OneWeb and SpaceX are racing to bring internet to the Arctic

Competitive satellite internet companies OneWeb and SpaceX are waiting to spin on lucrative contracts to bring broadband internet to the most northerly latitudes on Earth. 36 satellites OneWeb was launched this week closer to the goal of bringing internet into the region by the end of the year. SpaceX’s StarX, which already provides internet to thousands of users through a beta program, takes a look at the same area.

Billions of dollars in government money are online for companies that can connect the region. The Arctic is an almost broadband desert for the US military, and the UK is willing to spend huge sums of money to connect rural areas to the internet.

SpaceX has reportedly included part of the UK’s new $ 6.9 billion Gigabit Project program, which aims to bring “lightning-fast” broadband internet to areas with limited access. the internet. OneWeb is also in talks with the program, said the company’s head of government affairs Chris McLaughlin The edge. OneWeb, a UK-based company that was saved from bankruptcy last year by the British government and Indian telecom giant Bharti Global, believes it has an advantage in that race.

McLaughlin pushed the discovery of Spacelon founder Elon Musk into the UK’s rural internet program as “a classic piece of Mr Musk’s fluff.” Musk’s bid for the subsidies, McLaughlin, said, “trying to say that there is a huge pot of gold waiting in the fields of England that he can lift.”

“We have had discussions too [UK Minister for Digital Infrastructure Matt Warman], and of course with his boss, and of course with his boss, on what OneWeb could have done, ”McLaughlin said in an interview, noting that Gigabit awards to several telecom providers who work together. OneWeb hopes they can “repay the confidence of the UK government” in its bid for rural internet subsidies, he said, backed by the government in pulling OneWeb out of break.

Image: Roscosmos

“5 to 50”

The launch of 36 internet satellites on Wednesday night put OneWeb’s total constellation at 146. The company’s original plans to cover the Arctic with the internet by 2020 were shattered by a crash. Now it has a new “5 to 50” goal: counting five launches to allow coverage everywhere north of the “50” degree latitude. The first was a December launch, the second was a Wednesday launch, and the company is aiming for a fifth June launch.

Unlike the SpaceX constellation, which moves around the planet closer to equatorial lines, the OneWeb orbit will be from pole to pole, meaning that traditional north and south regions of the internet will converge. enter quickly for the company network. McLaughlin said the next generation of OneWeb satellites may have optical connections, which will allow the satellites to talk to each other in space. This could reduce the need for precious ground stations in hard-to-reach areas of the Arctic.

OneWeb hasn’t released a design for consumer cashback or monthly pricing plans, and the planned constellation of 648 satellites is much smaller than SpaceX. But “less is more,” McLaughlin says. Satellites at higher altitudes can move to wider parts of the Earth (consider flashing a flashlight on board, and the cone of the light becomes wider as you drag it away). The downside to satellites at higher altitudes is latency, or the length of time it takes for data to move between the satellite and its destination.

SpaceX Arctic Goals

SpaceX, on the other hand, is later on with its satellite network, driven by high funding rounds and money from its billions founder. It has launched more than 1,300 Starlink satellites into a lower orbit than the OneWeb constellation, which is just a fraction of its planned 30,000-massive constellation. The company launched an open beta phase this year for users in the U.S., UK, Canada, Germany, and New Zealand, offering a Starlink termination package for $ 499 and $ 99 per month after that to at least 10,000 users, many of whom are connected by the network network. averages 120 megabits per second.

SpaceX received last-minute regulatory approval to launch its first 10 polar-orbiting Starlink satellites in January, and they are lobbying the Federal Communications Commission for permission to find dozens more satellites in pole orbit, where it can “deliver the only high-quality broadband service to the most remote areas of Alaska,” he said in a filing.

SpaceX sees that area as particularly valuable for U.S. military, and the company has been courtship the Pentagon a few years ago. As the North American Command looks at commercial options to bring faster internet to the Arctic, a land that is increasingly controversial between the US and Russia, Pentagon officials say visited SpaceX (and OneWeb) resources on the way. And the Air Force’s Global Lightning program, which, in 2018, gave SpaceX $ 28 million to test Starlink on armored planes, is near a new level to make contracts for satellite internet in Arctic regions.

Image: US Northern Command

The military interest for a better Arctic internet was clear last year, when Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy, former head of the U.S. Northern Command, donated $ 130 million to Congress for a pole communication program that would leverage Starlink and OneWeb. Months later, Gen. O’Shaughnessy resigned from his position to conduct a private consultation on SpaceX, according to two people familiar with the move, speaking under anonymity to discuss staffing issues. As was the Iris Wall Street reported last year, it is unclear whether O’Shaughnessy is fully employed by SpaceX or whether he is a paid contractor. SpaceX did not return requests for comments. O’Shaughnessy, through a spokesman, could not be reached for comment.

An increasingly important article

In the last few years, the U.S. military has again scrambled to reconsider its strategy in the Arctic as the rapidly changing climate melts the region’s ice caps. , redesigning major shipping lanes and opening up new ones for naval vessels and submarines. The drive for Arctic broadband is part of that shift in strategy. Leaders need better communication and internet access for ships and planes now that the region’s barriers to literalisation are melting away, shaping a new level of competition between the US, Russia and China.

“It’s been an important area for some time, but it’s becoming increasingly important,” says Chris Quilty, associate and satellite industry analyst at Quilty Analytics. “Most of today’s communications satellites fly over the equator, and they can’t see the pole area – it’s just too high with the Earth’s bend. ”

Some existing satellites in higher orbits provide data services to the polar regions, but these are limited, especially for the military’s growing demand for data. OneWeb and longtime Telesat ‘s proposed satellite network, which will partially move the Earth from pole to pole, aims to fill the Arctic data gap. SpaceX is awaiting FCC approval to deploy 348 more satellites to polar orbit, understanding the demand from “federal broadband users for whom national security benefits could be significant. ”

While SpaceX’s Starlink is hovering into polar orbit, the already agreed orbital design for the OneWeb constel gives it an Arctic advantage. For OneWeb, “all the satellites cross the polar region, so the highest density of their capacity is in the polar regions,” Quilty says. “So that opens up the opportunity to be out of a data scarcity situation, where a lot of data will be available.”