8 ms·

Amazon investing $10B to compete against SpaceX in satellite broadband

93 points by amaajemyfren 6y ago

sawaruna 6y ago
Since this story came out a few days ago, does anyone know if Amazon has commented on whether or not they plan to launch these 'themselves' / with Blue Origin?
- gexla 6y ago
  Right, seems like the first question people would be interested in hearing an answer to. I assume there is no answer yet. With a quick check, I was surprised to see that Blue Origin is developing a rocket which would be capable of launching these things (launch in 2021?)
  - kiba 6y ago
    But could they launch as cheaply or as often as SpaceX's Falcon 9, which is years ahead? SpaceX isn't resting on its laurel either, with their R&D effort on Starship.
    - gexla 6y ago
      Maybe they don't need to launch as cheaply. SpaceX wasn't the first to the idea. There are other players and these companies didn't have their own rockets. The numbers must be good enough to work even with pre-SpaceX launch costs.
      - verdverm 6y ago
        Elon said that the satellites are now cheaper to build than the cost to get them to orbit, and that they need starship to make it financially viable, iirc. He says this during a keynote with the US Air Force about 4 months ago. He also says a ton of other interesting things as well.
    - kerng 6y ago
      Who says Amazon might not use SpaceX to bring the satellites in orbit?
      - _Microft 6y ago
        Jeff. I think he would rather personally subsidize every New Glenn launch than letting Amazon launch their satellites with SpaceX.
        ianai 6y ago
        What’s that based on? Is there bad blood there?
        _Microft 6y ago
        Jeff Bezos himself is owner of a rocket company called "Blue Origin". This company is developing a heavy-lift rocket awhich hasn't flown yet though. They already have some experience with booster return, as they have a small(er) vehicle serving as (future) science and tourism platform that can shoot the capsule with passengers and/or payload straight up over the Kármán line and have the booster return to the launch site. Since they already had achieved this, Bezos tweeted "Welcome to the club" when Elon Musk's SpaceX had their first successful rocket landing. If that's appropriate is subject for debate, as the conditions experienced are not comparable. Blue Origin also tried to patent landing a rocket booster on a boat while SpaceX was planning to exactly do that which lead to some bad blood.
        kerng 6y ago
        I think Blue Origin is more focused towards possibly building a lunar lander. The launches I have see were with comparable tiny rockets, unless they launch thousands of them, they won't carry the satellites needed in time. Curious to get more informed opinions on this actually.
        _Microft 6y ago
- nickik 6y ago
  The reality is, that in the current space market, if you don't have some way to produce launches for yourself, your gone have a bad time. The GTO market, long the stable of many big rockets, is slowing and not gone pick up. At the same time every government tries to prop up its domestic industry. One the few commercial launches, beating SpaceX on price is just not gone happen unless you simply fly with a massive lost, you need a couple of years ramp at least. The other big thing it government launches, SpaceX and ULA are very established and its pretty unlikely that Blue will get deep into these anytime soon. SpaceX is gone continue to have most commercial Space Station buissness. ULA and SpaceX will likely again be selected for the military over the next couple years. One of the reason SpaceX does Starlink is that it is an amazing driver for scale and re-usability for their rocket buissness. This year alone SpaceX without Starlink does only a few launches, not enough, and this is a year where most others did very few launches. Blue and Bezos will have made the same calculation, you simply can't New Glenn sized rockets without that.
  - __s 6y ago
    In every instance you said "gone" you should've said "going"
mtgx 6y ago
I've said this before here, but to me the fact that a large company has $10 billion around to throw at an entirely new market suggests that it has a monopoly in its main market and as such it's no longer interest in continuing to invest that money into improving its core products. When you take this framework you'll see it applies quite well to a lot of other huge companies that are in fact monopolies in their own markets. This sort of action is a huge red flag for monopoly status.
drmpeg 6y ago
Interesting tweet about interference and collisions between the two systems. https://twitter.com/Megaconstellati/status/1283888892912054273 https://twitter.com/Megaconstellati/status/12838888929120542... Link to FCC filing. https://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs/download.do?attachment_key=2540187 https://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs/download.do?attachment_key=...
odc 6y ago
Too bad the FCC does not think about space pollution. The astronomers were already very fed up with the Starlink constellation interfering with their observations, now they will have to deal with twice the number of satellites. Not to mention the risk of collision in space which keep going up.
- wincent 6y ago
  This photo was doing the rounds a few days back showing starlink interfering with ground-based space photography: https://twitter.com/djulik/status/1286053695956881409 https://twitter.com/djulik/status/1286053695956881409 Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris
  - Craighead 6y ago
    That image is already stacked, there is no way that photographer couldnt remove those trails with the data they had.
  - seastonATccs 6y ago
    The photo was disingenuous. Astronomers stack photos to remove interference. The photographer did the exact opposite.
    - kerng 6y ago
      Isnt this just using long exposure?
      - catalogia 6y ago
        No. A single long exposure would only show maybe one or two of those satellites. That's numerous exposures stacked on top of each other, such that every satellite visible in any of them is in the final result. This is completely backwards from how photo stacking is meant to be done (it's meant to remove satellites not visible in all of them.)
Lavery 6y ago
Related question: What's the tech here that this can be accomplished (streaming data via satellite) without spectrum? Spectrum assets are some of the most valuable assets in the US (and are owned by Verizon et al). Satellite phone networks (LightSquared is the big one) have been stymied in the past by unavailability of spectrum and US Govt. concerns about interfering with GPS. Is that not a problem in this case?
