Satellite operator Viasat has announced plans to build a low-earth orbit (LEO) constellation of 288 satellites, if it can qualify for FCC funds. This may aggravate SpaceX, since FCC chairman Ajit Pai recently made moves to shut the Elon Musk venture out of the upcoming Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) – a $20bn program to help bring better broadband to rural Americans.
The RDOF program, like all such funding initiatives, will be divisive. For Viasat, it is the chance to expand on its ViaSat-3, a trio of geostationary (GEO) satellites that it has been using so far. In May, it announced that it had secured FCC approval for a 20-unit constellation in medium-earth orbit (MEO), as a means to augment ViaSat-3.
Now it seems that Viasat has lost enthusiasm for MEO, and is instead considering a 288-unit LEO constellation instead – provided it can get a slice of that RDOF cash. However, given that SpaceX is likely to be excluded, ostensibly because of concerns that latencies would be too high, there may be barriers to Viasat too.
Viasat is currently requesting that its MEO approval be transferred to its LEO plan. While nowhere near MEO altitudes, the LEO orbit is planned for 1,300 kilometers, a little more than double what most people mean when talking about LEO satellite constellations. Viasat is planning on using the same Ka-band and V-band spectrum as the MEO project planned, which Viasat says should provide 27Tbps of throughput. Notably, this would allow Viasat to operate globally, in that orbit of 60-degrees north and south of the equator – something it can’t do with ViaSat-3.
The stumbling block will be the latency. Viasat has talked of it being under 100ms, which is far better than what geostationary services can provide, but is still quite a lot higher than what SpaceX claims to be able to deliver. To this end, if SpaceX’s claimed 20-50ms is too high, then it seems that Viasat should be out of the running for some of that RDOF cash.
On the recent Viasat earnings call, Dankberg said: “We had a purpose in MEO, but the biggest factor in wanting to lower the altitude is really the amount of funding that the FCC is aiming at low latency communications.”
Dankberg continued, saying that the company’s experience in the FCC’s Connect America Fund Phase 2 program puts it in good stead. There, it won $122m out of the $1.49bn pool, which spans 2018 to 2028. Dankberg believes this lets Viasat best understand how the FCC allocates funds, but if the FCC is consistent, it will immediately rule out Viasat from the running.
The FCC has outlined the criteria for the first $16bn of the total $20.4bn RDOF pool. The first phase runs through 2030, but there is still no schedule for the second. There are four performance tiers in the RDOF, starting at 1,000Mbps down with 500Mbps up, then moving to 100/20, then 50/5, and finally 25/3. All mandate a latency of less than 100ms – and conventional geostationary satellite broadband tends to deal with latencies around five times higher than that.
So, satellite providers have little current hope of reaching that gigabit threshold, but the lower tiers are within reach of their downlink capabilities. However, the uplink speeds are the most pressing concern, as there has been little evidence that greater than 3Mbps is possible over consumer-grade satellite equipment deployed at scale – meaning it wouldn’t reach the FCC’s already low-bar definition of broadband.
Currently, this means that the FCC is going to exclude all satellite operators from RDOF, or that it is going to add some form of exemption to the requirements. Consumers are more likely to tolerate higher latencies if they are offset by much higher bandwidth, as a 5ms latency on a 5Mbps line is nowhere near as compelling as 100ms on a 100Mbps connection.
There is a definite balancing act to be had for the FCC, as it should have a far easier time using satellite providers to bring better broadband choices to rural Americans that might be stuck with a single choice for their ISP. If it chooses to exclude the new satellite options, then it has to deal with the slower deployment speeds of terrestrial approaches, as well as the higher per-consumer installation costs.
In terms of public comment, the FCC seems set to exclude the likes of Viasat. A statement from the regulator declares: “The RDOF is not the appropriate venue to test unproven technologies using universal service support,” but perhaps Viasat has its eyes on the second phase, with its smaller $4.4bn pot.
If the first phase is going to start soon, and run until 2030, it seems likely that the second phase will kick off after 2023. By then, SpaceX and Amazon should have a wealth of data to sway the FCC with, and Viasat should be able to use its own internal testing and the other public information to grab a slice of that still sizeable pot. Similarly, the importance of the FCC’s latency requirements might have diminished.
To that end, Dankberg says: “Assuming that the FCC does allow LEO to be eligible in the Phase 2 part of the RDOF, the opportunity for funding is far in excess of the increase in what the constellation would cost.” Getting approval for RDOF Phase 2 would provide some pretty swift returns on Viasat’s investments.
An upcoming FCC vote, on June 9, would set the beginning of the Phase 1 bidding process for the October 29, 2020. With nine consecutive quarters of growth, and annual revenue reaching a record $2.3bn, Viasat will be looking to LEO as a means of significantly ramping up its business – although the completion date for the new constellation is still being pegged for 2025 at the earliest.
It has also been a busy time for SpaceX, which has sent two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station, marking the first manned space flight by a commercial company. Just days later, SpaceX launched 60 Starlink satellites. The latest launch brings the total number of orbiting Starlink satellites to 482, above the threshold for providing minimal Internet coverage.