SpaceX Is Lobbying Against Amazon's Internet-Beaming Satellites (vice.com) 42
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: When Amazon confirmed it was planning to launch 3,236 broadband internet-beaming satellites into low-Earth orbit, much of the media reported it as if it were a done deal -- the latest, inevitable step in the corporation's quest to conquer commerce, the cloud, and beyond. Amazon officials said the massive satellite constellation, called Project Kuiper, would one day provide low-latency, high-speed broadband to tens of millions of underserved people around the world, no doubt also connecting them to the wide world of Amazon offerings.
But before Project Kuiper can launch, it must receive approval from the Federal Communications Commission to operate within a certain frequency spectrum. In an application filed this July, Amazon requested a special waiver to FCC rules that would grant it the necessary permission. The problem, though, is that the FCC already handed out licenses to that spectrum years ago to nine other satellite internet companies in a different, more complicated process. Those companies -- including SpaceX and OneWeb -- are now lobbying the FCC to deny Amazon's waiver request, according to FCC records. If successful, they could significantly reduce Project Kuiper's viability in an already oversaturated market. "Top SpaceX officials have met with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and other agency staff at least three times to lodge in-person complaints about Project Kuiper's application," reports Motherboard, citing FCC records. "The first meeting came several weeks after Amazon filed its application, the most recent took place on Dec. 2 and 3."
"Amazon's overt attempt to override long-standing rules would undermine confidence in Commission processes, harm competition, and eliminate broadband options for consumers," SpaceX lawyers wrote in a Nov. 25 filing. Project Kuiper would have a "significant detrimental impact [on] SpaceX ... Amazon's flawed analysis yields results that defy common sense."
But before Project Kuiper can launch, it must receive approval from the Federal Communications Commission to operate within a certain frequency spectrum. In an application filed this July, Amazon requested a special waiver to FCC rules that would grant it the necessary permission. The problem, though, is that the FCC already handed out licenses to that spectrum years ago to nine other satellite internet companies in a different, more complicated process. Those companies -- including SpaceX and OneWeb -- are now lobbying the FCC to deny Amazon's waiver request, according to FCC records. If successful, they could significantly reduce Project Kuiper's viability in an already oversaturated market. "Top SpaceX officials have met with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and other agency staff at least three times to lodge in-person complaints about Project Kuiper's application," reports Motherboard, citing FCC records. "The first meeting came several weeks after Amazon filed its application, the most recent took place on Dec. 2 and 3."
"Amazon's overt attempt to override long-standing rules would undermine confidence in Commission processes, harm competition, and eliminate broadband options for consumers," SpaceX lawyers wrote in a Nov. 25 filing. Project Kuiper would have a "significant detrimental impact [on] SpaceX ... Amazon's flawed analysis yields results that defy common sense."
Spectrum wars repeated internationally (Score:1)
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Well, theoretically, they could simply black-out over nations that don't approve.
The more the merrier (Score:2)
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SpaceX isn't selling you internet. They're using the bandwidth for themselves. The point is that if Amazon comes in and uses it for internet, SpaceX won't be able to use it for their own purposes.
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SpaceX isn't selling you internet.
Not yet, but the goal is to start within the next few years.
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*next year
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spacex's end goal most certainly is to sell internet and internet bouncing so what you're babbling about?
There are a certain number of satellite channels (Score:1)
Competition is great. I've mostly lived in places with several choices of ISP and I feel for those who are stuck with a near-monopoly. Either because their town granted an effective monopoly or because they decided to live in a rural area where fiber etc doesn't make sense, where it costs to much to run lines.
Unfortunately, there is a finite amount of satellite bandwidth. You can't have many services operating in one channnel. There is a certain amount of satellite bandwidth available and that's all ther
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You know there's a big difference between single satellites at geostationary orbits, and constellations of satellites in low earth orbit, right? Like, orders of magnitude of difference on latency, and with less distance means less wattage on the transmission, which means you can re-use spectrum in more geographic areas? Plus other modern improvements in radio tech that wasn't launched in the 1970s.
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If the satellite had one user, it would be an order of magnitude difference, if we assume there is no queuing because there are more channels than users.
With a dozen major data centers within 100 km of my house, terrestrial is another order of magnitude faster.
We're trying to make the internet faster, not an order of magnitude slower.
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You realize that these satellites are only going to be a few hundred km away from you right? That's not an order of magnitude difference.
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I know some people have a need for much greater bandwidth and I certainly cringe every time I see my ISP's bill each month because I'm paying more than $80 a month for about 45 Mbps down and less than 5 up, but that's plenty for me.
That's according to speedtest.net and it's only a snapshot anyway. My ISP has been reliable enough that I hadn't logged into it for a year and a half but I did tonight just out of curiosity.
I logged in twice in 2018 and was getting 23 and 24 Mbps down. In 2017 I got anywhere fro
Re: The more the merrier (Score:3)
The allocation of the radio spectrum is globally managed by the ITU (International Telephony Union), being split up into three global regions. It is then further refined at the local level.
While more competition is good, simply allowing use of a frequency band canâ(TM)t be done without authorisation of other countries.