- plasticchris 6y ago
  Lightsquared bought satellite spectrum close to gps, and then did some shady stuff to get terrestrial use approved. This was an attempt to arbitrage the difference between cheap satellite spectrum and expensive terrestrial spectrum. It should never have gotten as far as it did but businessmen and regulators didn't understand the science/technology.
- drmpeg 6y ago
  They're using frequencies in the 10.7 to 30.0 GHz range (GPS is much lower at 1.575 GHz) that are already allocated to satellite operations. However, they do have to share these frequencies with others. You can read all the frequency stipulations in the FCC authorization. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-20-102A1.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-20-102A1.pdf For example, operation at 27.5 to 28.35 GHz overlaps a 5G millimeter band in the US. 5G is primary and satellite uplink is secondary in that band, so if Kuiper interferes with a 5G installation, they can be ordered to mitigate the interference (possibly by stopping transmissions).
caiobegotti 6y ago
...launched with what rocket exactly? I'll believe them (and Blue Origin, supposedly) only after they put something up in space.
- solarkraft 6y ago
  Blue Origin's timelines are actually realistic, so I wouldn't be surprised to see New Glenn (closer in payload to Falcon Heavy than Falcon 9) actually launch next year.
  - riffraff 6y ago
    in what sense are they realistic? I would be happy if they were on time, but it seems BO missed their milestones quite often.
    - sitkack 6y ago
      Hitting objectives is way more important than hitting a date in BO's case. Even if SpaceX has a head start, Amazon has scale.
      - nickik 6y ago
        Blue Origin is not amazon.
        sitkack 6y ago
        When Amazon invests 10B it is. That is like saying Alphabet isn't Google.
        solarkraft 6y ago
        Jeff Bezos invests privately, not Amazon (of course due to that relationship talent and resources will probably flow more easily between the companies). It's like saying SpaceX isn't Tesla.
KoftaBob 6y ago
One of the more interesting use cases for SpaceX/Starlink and Amazon’s satellite internet projects is their use as a back haul (not sure if the correct term) provider for other ISPs as well. One of the biggest roadblocks to starting a new ISP or expanding an existing ISPs service area is the big capital expenditure of wiring up areas. I would imagine that having the ability to rent capacity on these networks of satellites would drastically decrease the barrier to entry for new ISPs to form. I can also see it being useful for mobile data coverage in remote areas. You could install a cell tower along a highway somewhere remote, and you’d just need a solar panel to power the tower, satellite signal to get internet coverage, and then the cell radio to broadcast that to phones.
cblconfederate 6y ago
These space internet monopolies look increasingly like an international security and privacy nightmare in the making. Space wars indeed and i wonder how non US/Korea/china people will be able to protect themselves.
kerng 6y ago
Thread from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24010633 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24010633
Theodores 6y ago
I would like to see the economics of this. There is a saving in not having to have 5g towers but if everyone in a small village has to spend $$$ on their own satellite dishes then the economics aren't going to make rural high speed internet via satellite so good. Plus the uplink/downlink kit will be beyond mass consumer gear so the economies of scale won't be great. Anyone seen the uplink kit for the SpaceX or British efforts?
sschueller 6y ago
I wonder how long people are going to be ok with these projects when one of them comes from China or Russia. Or even Germany...
gilstroem 6y ago
https://www.underluckystars.com/save-our-stars https://www.underluckystars.com/save-our-stars
- bamboozled 6y ago
  Thanks for sharing this, it's an amazingly unfortunate consequence of this technology which I never thought about.
blackoil 6y ago
Are these supposed to be replacement of Satellite Phones? If I have a cheap Gbps connection or a cheaper 100 Mbps mobile connection, am I still a target customer?
- 7952 6y ago
  If they have spare bandwidth they could actually undercut existing providers. And why not? The marginal cost of adding an additional subscriber is effectively zero. So the cost could change by location depending on how much competition for bandwidth there is. All they need to do is make enough money to increase the number of satellites and maintain the network. And as the number increases the footprint can be reduced. The satellite targets a smaller area on the ground. And you add more subscribers using the same logic. It's an amazing business model really. You have a different price and a direct kind of customer in different places. A satellite starts an orbit over Antarctica and uploads scientific data. Then heads out over the sea and connects a few ships. Over Africa it connects rural 4g masts, schools and thousands of small businesses. Then over the Mediterranean it serves Netflix to cruiseline passengers. Over Europe it connects data for a NATO exercise and rural communities. Then later over London it sends data for high frequency traders. Then heads out over the North Sea to send YouTube to oil rig workers and telemetry for wind turbines. Heading up into the Arctic circle it connects a stream of airline flights to the web. And all you have to do is be slightly cheaper than the competition to win customers.
blntechie 6y ago
I’m wondering why it’s FCC which need to approve satellite communication services which orbits and provides services to the entire world? I mean is the LEO is open for all countries to launch as many satellites as they want? What if China launches 10k satellites in the next year hypothetically?
- jankeymeulen 6y ago
  Because they still need ground stations (and users!) in the US?
throwawaysea 6y ago
Adopting broadband from Amazon or the other tech giants like google seems like a bad idea for society. They have too much power to begin with, and given allegations of how amazon may have abused seller data, I wouldn’t want them to have access to even more data. Not to mention issues around centralized control over information and the digital town square.

