Elon Musk’s Starlink low Earth orbit (LEO) network has been awarded US$885 million over 10 years to build out rural internet access in the U.S.
This was the fourth largest amount awarded under the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF). Testing of preliminary Starlink service recently began. This is a billion-dollar (almost) vote of confidence in a service that is at the preliminary consumer testing stage.
For rural and remote Canadians, does this mean that competitively-priced high-speed broadband access will finally be available anywhere?
For others, new technologies will compete against today’s cable Telco, and independent internet service providers.
But the new LEO services are still a year, two years or more away from full-scale commercial operation, depending on who you ask in the satellite industry.
When Musk first announced his plan several years ago, he said he was targeting 30 per cent of the global broadband access market by 2030s. How? And what makes LEO satellites different from the GEO (geostationary) satellites that have been in service since the 1960s? What makes them different from existing LEO networks like Iridium and Globalstar?
With thousands of satellites, the unit cost is projected to drop because they’re produced by normal industrial processes, whereas geostationary satellites are built one by one, making them comparatively expensive. The LEO satellites only have to be launched a few hundred kilometres above the earth so launch costs are much lower than for a GEO satellite that has to travel 35,000 km to geostationary orbit.
LEO satellites have much lower latency than GEOs because they’re so much closer to Earth. Latency refers to how much time it takes for a signal to travel to its destination. LEO satellites are projected to have latency as low as terrestrial fibre networks and even lower in some situations. GEOs take over 600 milliseconds to make the trip from Earth to the satellite and back.
The new LEO networks are broadband, providing much more capacity (higher speeds) than the earlier-generation Iridium narrow band capability that has delivered satellite phone service and short data messages since the 1990s.
Amazon’s Kuiper program and Starlink are getting most of the press but they’re not the only entrants in the broadband LEO market. O3B (meaning the other three billion people who didn’t have good internet access) has been operating for several years in mid-Earth orbit (MEO), a little higher up than LEO. It turns out that it has been successful in higher-priced niche applications like communications to super yachts than its name implied was its original target. Nevertheless, O3B is operating successfully.
The new entrants have added satellite-to-satellite communications, which should greatly reduce costs by reducing the need for ground stations and double hops. An email going from Canada to China can go up to one satellite and then transfer to other satellites in orbit to arrive at its destination.
OneWeb has also been launching LEO satellites and building ground stations. Recently it went into bankruptcy, and was reorganized and refinanced with the help of the United Kingdom government, as well as private sector participants. Now, OneWeb is building and launching satellites again.
Telesat Canada, founded with federal government participation in 1969, was long described as Canada’s domestic satellite communications carrier. By combining operations with Loral in 2006, it became one of the big four global GEO satellite companies. Telesat also has a major LEO system on the drawing boards and has launched several demonstration satellites. Canada’s federal government has invested heavily in this venture with cash and commitments to purchase service in the future.
There are four or five entrants (if you want to include O3B) chasing the same market with highly capital-intensive technology. Are there too many players for the size of the market? Has the glamour and romance of space attracted too many players? Will there be more big bankruptcies like those in the narrow-band LEO sector in the early 1990s?
To remain viable, Iridium had to be reorganized with virtually the whole of the original investment written off and still required a major commitment from the U.S. Department of Defense for future service. OneWeb’s reorganization is an indication of the risk even though it emerged successfully.
Mergers aren’t really a practical solution if it turns out that there are too many participants. They can’t merge the networks because the technology of each company is incompatible with the others.
With the exception of O3B, we have yet to see pricing for commercial enterprise and residential services.
Although there are still some unanswered questions, these are exciting times in the satellite industry. The emerging LEO systems will be disruptive, shaking up both the traditional satellite industry and challenging terrestrial fibre-optic communications. It could put an end to the digital divide.
Roland Renner is a senior fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. A former employee of Bell and Telesat, he assists companies competing with Telco, cable, and satellite incumbents, including Hunter Communications, owner of a GEO satellite beam with high-power northern Canadian service capability.
A former employee of Bell and Telesat, Roland Renner assists companies competing with Telco, cable, and satellite incumbents, including Hunter Communications, owner of a GEO satellite beam with high-power northern Canadian service capability.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