I am actually curious whether these satellites would actually be activating and deactivating transmission based on location?
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To late... So sad!!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Amazon missed the boat, the spectrum was provided years ago, the filing deadline was YEARS ago.
Under no circumstance should Amazon be given a waiver on this. If they want the spectrum that was already provided they should buy one of the other companies that properly met the FCC filing deadline. You don't get to come to the party 3 years late and ask for a waiver to step to the front of the line. It's their own damn fault for not filing, SpaceX already has those orbital positions and spectrum.
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Your argument is about fairness. Bezos owns the Washington Post, and the Executive branch is all about corruption now, almost half the electorate doesn't care, and Citizens United is law, so there are huge wildcards in play.
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the Executive branch is all about corruption now
You say that like the Executive branch (and lots of other parts of the gov't) haven't been about corruption *cough*biden*cough* for about as long as I've been alive...
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It's ok, you know that Amazon would only want to use Blue Origin rockets to put the satellites up there, and being as they've never even gotten a whiff of a flight path that doesn't intersect with the ground, it's going to be a long time before they actually could put a bird up that stays up.
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What about other people's property though? (Score:1)
As far as I'm concerned, everything above my country is free for my country to shoot down, capture, or declare owned by my country. If you don't like it, start a war or shut up.
And for anything at an *angle* above my country, that clearly is designed to be above my country while "technically" not, the same applies, unless it is above another country AND has its sight/beams limited to exclude my country unless I wish so. If it is part of another country, I will go through that country, because they have the
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Good thing your concerns don't mean jack shit, since the Outer Space Treaty [wikipedia.org] governs international laws about things "above your country". So unless you live in a central African nation that has a whole lot of other shit to worry about before dealing with Amazon trying to send you ads from space, your country is likely a signatory to this critical treaty and can't do jack shit.
Tough meat, tough guy. I know that being butch on the internet is cool and all, but blustery saber rattling language about starting
Calling this lobbying seems a bit weird (Score:5, Informative)
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But Bezos and the CIA are best of buddies, so the deep state may make sure the FCC caves.
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That would be a global change in the US spying collection.
Will the CIA get its spectrum for its global human spy communications?
Market is NOT Oversaturated! (Score:1)
" If successful, they could significantly reduce Project Kuiper's viability in an already oversaturated market."
It is certainly not oversaturated; almost no satellites have been launched yet.
Re: Market is NOT Oversaturated! (Score:5, Informative)
Itâ(TM)s not SPACE thatâ(TM)s over saturated. Itâ(TM)s the SPECTRUM which is assigned by all governments and would be absolute chaos without their enforcement. Remotes that break your neighbors WiFi. Microwaves that break all WiFi. Thank your lucky stars the FCC and world equivalents exist. Because itâ(TM)s the only reason you can buy a phone and use them around the world, instead of having to buy a Canada phone, a Mexico phone, and a California phone and a Texas phone and a...
Re:Market is NOT Oversaturated! (Score:5, Informative)
Too late. (Score:2)
"undermine confidence in Commission processes"
What confidence? That ship sailed years ago. They have no processes, other than to sell out to the guy delivering the fattest sack of cash. See: the Verizon lobbyist shitbird mouthpiece serving as chairman at this time.
Just what we need (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Just what we need (Score:4, Informative)
Ok, as a portion of the earth's surface each satellite would cover an area only 13% smaller than Florida. SpaceX's full network of 42,000 satellites would have areas 10 times larger than Los Angeles.
On top of that, they are actively kept far away from each other via both human operators and internal autonomous station-keeping and collusion avoidance.
If a satellite failed, it's so low it would start losing altitude which would make it lower than the others and again next to impossible to hit another one. That's a benefit to the very low orbits they are going to use. Failed, they won't stay up there that long. SpaceX's StarLink satellites are expected to burn up entirely in any re-entry.
The Earth is huge, these numbers are nothing.
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Except controlled failure is not the only type of failure. Catastrophic failure from attack (heard fo ABMs? They exist for satellites now too), accident (space is full of meterorites, and even micro ones can turn a satellite into millions of particles flying as fast as the earth itself), or error (see your mentioned automatic and human systems subject to operating mistakes, code errors, and every electronic disruption).
But the only effect of the failures you mention would be to take part of the system down. This would impact SpaceX and its Starlink subscribers, but no one else.
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I think you will find that the Earth is small. The circumference of Earth is about 25,000 miles, each LEO satellite orbits at about 17,000 MPH so takes about 90 minutes to travel fully around the Earth. This means that relatively few satellites can be used to supply communications over the Earth's surface. For geo-stationary satellites, only 3 satellites are needed.
The limiting factor for LEO is how long a ground based satellite dish can maintain contact with the satellite as the satellite travels from hori
Just buy OneWeb (Score:2)
OneWeb's plan of buying rides on 20 extremely expensive Soyuz missions in order to provide relatively limited service seems doomed to bankruptcy. If Bezos wants their spectrum, maybe he should just buy them out before their inevitable doom. Or just wait for the bankruptcy, since Bezos is in no hurry and has to wait for his rocket to be built first.
Bozzo the copycat :P (Score:1)