93 points by amaajemyfren 6y ago

Since this story came out a few days ago, does anyone know if Amazon has commented on whether or not they plan to launch these 'themselves' / with Blue Origin?

gexla 6y ago
Right, seems like the first question people would be interested in hearing an answer to. I assume there is no answer yet. With a quick check, I was surprised to see that Blue Origin is developing a rocket which would be capable of launching these things (launch in 2021?)
- kiba 6y ago
  But could they launch as cheaply or as often as SpaceX's Falcon 9, which is years ahead? SpaceX isn't resting on its laurel either, with their R&D effort on Starship.
  - gexla 6y ago
    Maybe they don't need to launch as cheaply. SpaceX wasn't the first to the idea. There are other players and these companies didn't have their own rockets. The numbers must be good enough to work even with pre-SpaceX launch costs.
    - verdverm 6y ago
      Elon said that the satellites are now cheaper to build than the cost to get them to orbit, and that they need starship to make it financially viable, iirc. He says this during a keynote with the US Air Force about 4 months ago. He also says a ton of other interesting things as well.
  - kerng 6y ago
    Who says Amazon might not use SpaceX to bring the satellites in orbit?
    - _Microft 6y ago
      Jeff. I think he would rather personally subsidize every New Glenn launch than letting Amazon launch their satellites with SpaceX.
      - ianai 6y ago
        What’s that based on? Is there bad blood there?
        _Microft 6y ago
        Jeff Bezos himself is owner of a rocket company called "Blue Origin". This company is developing a heavy-lift rocket awhich hasn't flown yet though. They already have some experience with booster return, as they have a small(er) vehicle serving as (future) science and tourism platform that can shoot the capsule with passengers and/or payload straight up over the Kármán line and have the booster return to the launch site. Since they already had achieved this, Bezos tweeted "Welcome to the club" when Elon Musk's SpaceX had their first successful rocket landing. If that's appropriate is subject for debate, as the conditions experienced are not comparable. Blue Origin also tried to patent landing a rocket booster on a boat while SpaceX was planning to exactly do that which lead to some bad blood.
        kerng 6y ago
        I think Blue Origin is more focused towards possibly building a lunar lander. The launches I have see were with comparable tiny rockets, unless they launch thousands of them, they won't carry the satellites needed in time. Curious to get more informed opinions on this actually.
        _Microft 6y ago
nickik 6y ago
The reality is, that in the current space market, if you don't have some way to produce launches for yourself, your gone have a bad time. The GTO market, long the stable of many big rockets, is slowing and not gone pick up. At the same time every government tries to prop up its domestic industry. One the few commercial launches, beating SpaceX on price is just not gone happen unless you simply fly with a massive lost, you need a couple of years ramp at least. The other big thing it government launches, SpaceX and ULA are very established and its pretty unlikely that Blue will get deep into these anytime soon. SpaceX is gone continue to have most commercial Space Station buissness. ULA and SpaceX will likely again be selected for the military over the next couple years. One of the reason SpaceX does Starlink is that it is an amazing driver for scale and re-usability for their rocket buissness. This year alone SpaceX without Starlink does only a few launches, not enough, and this is a year where most others did very few launches. Blue and Bezos will have made the same calculation, you simply can't New Glenn sized rockets without that.
- __s 6y ago
  In every instance you said "gone" you should've said "going"

