems to be meeting the needs of our customers,” Gulla said. “But that doesn’t mean that’s the end of the line.”

Need for Pricing, Data Flexibility
Beyond speed, other issues remain hot-button competitive factors. Among them: Satellite broadband-service providers will need to be more flexible on pricing and support relaxed data policies if they are to have much success in their traditional markets, even as some of them look to extend beyond rural regions, Jeff Heynen, consulting director and analyst at Kagan, said. Strict and complicated usage caps and data plans have long been sticking points for the satellite services.

Related: FCC OKs OneWeb Satellite Broadband Service

Under policies for ViaSat’s current Exede service, for instance, subscribers get a fixed amount each month of “Priority Data” at speeds of up to 12 Mbps to 25 Mbps, and, once those data buckets are used up, it pivots to slower speeds — between 1 Mbps to 5 Mbps. For its higher-end tiers, ViaSat also supports an unmetered “Free Zone” from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m., when traffic tends to be the lightest. ViaSat also lets customers purchase more Priority Data for $10 per gigabyte, or discounts if they purchase buckets of 5 GB, 7 GB or 10 GB.

“In the past, most satellite services that are consumer priced have had hard limits to the amount of bandwidth that you can use,” Dankberg acknowledged. “We’ve been testing, on ViaSat 1, service plans that are virtually unlimited. With ViaSat 2, we’ll be able to make those more common, lower priced and with higher speeds.”

The HughesNet Gen5 service offers data plans ranging from 10 GB to 50 GB per month, before speeds are reduced to about 1 Mbps to 3 Mbps. It also comes with a “Video Data Saver” option that adjusts the bit rate to deliver video in DVD quality. Those customers still have the ability to watch in HD by toggling off the Video Data Saver capability. HughesNet’s data policy also includes “Bonus Zone” hours (from 2 a.m. to 8 a.m.), when the customer can use 50 GB per month of free data rather than pulling it from their monthly service plan. HughesNet suggests that Bonus Zone hours are used to download large files such as movies and system updates.

Achieving success in new markets, Heynen of Kagan stressed, will hinge greatly on competitive pricing and the easing of data caps as they face off with competition from wireline internet service providers, as well as emerging LTE- and 5G-powered fixed wireless options that will be capable of delivering hundreds of Megabits of data per second and possibly Gigabit-class speeds.

“As people use more data and OTT, they are going to be very wary of pushing the boundaries of those data caps,” Heynen said. “They have to find a way to make the data caps as well as the monthly pricing reasonable for the service.”

AT&T, for example, is pushing ahead with a big rollout of fixed LTE services. “Out in those rural areas, LTE is a potential competitive threat,” Heynen said, noting that he doesn’t expect satellite broadband to continue to have the most success in its traditional focus areas, serving areas instead without much landline broadband and servicing airplanes and cruise ships.

“I don’t see the cost structure allowing [satellite broadband ISPs] to compete with a traditional DSL, cable or fiber service,” he said. However, he said he does believe satellite broadband services that are equipped with 100 Mbps capability can offer a “reasonable alternative,” particularly as DSL service struggles to deliver speeds any greater than 25 Mbps.

Licking the Latency Issue
Though satellite broadband is poised to deliver speeds that can match up with some of its earthbound rivals, the issue that’s toughest to overcome is latency, which can impact some interactive apps and services such as VoIP and multiplayer gaming.

According to the Federal Communications Commission’s 2016 Measuring Broadband America Fixed Broadband Report, the median latencies of satellite-based broadband services range from 599 milliseconds to 629 milliseconds, versus terrestrial-based broadband services, which range from 12 milliseconds to 58 milliseconds.

“I can’t go against the laws of physics, but I’d like to,” Hughes’s Gulla said. “But the bottom line is that there’s that traveling distance to and from satellite, and at the current distances, you have latency.”

He said Hughes is upfront about that with customers. “We do our best to explain and ask [customers] what they intend to do when they call us. We’re very clear that if you’re doing first-person shooter games, you’re not going to win.”

Other satellite-broadband initiatives are looking to overcome that latency issue.

One prime example is SpaceX, the privately held aerospace firm run by serial entrepreneur Elon Musk. USA Today, citing comments from Patricia Cooper, the company’s VP of satellite government affairs, reported that SpaceX is planning to launch 4,425 small satellites via reusable Falcon 9 rockets to support a constellation of lower-latency, low-earth-orbit birds, alongside a proposal for another 7,815 satellites that are even closer to the Earth’s surface.

