OneWeb and SpaceX rush to broadcast the Internet in the Arctic

Rival satellite internet companies OneWeb and SpaceX are vying for lucrative deals to provide high-speed internet to Earth’s northernmost latitudes. OneWeb’s launch of 36 satellites this week brought it closer to its goal of bringing the internet to the region by the end of the year. SpaceX’s Starlink, which already provides the internet to thousands of consumers through a beta program, looks at the same domain.

Billions of dollars in government funds are at stake for businesses that can connect the region. The Arctic is almost a broadband desert for the US military, and the UK is willing to spend a lot to connect rural areas to the Internet.

SpaceX is said to be looking for part of Britain’s new $ 6.9 billion Project Gigabit program, which aims to provide “super-fast” high-speed internet access to areas with little or no internet access. . OneWeb is also in talks with the program, the company’s chief government officer Chris McLaughlin said. The edge. OneWeb, a UK-based company that was saved from bankruptcy last year by the UK government and Indian telecommunications giant Bharti Global, believes it has an advantage in this race.

McLaughlin called SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s foray into the UK’s rural internet program a “classic piece of Mr. Musk’s plush.” Musk’s offer for the grants, McLaughlin said, “is trying to suggest that there is a huge pot of gold waiting in the English fields that he can pick up.

“We also had conversations with [UK Minister for Digital Infrastructure Matt Warman], and indeed with his boss, and indeed with his boss’s boss, on what could be done with OneWeb, ”McLaughlin said in an interview, predicting that Gigabit prices would go to many telecom providers who will work together . OneWeb hopes it can “repay confidence in the UK government” in its application for rural Internet grants, he said, in return for government help in bringing OneWeb out of bankruptcy.

Image: Roscosmos

“5 to 50”

Wednesday night’s launch of 36 internet satellites brought OneWeb’s total constellation to 146. The company’s initial plans to cover the Arctic with the internet by 2020 have been derailed by bankruptcy. Now he has a new “5 to 50” target: a countdown of five launches to allow coverage anywhere north of “50” degrees latitude. A December launch marked the first, Wednesday’s launch was the second, and the company intends to launch the fifth launch in June.

Unlike the constellation SpaceX, which revolves around the planet closer along equatorial lines, OneWeb orbits from pole to pole, meaning the northern and southern regions of Earth, traditionally silent on The Internet, will soon be a lively satellite intersection for the corporate network. McLaughlin said the next generation of OneWeb satellites will likely have optical links, allowing satellites to talk to each other in space. This could reduce the need for expensive ground stations in hard-to-reach areas of the Arctic.

OneWeb hasn’t released user terminal designs or monthly pricing plans, and its predicted constellation of 648 satellites is much smaller than SpaceX’s. But “less is more,” says McLaughlin. Satellites at higher elevations can radiate to larger parts of the Earth (imagine you turn on a flashlight on a table and the cone of light widens as you move it further away) . The downside of satellites at higher altitudes is greater latency, or the time it takes to transfer data between the satellite and its destination.

SpaceX’s objectives in the Arctic

SpaceX, meanwhile, is more advanced with its satellite network, propelled by lofty rounds of funding and cash from its billionaire founder. It has launched more than 1,300 Starlink satellites into a lower orbit than OneWeb’s constellation, and that’s only a fraction of its predicted constellation of 30,000 large. The company kicked off an open beta for consumers in the US, UK, Canada, Germany and New Zealand this year, offering a Starlink Terminal Kit for $ 499 and $ 99 per month through the following at least 10,000 users, many of whom are thrilled with the network. speeds of 120 megabits per second.

SpaceX obtained last-minute regulatory approval to launch its first 10 Starlink satellites into polar orbit in January, and lobbied the Federal Communications Commission for approval to place dozens of additional satellites in polar orbits, where it can “provide the same high quality broadband service.” in the most remote areas of Alaska, ”he said in a filing.

SpaceX considers this area to be particularly valuable to the US military, and the company has been woo the Pentagon in recent years. As the North American Command considers business options to speed up the Internet in the Arctic, an area increasingly disputed between the United States and Russia, Pentagon officials have visited SpaceX (and OneWeb) installations along the way. And the Air Force’s Global Lightning program, which in 2018 awarded SpaceX $ 28 million to test Starlink on military planes, is approaching a new phase of Internet contract distribution. by satellite in the arctic regions.

Image: U.S. Northern Command

Military interest in better internet in the Arctic was clear last year, when General Terrence O’Shaughnessy, the former commander of US Northern Command, asked Congress for $ 130 million for a polar communications program. that would take advantage of Starlink and OneWeb. Months later, General O’Shaughnessy retired to consult SpaceX privately, according to two people familiar with the move, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters. As the the Wall Street newspaper reported last year, it is not clear whether O’Shaughnessy is fully employed by SpaceX or is a paid contractor. SpaceX did not return requests for comment. O’Shaughnessy, through a spokesperson, could not be reached for comment.

An increasingly important Arctic

In recent years, the U.S. military has struggled to rethink its strategy in the Arctic as a rapidly changing climate melts the region’s ice caps, redesigning major shipping routes and opening new ones for them. warships and submarines. Part of this shift in strategy is the push for broadband in the Arctic. Commanders need better communications and better internet access for ships and planes now that the region’s movement barriers are literally dissipating, shaping a new stage of competition between the United States, Russia and China.

“It’s been an important region for some time, but it is growing in importance,” says Chris Quilty, partner and satellite industry analyst at Quilty Analytics. “Most of the communications satellites that exist today fly over the equator, and they can’t see the polar region – it’s just too high an altitude with the curvature of the Earth.”

Some existing satellites in higher orbits provide data services to the polar regions, but these are limited, especially for the growing demand for data from the military. The satellite network offered by OneWeb and longtime operator Telesat, which will partially orbit the Earth from pole to pole, aims to fill the data gap in the Arctic. SpaceX is awaiting FCC approval to send 348 additional satellites into polar orbit, fulfilling the demand of “federal broadband users for whom there could be significant national security benefits.”

As SpaceX’s Starlink flounders in polar orbit, the orbital design already approved for OneWeb’s constellation gives it an arctic edge. For OneWeb, “all satellites pass through the polar region, so the greatest concentration of their capacity is in the polar regions,” says Quilty. “This opens up the possibility of moving from a position where there is a dearth of data, where there will be a huge amount of data available.”