mtgx 6y ago

I've said this before here, but to me the fact that a large company has $10 billion around to throw at an entirely new market suggests that it has a monopoly in its main market and as such it's no longer interest in continuing to invest that money into improving its core products. When you take this framework you'll see it applies quite well to a lot of other huge companies that are in fact monopolies in their own markets. This sort of action is a huge red flag for monopoly status.

drmpeg 6y ago

Interesting tweet about interference and collisions between the two systems. https://twitter.com/Megaconstellati/status/1283888892912054273 https://twitter.com/Megaconstellati/status/12838888929120542... Link to FCC filing. https://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs/download.do?attachment_key=2540187 https://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs/download.do?attachment_key=...

odc 6y ago

Too bad the FCC does not think about space pollution. The astronomers were already very fed up with the Starlink constellation interfering with their observations, now they will have to deal with twice the number of satellites. Not to mention the risk of collision in space which keep going up.

wincent 6y ago
This photo was doing the rounds a few days back showing starlink interfering with ground-based space photography: https://twitter.com/djulik/status/1286053695956881409 https://twitter.com/djulik/status/1286053695956881409 Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris
- Craighead 6y ago
  That image is already stacked, there is no way that photographer couldnt remove those trails with the data they had.
- seastonATccs 6y ago
  The photo was disingenuous. Astronomers stack photos to remove interference. The photographer did the exact opposite.
  - kerng 6y ago
    Isnt this just using long exposure?
    - catalogia 6y ago
      No. A single long exposure would only show maybe one or two of those satellites. That's numerous exposures stacked on top of each other, such that every satellite visible in any of them is in the final result. This is completely backwards from how photo stacking is meant to be done (it's meant to remove satellites not visible in all of them.)

Lavery 6y ago

Related question: What's the tech here that this can be accomplished (streaming data via satellite) without spectrum? Spectrum assets are some of the most valuable assets in the US (and are owned by Verizon et al). Satellite phone networks (LightSquared is the big one) have been stymied in the past by unavailability of spectrum and US Govt. concerns about interfering with GPS. Is that not a problem in this case?

plasticchris 6y ago
Lightsquared bought satellite spectrum close to gps, and then did some shady stuff to get terrestrial use approved. This was an attempt to arbitrage the difference between cheap satellite spectrum and expensive terrestrial spectrum. It should never have gotten as far as it did but businessmen and regulators didn't understand the science/technology.
drmpeg 6y ago
They're using frequencies in the 10.7 to 30.0 GHz range (GPS is much lower at 1.575 GHz) that are already allocated to satellite operations. However, they do have to share these frequencies with others. You can read all the frequency stipulations in the FCC authorization. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-20-102A1.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-20-102A1.pdf For example, operation at 27.5 to 28.35 GHz overlaps a 5G millimeter band in the US. 5G is primary and satellite uplink is secondary in that band, so if Kuiper interferes with a 5G installation, they can be ordered to mitigate the interference (possibly by stopping transmissions).

caiobegotti 6y ago

...launched with what rocket exactly? I'll believe them (and Blue Origin, supposedly) only after they put something up in space.

