Satellite

Amazon isn’t the only company opposed to SpaceX's second-gen Starlink proposal. Viasat, a rival satellite internet broadband provider, also filed a protest letter urging the Federal Communications Commission to dismiss SpaceX’s request.

The arrival of new space ventures like Starlink and OneWeb is bringing about a disruption of sorts in the telecommunications sector, specifically the broadband internet market. That’s because the International Telecommunication Union estimates that just over half of the world’s total population has access to the internet.

Starlink’s goal is to beam high-speed Internet from space, down to the most remote parts of the world. Even though SpaceX's satellite internet service is still being tested—with mixed reviews—the company is getting a lot of attention in Washington (DC) at a moment when the government is willing to spend taxpayer dollars on infrastructure and take chances on new broadband deployment methods.

AT&T is the latest operator to look to the sky to extend the reach of its broadband network by teaming up with OneWeb to serve enterprise and government customers in remote locations outside of its fiber footprint. John Wojewoda, AT&T AVP, stated that while it’s still early days, OneWeb’s service is expected to provide speeds of nearly 200 Mbps.

Starlink hopes to bring high-speed satellite internet to many of the 3.7 billion people on this planet who currently have no internet connection at all. SpaceX’s internet service, which uses a growing fleet of 1,600 satellites orbiting Earth to deliver internet access to people on the surface, reported close to 90,000 users in July 2021. Underdeveloped parts of the world might find Starlink to be a boon, since many of these places do not have physical networks like the cable system.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration commented in response to the Federal Communications Commission’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking addressing federal earth stations, launch spectrum, and operation of a new federal environmental sensing satellite. These issues are connected by the principle that the responsibilities of the FCC and NTIA to manage our respective spheres of spectrum use require continued adjustment to reflect the realities of their interdependence. Here, it means:

SpaceX told the Federal Communications Commission that Amazon's attempt to block proposals for the next-generation Starlink system is a "delay tactic" and a continuation of Amazon's strategy of "hinder[ing] competitors to compensate for Amazon's failure to make progress of its own." Amazon urged the FCC to reject an update to SpaceX's Starlink plan because it "proposes two different configurations for the nearly 30,000 satellites of its Gen2 System, each of which a

SpaceX revealed new details about plans for the next generation of satellites in its Starlink internet system. “This Gen2 System was designed to complement the first-generation constellation SpaceX is currently deploying,” SpaceX wrote in an FCC filing.

Several satellite firms, including Elon Musk's SpaceX, Amazon's Project Kuiper and Bharti Airtel and the British Government's OneWeb, have made a beeline for the Indian market. A key reason is that 50 percent of India's vast population of around 1.3. billion is yet to be connected, mainly because of the high cost of setting up a network in rural areas with low returns spread over a long time.

US agricultural farming giant John Deere is likely to deepen its relationship with the satellite sector over the next few years. The company has a history with satellite and began to develop its StarFire Network in 1998. It was one world’s first global satellite-based augmentation systems capable of real-time accuracy within a quarter of an inch. John Deere is only one of a handful of companies that has its own global satellite correction network to enable this level of precision.