Another Satellite

In the public network infrastructure world, DSL, fiber-based access and wireless architectures have captured the spotlight in recent years as ways to deliver broadband and take it to the next level – both in terms of coverage, usage and bandwidth rates. Using satellite technology to deliver broadband access – any level of broadband access – to support consumer services is much less common, and seldom discussed.

That’s not to say that nobody is doing it or has ever talked about the idea of making satellite-based broadband access services a consumer offer.

In fact, my in-laws, who live in a rural area of Illinois, get their broadband via a satellite-based service, which I believe is provided by Hughes (News - Alert). But they haven’t had a great experience in terms of reliability; as a frequent visitor to the farm, I can attest to its spotty performance. Plus, Papa and Tootsie say it’s expensive.

I don’t have an exhaustive list of every company that provides satellite-based broadband access in the U.S., but I believe it’s pretty limited.

However, just a few years ago there were high hopes that mass market broadband satellite services would become reality. If the words Globalstar (News - Alert), Iridium and Teledesic don’t ring any bells, may I remind you that these were three very prominent efforts by high-tech leaders to blanket large areas with high-speed Internet access.

I believe it was in the late 1990s when Motorola (News - Alert) was trying to get its Iridium effort off the ground. The aim of the Iridium venture was to make satellite access a mass market business. But the high-flying plan plummeted to the ground in 1999 as the company filed for bankruptcy. Although the venture initially planned to let the satellites burn up in the atmosphere, a group of private investors swooped in to grab the assets and reworked the business plan into what is now a whole new Iridium (News - Alert), which says it has worldwide coverage, but which targets much more focused applications – like aviation and maritime verticals.

(CapRock Communications (News - Alert), another satellite-based service provider, albeit without the checkered past, seems to have a similar approach to the market.)

Globalstar, which got its start as a more broad-ranging effort backed by Loral and Qualcomm (News - Alert), took a somewhat similar path – having been taken over by new ownership several years ago and with a more vertically-focused business plan.

Wireless pioneer Craig McCaw (along with investor Bill Gates of Microsoft (News - Alert)), meanwhile, gave the satellite space a go with the ICO-Teledesic project. This venture, they said, would become a global provider of wireless satellite services including telephone, Internet access and more. But this effort, too, failed to materialize.

So where am I going with all this talk about satellite as a method of delivering consumer broadband services? I’m going toward the idea that, while it won’t be anything like the $9 billion Teledesic project, the idea of using satellite to bring broadband to more residential users may be making a bit of a comeback.

True, this may just be a drop in the broadband bucket; however, I think it’s noteworthy to point out that the Rural Utilities Service’s second-round broadband rules note that $100 million has been set aside for satellite projects. And the satellite category is a new one for RUS this round. What’s more, even if a suitable application for stimulus funds is not received for a given unserved area, the government could well turn to satellite communications to bring broadband services to those who still don’t have it.

So we may just see more widespread satellite-based consumer broadband yet. IT

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