Very small aperture terminal-enabled maritime vessels are expected to grow from 20,000-plus today to more than 75,000 by 2028, with the maritime connectivity market expected to generate close to $42 billion in cumulative revenue during that span, Northern Sky Research said Wednesday. That connectivity market "has never looked more promising," due in large part to falling satellite capacity pricing as well as lower equipment costs, NSR said. It said high-throughput geostationary and non-geostationary orbit satellites are "the growth story."
The FCC and Congress should be for all private deals for C-band spectrum, since the C-Band Alliance approach eliminates the problem of a lone holdout that has full-band full-arc access to the spectrum kiboshing any deal, said R Street Institute Technology Policy Fellow Joe Kane in a docket 18-122 posting Tuesday. An incentive auction approach, meanwhile, means no negotiations over non-price variables, leaving the FCC to figure out how to repack the spectrum post auction, leading to delays and additional costs, R Street said. With its "dizzying array" of subsidies and designated entity credits, an auction isn't any more likely to produce better outcomes for consumers than a private sale would "and ... may well produce one that is worse," it said.
Breakup debris makes up 52.6 percent of the cataloged items in orbit, with payloads another 24.4 percent, according to NASA's orbital debris newsletter Wednesday. It said propulsion-related events and deliberate actions are the biggest cause of breakups, though 25.2 percent of breakup causes are unknown. The agency said propulsion-related breakups, which cause 44.2 percent of known satellite breakups, include catastrophic malfunctions during orbital injection or maneuvers, residual propellant explosions and failures of active attitude control systems.
Opponents of SpaceX's plans to relocate much of its non-geostationary orbit broadband satellite mega constellation to a lower orbit aren't likely to file applications for review of the FCC International Bureau's OK given Friday (see 1904260071), a satellite lawyer told us. OneWeb, which filed a petition to deny, didn't comment. Kepler Communications Director-Launch and Regulatory Affairs Nick Spina emailed that the company is working "to try and establish an appropriate way forward, ensuring everyone's best interests are accounted for." Kepler also filed a petition to deny. A satellite lawyer said the FCC likely didn't want to stop the company from going forward, but also knows there's a backlog of applications at ITU so its conditioning approval on the company getting a favorable or qualified favorable ITU finding was reasonable. The bureau approval said if SpaceX gets an unfavorable ITU finding, the company must adjust operations to satisfy ITU requirements and that any operations before the ITU finding "are at SpaceX's own risk." SpaceX plans to launch its first batch of broadband satellites in May. The FCC told us it will separately address a pending, related special temporary authority beng sought by SpaceX (see 1904190011).
Emerging space operators have a variety of options for financing and need to be aware of the pluses and minuses of each and what they can mean for such issues as growth rates and strategic decisions, Northern Sky Research's Shivaprakash Muruganandham blogged Sunday. He said venture capital is the single largest pool, accounting for 25 percent of funding, followed by strategic investors at 23 percent. Government entities and foundations make the largest number of investments in emerging space, at a lower funding amount, he said. The analyst said dedicated space funds in such nations as Japan, France and Luxembourg are expected to help drive space infrastructure growth through domestic companies. He said the launch sector is the biggest beneficiary of funding, with wealthy entrepreneurs, VC and strategic investors being active.
The C-Band Alliance’s proposed 36-month transition process for making spectrum available for 5G doesn’t move quickly enough, Ericsson told the FCC in a Monday filing in docket 18-122. “The future of 5G will be severely impacted by a failure to release large swaths of the C-band and 6 GHz as exclusive-use licensed spectrum,” the company said. “Because the CBA approach does not make nearly enough mid-band spectrum available for 5G and proposes to release the spectrum in a manner that could fragment the C-band, we are not in favor of the proposal.” The alliance agrees "with Ericsson that clearing spectrum quickly is the most important factor when creating a path to 5G for the U.S.,” a CBA spokesperson emailed. “As our filings indicate, in order to clear the 200 MHz proposed by our plan, yet continue to serve every one of our television and radio customers, we will need to procure eight satellites. Repositioning virtually every television channel in the U.S. -- safely and without signal interference -- to the remaining portion of the band will take time.” CBA has committed to doing all that within 18 to 36 months of a final FCC order, clearing 80 MHz of spectrum within 18 months, “far earlier than the alternatives,” the representative said.
Satellite use of 137-138 MHz poses a harmful interference risk to very high frequency data link mode 2 (VDLM2) operations at 136.975 MHz and should be insulated by a guard band of at least 25 kHz at the bottom of the 137-138 MHz band, aviation interests told FCC International and Wireless Bureau staffers, according to a docket 18-86 posting Friday. They said lack of ITU Radiocommunication Sector recommendations for space operation out-of-band emissions below 1 GHz caused uncertainty, particularly because different administrations have different views on protecting aviation. VDLM2 is an aviation downlink technology for sending and receiving air traffic control and airline operational control communications messages, they said. The aviation interests were Aviation Spectrum Resources, Collins Aerospace, Sitaonair and Harris Corp.
Swarm Technologies and Orbcomm are locking horns over Swarm's planned non-voice non-geostationary orbit mobile satellite service constellation. Ignoring NVNG MSS spectrum sharing rules, Swarm falsely claims its planned 150-satellite constellation (see 1902110022) and Orbcomm's wouldn't operate in the same spectrum, Orbcomm said in an FCC International Bureau reply Thursday. It said Swarm's planned hard-band segmentation would rewrite NVNG MSS rules, and letting Swarm's constellation plans go through would be "a grossly inefficient and extremely wasteful squandering" of scarce NVNG MSS spectrum. Swarm opposition earlier this month to Orbcomm's petition to deny said Orbcomm never justifies its "extraordinary claim" it has primary operating status throughout the 148-150 MHz uplink band and rights to dictate how any competitor can access that spectrum. Swarm said given relative scarcity of NVNG MSS systems, there's no reason to think its application necessitates a processing round.
SpaceX hasn't comprehensively addressed how its modified satellite constellation would affect the real-world non-geostationary orbit operating environment, OneWeb representatives told FCC International Bureau staff, relayed a posting Wednesday. OneWeb raised red flags about Space X's ask to modify its license to allow nearly 1,500 satellites to relocate from 1,150 km to 550 km (see 1904150005) and a related special temporary authority request (see 1904190011).
Josh.ai continued its integration expansion with Dish Network, announcing Thursday its voice control platform works with the Hopper family of set-top boxes. Users with Josh and Dish can use natural language cues to navigate guide, menu, play, pause, fast-forward, rewind and “select television companies,” said the companies. Examples of voice commands for the Hopper interface are: “watch the Weather Channel,” “Channel 200,” “Next Channel,” “Guide,” “DVR” and “Watch ESPN, turn down the volume on the TV, open shades to 30 percent and turn on the lights.” Josh announced other integrations recently with LG, Savant and Yamaha.