solarkraft 6y ago
Blue Origin's timelines are actually realistic, so I wouldn't be surprised to see New Glenn (closer in payload to Falcon Heavy than Falcon 9) actually launch next year.
- riffraff 6y ago
  in what sense are they realistic? I would be happy if they were on time, but it seems BO missed their milestones quite often.
  - sitkack 6y ago
    Hitting objectives is way more important than hitting a date in BO's case. Even if SpaceX has a head start, Amazon has scale.
    - nickik 6y ago
      Blue Origin is not amazon.
      - sitkack 6y ago
        When Amazon invests 10B it is. That is like saying Alphabet isn't Google.
        solarkraft 6y ago
        Jeff Bezos invests privately, not Amazon (of course due to that relationship talent and resources will probably flow more easily between the companies). It's like saying SpaceX isn't Tesla.

KoftaBob 6y ago

One of the more interesting use cases for SpaceX/Starlink and Amazon’s satellite internet projects is their use as a back haul (not sure if the correct term) provider for other ISPs as well. One of the biggest roadblocks to starting a new ISP or expanding an existing ISPs service area is the big capital expenditure of wiring up areas. I would imagine that having the ability to rent capacity on these networks of satellites would drastically decrease the barrier to entry for new ISPs to form. I can also see it being useful for mobile data coverage in remote areas. You could install a cell tower along a highway somewhere remote, and you’d just need a solar panel to power the tower, satellite signal to get internet coverage, and then the cell radio to broadcast that to phones.

cblconfederate 6y ago

These space internet monopolies look increasingly like an international security and privacy nightmare in the making. Space wars indeed and i wonder how non US/Korea/china people will be able to protect themselves.

kerng 6y ago

Thread from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24010633 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24010633

Theodores 6y ago

I would like to see the economics of this. There is a saving in not having to have 5g towers but if everyone in a small village has to spend $$$ on their own satellite dishes then the economics aren't going to make rural high speed internet via satellite so good. Plus the uplink/downlink kit will be beyond mass consumer gear so the economies of scale won't be great. Anyone seen the uplink kit for the SpaceX or British efforts?

sschueller 6y ago

I wonder how long people are going to be ok with these projects when one of them comes from China or Russia. Or even Germany...

gilstroem 6y ago

https://www.underluckystars.com/save-our-stars https://www.underluckystars.com/save-our-stars

bamboozled 6y ago
Thanks for sharing this, it's an amazingly unfortunate consequence of this technology which I never thought about.

blackoil 6y ago

Are these supposed to be replacement of Satellite Phones? If I have a cheap Gbps connection or a cheaper 100 Mbps mobile connection, am I still a target customer?

7952 6y ago
If they have spare bandwidth they could actually undercut existing providers. And why not? The marginal cost of adding an additional subscriber is effectively zero. So the cost could change by location depending on how much competition for bandwidth there is. All they need to do is make enough money to increase the number of satellites and maintain the network. And as the number increases the footprint can be reduced. The satellite targets a smaller area on the ground. And you add more subscribers using the same logic. It's an amazing business model really. You have a different price and a direct kind of customer in different places. A satellite starts an orbit over Antarctica and uploads scientific data. Then heads out over the sea and connects a few ships. Over Africa it connects rural 4g masts, schools and thousands of small businesses. Then over the Mediterranean it serves Netflix to cruiseline passengers. Over Europe it connects data for a NATO exercise and rural communities. Then later over London it sends data for high frequency traders. Then heads out over the North Sea to send YouTube to oil rig workers and telemetry for wind turbines. Heading up into the Arctic circle it connects a stream of airline flights to the web. And all you have to do is be slightly cheaper than the competition to win customers.

blntechie 6y ago

I’m wondering why it’s FCC which need to approve satellite communication services which orbits and provides services to the entire world? I mean is the LEO is open for all countries to launch as many satellites as they want? What if China launches 10k satellites in the next year hypothetically?

jankeymeulen 6y ago
Because they still need ground stations (and users!) in the US?

throwawaysea 6y ago

Adopting broadband from Amazon or the other tech giants like google seems like a bad idea for society. They have too much power to begin with, and given allegations of how amazon may have abused seller data, I wouldn’t want them to have access to even more data. Not to mention issues around centralized control over information and the digital town square.