Additionally, Airbus is planning a fleet of hundreds of small, low-earth-orbit (about 750 miles above the Earth’s surface) satellites in a joint venture with a startup called OneWeb. According to CNN, the joint venture is eyeing one launch every 21 days from French Guiana, with the first expected to lift off in about nine months. Service via the partnership, which includes backing from Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, Qualcomm and Japan’s SoftBank, is reportedly expected to start in 2019 and to cover the globe by 2020. The FCC approved OneWeb’s request to deliver service in the U.S. in late June.

ViaSat is also casting its eye toward global coverage with its planned set of ViaSat 3 satellites. The first, which will expand and enhance ViaSat’s coverage in the Americas, is planned to launch in 2019, followed in 2020 by a satellite that will cover the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. ViaSat hasn’t announced when it expects to launch its third ViaSat 3 satellite, but it’s slated to provide coverage in the Asia-Pacific region.

Following a multi-day delay caused by high winds, the SpaceX Falcon 9 launched successfully early Thursday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, carrying the EchoStar XXIII satellite into orbit.

RELATED: High Winds Ground EchoStar XXIII Satellite

SpaceX delayed Tuesday’s original launch date of Falcon 9, which was carrying EchoStar’s new Ku-band broadcast satellite services satellite, which was constructed by Space Systems Loral.

SpaceX announced on Twitter that the deployment of XXIII to a geosynchronous transfer orbit was a success:

Successful deployment of @EchoStar XXIII to a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit confirmed. pic.twitter.com/LpPWLo8YMN

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 16, 2017

A replay of the launch can be viewed here.

The initial commercial deployment of EchoStar XXIII, which reportedly has a design life of 15 years, is slated to be at 45° West.

Space.com notes that the satellite, to be positioned above the equator at 45 degrees west longitude, will initially provide broadcast, internet and other communications services to Brazil.

High winds caused SpaceX to delay Tuesday's scheduled launch of Falcon 9, an expendable rocket that will deliver the EchoStar XXIII satellite into orbit.

The launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in  Florida is being moved to Thursday, according to multiple reports.

Constructed by  Space Systems Loral (SSL), EchoStar XXIII is Ku-band broadcast satellite services satellite with four main reflectors and multiple sub-reflectors supporting multiple mission profiles, according to Colorado-based EchoStar. 

SpaceX announced the decision to scrub the launch, which originally had a launch window starting Tuesday at 1:34am ET, on Twitter:

Standing down due to high winds; working toward next available launch opportunity.

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 14, 2017

The initial commercial deployment of EchoStar XXIII, which reportedly has a design life of 15 years, is slated to be at 45° West.

SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk in 2002.

Elon Musk’s Space Explorations Technologies confirmed Tuesday that it has raised $1 billion in a round led by Google and Fidelity, which have joined a group of existing investors --  Founders Fund, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Valor Equity Partners and Capricorn.

The funding collectively gives Google and Fidelity a stake of “just under” 10% in SpaceX, and will be used “to support continued innovation in the areas of space transport, reusability and satellite manufacturing," SpaceX said. 

But the expectation is that Google is plowing cash into SpaceX to help it move forward with a vision to expand Internet connectivity to areas of the globe that don’t have access.

Google’s interest in satellite-delivered broadband isn’t new. The Wall Street Journal reported last June that Google was looking to shell out more than $1 billion on a fleet of low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites. The paper noted that the whole idea was “in flux,” though it did remind us of the old Teledesic project.

As The Washington Post points out, this tweet from Musk in November 2014 hinted at what’s in the works: “SpaceX is still in the early stages of developing advanced micro-satellites operating in large formations. Announcement in 2 to 3 months," he noted. 

Google’s interest in making Internet access available to all corners of the globe isn’t just about satellite.

There’s also  Project Loon, a Google-led initiative that aims provide 3G-like speeds via an array of solar-powered balloons.  Last April, Google bought Titan Aereospace, a  developer of high-altitude, solar-powered drones that, it’s speculated, could be used to provide Internet connectivity to remote areas, or play a role at the Google Earth and Google Maps projects.

Meanwhile, Google Fiber’s still mulling a decision on which markets are tagged for an expansion that could reach another nine metro markets.

But, given these latest high-flying maneuvers, it’s crystal clear that Google’s Internet ambitions are far from land-locked.