Only 3-4 Satellite Broadband Constellations Likely Viable: OneWeb CEO
The satellite broadband market likely can sustain three to four operators, given demand for connectivity, with one of those probably a non-North American constellation, OneWeb CEO Neil Masterson said Wednesday at a Satellite 2021-related forum. He said the amount of money nations want to put into having their own constellations could help determine that number.
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OneWeb's satellite manufacturing cadence now is 36 a month, half its capacity, he said. Masterson said OneWeb will do three launches before the end of June and 10 total this year, with its 648-satellite constellation expected to be in orbit by mid-2022, "plus or minus a month or two." He said it should provide global coverage by the end of next year. He said discussions about the second-generation constellation are underway now, but no decisions have been made on issues like its size.
Asked about the seemingly challenging business case for low earth orbit (LEO) satellites, Masterson said the COVID-19 pandemic was "the perfect use case" for showing the need for high-throughput, low-latency satellite broadband, given the increased digitization of business operations. He said OneWeb's bankruptcy restructuring also reduced the cost of its satellite capacity.
OneWeb will have different user terminals at different prices for different uses, with a terminal to provide broadband to a village costing around $6,000 and more compact models at "around the price of an iPhone," Masterson said: The volume of user terminals will lead to lower prices, though that will take time.
Instead of direct-to-consumer broadband, OneWeb is focusing on such target applications as community broadband; cellular backhaul; satcom services for governments, starting with the U.S.; and aeronautical and nautical connectivity, Masterson said. The company has “deals on the bubble” with a variety of telcos around the globe and will be serving customers by year-end in Alaska and parts of the Northern Hemisphere, he said, adding it will start a trial of service in June with Pacific Dataport.
Airspace Internet Exchange Executive Chairman Tom Choi, discussing plans for his own forthcoming LEO constellation, said LEO consumer broadband "has a severe challenge" -- the roughly 2 billion people without consistent access to electricity and telcos not interested in partnering with constellations that can't provide availability 99.99% of the time. That level of reliability requires a hugely expensive mega constellation of thousands of satellites, he said.
Choi said his proposed Curvanet constellation will start with a demonstration satellite to orbit in Q4 2022 and eventually have 240 satellites providing 10 Tbps of capacity, centered largely on the equatorial region. He said the constellation ultimately should cost around $600 million. He said the spherical "beach ball" ground station antennas would be powered by a low-cost solar array and batteries, while the $100 user terminals would have download speeds of 50-150 Mbps and upload speeds of 5-10 Mbps. Rather than Ku- or Ka-band spectrum, Curvanet will use terrestrially licensed spectrum on a noninterference basis under ITU rules.