WASHINGTON, August 31, 2023 – Satellites are essential to bridging the global digital divide and connecting unserved regions and countries, an expert said on Thursday.

Satellites can be used to bring responsive broadband connections to nations without widely available internet access, an element of the United Nations’ plan to eliminate poverty, said Michele Di Paolo, director of business development and product lifecycle management at satellite provider SpaceBridge.

“It’s something that can’t be overstated,” he said at an event hosted by Via Satellite magazine. “It’s a very important part of satellite’s benefits.”

These connections allow communities to access banking, healthcare, and education services that would otherwise never have been available in their areas, Di Paulo said.

He pointed to villages he worked with in Kenya and Nigeria that were too far from city centers to access their ground-based networks. Healthcare centers struggled to run applications properly on outdated 2G connections, he said.

New satellites enabled them to access broadband connections and function normally, as well as add residents to national registries and arrange consultations with specialists for people who need advanced treatment.

Satellites are also being used to connect the most remote regions of Canada. Subsidized by Canadian broadband expansion initiatives, satellites provide the country’s sparsely populated Nunavut territory with connections in excess of 15 Gbps, according to Di Paulo.

“This is really bridging the divide between the urbans and the ultra-rurals,” Di Paulo said. “It’s going to be a game-changer for them.

In March, the Federal Communications Commission proposed a framework for allowing satellite operators to collaborate with terrestrial networks to supplement mobile broadband connections.

WASHINGTON, July 27, 2023 – Amazon’s Kuiper subsidiary has told the Federal Communications Commission this month that its non-geostationary low earth orbit satellites can co-exist with geostationary satellites in the 17 GHz band, contrary to what AT&T and Verizon have said. 

AT&T and Verizon asked the commission in January to delay a non-geostationary orbit allocation in the upper 17 GHz band until the commission receives “technical studies and data …show[ing] that current and future NGSO, and [fixed satellite service] operations can coexist at 17.7-17.8.”

Amazon said in a letter filed with the commission on July 20 that the telecoms’ concerns are limited to the upper 100 MHz of the 17 GHz band currently allocated to fixed satellite systems, adding both NGSO and GSO orbit FSS systems already share the significantly more utilized 17.8-18.3 GHz frequency band with FS links domestically. 

It added that this was due to power restrictions in the 17.8-18.3 GHz frequency band, which Amazon has argued in previous meetings with the FCC should also apply in the 17.7-17.8 GHz band, where interference levels will be nearly identical.

Amazon also said the 17.7-17.8 GHz band will experience less interference compared to the 17.8-18.3 GHz band because the former is less utilized by FS systems, resulting in fewer instances of co-channel and co-located usage between NGSO and GSO systems.

“Both the conservatism of Amazon’s model and its outputs demonstrate that there is little likelihood of significant interference—both now and in the future, as NGSO FSS systems expand their terrestrial networks and new operators deploy,” Amazon told the commission after conducting tests. 

Kuiper will produce LEOs that are constantly moving across the sky, as opposed to the stationary geostationary satellites. 

Amazon has said in previous filings that the 17 GHz band would help bridge the digital divide, promote efficient use of spectrum, encourage competition, and harmonize U.S. rules with international allocations.

The letter came before Kuiper announced on Friday that it was investing $120 million in the construction of a new satellite processing facility at Space Florida’s Launch and Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center. 

The facility is the latest long-term investment in Project Kuiper, a low Earth orbit satellite network that will provide fast, affordable broadband to unserved and underserved communities around the world according to a statement by Amazon. 

Kuiper seek to provide broadband access at the speeds of 100Mbps, 400Mbps and 1Gbps according to their website.

“We have an ambitious plan to begin Project Kuiper’s full-scale production launches and early customer pilots next year, and this new facility will play a critical role in helping us deliver on that timeline,” said Steve Metayer, vice president of Kuiper production operations.

WASHINGTON, December 12, 2022 – As Congress scrambles to negotiate an end-of-year omnibus, Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Nathan Simington on Thursday touted technical potential of satellite broadband and endorsed a bill that would streamline satellite permitting.

The bipartisan Satellite and Telecommunications Streamlining Act, introduced Thursday with the Secure Space Act, would ease the FCC’s permitting process for the rapidly growing satellite industry. It’s companion bill bars the agency from authorizing non-geostationary satellites from entities that also offer products found on the “covered list,” which identifies equipment and services that pose “unacceptable” risks to national security.

“American companies are leading the way in the space economy revolution, and Congress has recognized that we must act quickly to secure America’s role as the home to the most innovative new companies in the emerging launch and satellite sectors,” said Simington, an outspoken proponent of satellite broadband, in a statement. “There is an insatiable hunger for low-latency, high-bandwidth broadband connections in every corner of the U.S. that satellite broadband providers are racing to feed,” he added.

The junior Republican-appointed commissioner in September criticized the FCC’s revocation of a $885 million, Rural Digital Opportunity Fund award to satellite-broadband provider Starlink. Commissioner Brendan Carr also criticized the flip-flop. At the end of September, Simington, Carr, and their colleagues unanimously adopted an order that required the removal of satellite debris from space, and in November, Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced the inception of a dedicated space bureau at the agency.

Outside the FCC, many experts say current satellite broadband is technologically incapable of providing reliable broadband, an assessment echoed by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration in its guidelines for the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment fund.

Will bipartisan broadband bills beat the buzzer?

The Broadband Grant Tax Treatment Act, a bill that would make non-taxable broadband grants from the BEAD program and the American Rescue Plan Act, may yet become law by year’s end, spokespeople for Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Penn., told Broadband Breakfast Monday.

And if the bill isn’t passed this month, the spokespeople said, each legislator plans to advance it in the 118th Congress.