Wireless

Satellite Companies Fighting Over RDOF

There has been an interesting public fight going on at the FCC as Viasat has been telling the FCC that Elon Musk's Starlink should not be eligible for funding from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF). At stake is the $886 million that Starlink won in December's RDOF auction that is still under review at the FCC. Viasat had originally filed comments at the FCC stating that the company did not believe that Starlink could fulfill the RDOF requirements in some of the grant award areas. more

How Will Rural Chileans Use SpaceX Starlink?

The Chilean Undersecretary of Telecommunications (SUBTEL) has begun a year-long pilot study of SpaceX's Starlink satellite Internet service. I don't know how many test locations they are planning, but the first two have been selected. Last week I discussed the first, the John F. Kennedy school in Sotomó, an isolated town at 41.6° South on a fjord in Chile's Lake Region, and the second will be in Caleta Sierra on the coast about 1,200 miles north of Sotomó. SpaceX is also considering a European pilot study in Georgia and perhaps (hopefully) others. more

SpaceX Starlink Comes to South America

SpaceX has roughly 90,000 Starlink beta test customers in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand and now they have one in South America -- in Sotomó, an isolated town at 41.6° South in Chile's Lake Region. Chile's second terminal will be online at a school in Caleta Sierra in a few days and other pilot locations will follow. Twenty families live in Sotomó and it is only accessible by private boats or subsidized services that navigate the Reloncaví Estuary on which it is located. more

Let’s Not Forget the Lobbyists

Common Cause recently released a report, Broadband Gatekeepers, that describes the influence that lobbyists have on broadband policies. The numbers are staggering -- the ISP industry spent $234 million lobbying the 116th Congress (2019 and 2020). That number is likely understated since the rules on reporting lobbying are lax, and enforcement is almost nonexistent. That number doesn't include the huge amounts of lobbying efforts at State legislatures. more

Satellites and Cellular Backhaul

Elon Musk recently announced that he was going to be providing cellular backhaul from the Starlink constellation of satellites. This makes a lot of sense from a financial perspective in that it avoids the costly wired fiber networks needed to reach rural cell sites. This is clearly a shot across the bow for companies that currently bring fiber connectivity to rural cell sites. more

The Internet and the Cloud Are Going Into Space

Unlike Bezos and Branson, they're going to stay there. Today we have space-based internet access and a terrestrial internet; within ten years, we'll have a space-based internet. Internet traffic will travel more miles in space than on terrestrial fiber. By that time, the great cloud data centers of Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and their competitors and successors will mostly be in orbit as well. Five years from now, this transition will be obvious, accepted, and well underway... more

5G Base Stations $13,000 in China

Most carriers don't order 200,000 5G base stations, so they will pay more, but that's the actual price for the joint procurement of China Telecom and China Unicom. The 200,000-300,000 cells the two jointly are upgrading are probably more than the entire rest of the world will add. The second Chinese network, jointly built by China Mobile and China Broadcast, is growing even faster. more

Elon Musk Interview: SpaceX, Starlink and His Motivation and Philosophy

Elon Musk packed a lot about SpaceX and Starlink into a 32-minute interview at the 2021 Mobile World Congress and ended with a discussion of his motivation and the roles of his three companies - SpaceX, Starlink, and Neuralnk. Let's start with the SpaceX and Starlink update and conclude with the philosophy and motivation. (Scroll to the end of the post for the video of the interview). more

An Attack on WiFi Spectrum

A little over a year ago, the FCC approved the use of 1,200 MHz of spectrum in the 6 GHz band for public use -- for new WiFi. WiFi is already the most successful deployment of spectrum ever. A year ago, Cisco predicted that by 2022 that WiFi will be carrying more than 50% of global IP traffic. These are amazing statistics when you consider that WiFi has been limited to using 70 MHz of spectrum in the 2.4 GHz spectrum band and 500 MHz in the 5 GHz spectrum band. more

The G7 and EU Join China in Call for Space Debris and Collision Regulation

Last month, the Chinese government published space situational awareness and traffic management regulations and procedures designed to guard against collisions in orbit and mitigate space debris, and this month, at the G7 summit, delegates from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the USA, the UK, and the EU pledged to take action to tackle the growing hazard of space debris as our planet's orbit becomes increasingly crowded. more

Chinese Space Situational Awareness and Traffic Management Regulations and Procedures

In a recent issue of the Dongfang Hour Newsletter, Blaine Curcio pointed out that China's powerful State Administration of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND) had published a notice intended to promote the orderly development of microsatellites and strengthen safety management. The notice defines microsatellites as being below 1,000 kilograms, which would include those making up China's planned GwoWang/SatNet broadband constellation. more

SpaceX Starlink vs. Telesat Lightspeed

With 1,675 satellites launched and 500,000 requests for service in the United States alone, SpaceX Starlink clearly leads all would-be providers of low Earth orbit (LEO) internet service to consumers. However, it is arguable that Telesat Lightspeed is in the lead, or contending for the lead with SpaceX, in non-consumer enterprise, government, mobile backhaul, mobility and rural community markets. more

The Satellite Broadband is Heating Up

There is a lot of news recently about low-orbit satellite broadband. There is recent news concerning the three primary companies that will be vying in the space. First is Jeff Bezos Project Kuiper, which is still likely to get a brand name at some point. Project Kuiper has contracted with United Launch Alliance, a joint Boeing-Lockheed Martin venture, for the first nine broadband rocket launches. more

NSA Takes a Leadership Seat at the Global 5G Security Table

It has been a long time coming. In the world of global 5G security, there is only one principal forum. The somewhat cryptically named 3GPP SA3 is dedicated to 5G security and holding its 103rd meeting electronically next week from 17 to 28 May with 772 submitted documents and 189 participants registered. SA3 meets every 60 days and exists at the security center of an ecosystem of numerous technical groups encompassing many hundreds of companies, industry organizations, and government agencies worldwide. more

To 5.5G and Beyond

I recently saw an article in FierceWireless that reports that Huawei thinks we are going to need an intermediate step between 5G and 6G, something like 5.5G. To me, this raises the more immediate question about why we are not talking about the steps between 4G and 5G? The wireless industry used to tell the truth about cellular technology. You don't need to take my word for it... more