Amazon To Offer Broadband Access From Orbit With 3,236-Satellite 'Project Kuiper' Constellation (geekwire.com) 153
Amazon is joining the race to provide broadband internet access around the globe via thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit, newly uncovered filings show. From a report: The effort, code-named Project Kuiper, follows up on last September's mysterious reports that Amazon was planning a "big, audacious space project" involving satellites and space-based systems. The Seattle-based company is likely to spend billions of dollars on the project, and could conceivably reap billions of dollars in revenue once the satellites go into commercial service. It'll take years to bring the big, audacious project to fruition, however, and Amazon could face fierce competition from SpaceX, OneWeb and other high-profile players.
Project Kuiper's first public step took the form of three sets of filings made with the International Telecommunications Union last month by the Federal Communications Commission on behalf of Washington, D.C.-based Kuiper Systems LLC. The ITU oversees global telecom satellite operations and eventually will have to sign off on Kuiper's constellation. The filings lay out a plan to put 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit -- including 784 satellites at an altitude of 367 miles (590 kilometers); 1,296 satellites at a height of 379 miles (610 kilometers); and 1,156 satellites in 391-mile (630-kilometer) orbits. In response to GeekWire's inquiries, Amazon confirmed that Kuiper Systems is actually one of its projects.
Project Kuiper's first public step took the form of three sets of filings made with the International Telecommunications Union last month by the Federal Communications Commission on behalf of Washington, D.C.-based Kuiper Systems LLC. The ITU oversees global telecom satellite operations and eventually will have to sign off on Kuiper's constellation. The filings lay out a plan to put 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit -- including 784 satellites at an altitude of 367 miles (590 kilometers); 1,296 satellites at a height of 379 miles (610 kilometers); and 1,156 satellites in 391-mile (630-kilometer) orbits. In response to GeekWire's inquiries, Amazon confirmed that Kuiper Systems is actually one of its projects.
WHat will the projust be like (Score:5, Interesting)
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competes fairly with all other products
This is Amazon we're talking about.
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Re:WHat will the projust be like (Score:4, Interesting)
Are you sure it's not all those people living in rural areas who can't get broadband at any price? And the people who like to go out in the woods where there's no phone coverage?
Having said that:
a) How "broad" can it be from low-earth orbit? Iridium's best systems are still only at dial-up modem speeds.
b) I'm sure Amazon will lobby against net neutrality so they can prioritize traffic from their own services and slow down Netflix etc.
c) Launching 3236 new satellites into low-earth-orbits? What could possibly go wrong?
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Ships at sea, too. I imagine that's a very lucrative market if somebody can fill it.
Cruise ships will probably cough up a fortune for decent Internet.
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Bandwidth is easy. Latency is hard.
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Bandwidth is hard too. Have you seen the caps on most satellite service? What's hard to tell is whether the lower-hanging satellites in this constellation are purely to drive down latency or if it's to increase the bandwidth they can serve. These are low - the latency wouldn't be much worse than transcontinental or transatlantic is now.
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"Bandwidth is easy. Latency is hard."
Is latency a real problem for anyone except a subset of gamers? Web surfing, email, netflix, VOIP, etc should all work fine. Sure, a ping will be 638 ms, compared to 30 ms, but that is still just a half a second. If you can get high speed, almost no one would notice the difference.
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VoIP doesn't work "fine" at 1s+ latency. The amount of time wasted accidentally talking over each other is almost equal to the length of the call.
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I'd agree. Luckily, the average satellite latency is about half that. And if it isn't found to be usable in that capacity, it could cut tons of terrestrial bandwidth usage so most traffic moves via satellite and leave lots of room for the few applications that need to move fast. Image the speed we could get back if all that Youtube, Netflix, Pandora, Facebook, Roku traffic were moved via satellite.
Re:WHat will the projust be like (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe theoretically/sometimes. In the real world, peak business hours especially, congestion increases that latency. This new constellation is LEO - so you will have latency that competes with traditional broadband.
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I imagine Finnish and Japanese people would cope somewhat whereas Brazilians or Greeks would lose their minds /s
In any case you're right. It's good that LEO latency should be 30-50ms, in contrast to a GEO latency of 600-800ms.
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Best case latency:
367 miles / c = 0.00197 seconds = 1.97ms
379 miles / c = 0.002035 seconds = 2.035ms
391 miles / c = 0.002099 seconds = 2.099ms
That's one way though, between station and sat.
Because these are LEO sats though, they're moving fast and you're talking to different birds all the time. Regionally, this is should very fast, we're talking 5-10ms RTT.
Longer routes will likely be passed up to the 379-391mi sats and backhauled to the lower sats at the destination. How much latency that will induce is
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Yes. Latency is not a factor for every download. Its not like one file downloads, then you have new latency, then another file, then more latency, etc. Once the initilal push/pull starts, its just up to the bandwidth.
I'm also not sure why he says there will be more packet loss either.
"This means a web page will load if the conditions are good or will load eventually but it might stall and fail a lot of times."
This can be an issue with any connection type.
And why will youtube work "fine at 3 AM or 4 AM" and
Re: WHat will the projust be like (Score:2)
"Bandwidth is easy. Latency is hard."
Sure, bandwidth is easy when using UDP. When using TCP with high latency, your throughput is limited more by the latency than the bandwidth (1xmax_packet_size/RTT) due to having to ack every packet before the next will be sent.
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c) Launching 3236 new satellites into low-earth-orbits? What could possibly go wrong?
Let's see... LEO is anything up to 1200 miles above the surface... so 4pi(1200^2)/3236.... Dude, that is like one small satellite every 5,591 miles. And that is lowballing because the 1200 mi is not being calculated from the center of the earth (i'm lazy). Literally the distance between a buoy in the atlantic and one in the pacific. I think it will be just fine.
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Are you sure it's not all those people living in rural areas who can't get broadband at any price?
They can already get satellite internet. AFAIK nobody meets the FCC definition of broadband, though. Exede (Viasat) gives 20MB/sec, I don't think any services are faster than that. They throttle video, but downloads are plenty fast. There's about a second of latency, though, which is a drag. LEO will help there. Right now LEO doesn't help much because the existing networks are low-bandwidth, but once we have high-bandwidth sats in LEO, we'll have more usable latencies on satellite networks.
Networks like the
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I'm sure Amazon will lobby against net neutrality so they can prioritize traffic from their own services and slow down Netflix etc.
As a private network, wholly-owned by Amazon, why would they need to worry about "net neutrality"? Why would they carry "Netflix" on their private network?
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Well if that happens then good luck to anyone ever wanting to compete on a level playing field again. The companies that are setting up satellites will gain a permanent global market dominance instantly.
Permanent? No. Utilities are capital-intensive. No one gets to play unless they have billions to build infrastructure. It's not like Amazon will be shooting down competitors sats to maintain the high ground.
If Bezos wants to build a rocket company and use it to build a utility - more power to him. Musk is doing the same. More power to them. No one has a monopoly on launching sats to orbit, and unlike the "last mile problem", there's no natural monopoly here.
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2) By the time a few companies build theirs, there will be no room for others.
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1) Not everyone can afford satellites, and
And what's your point? Seriously? You don't become a regional power company without billions to spend. You don't become a major telecom player without billions to spend. That's the nature of utilities.
The problem with current ISPs is the last mile monopoly. This approach bypasses that.
2) By the time a few companies build theirs, there will be no room for others.
Space is big. There's limited room in GEO because it's effectively 1-diminsional, and so it's heavily controlled by treaties. Anywhere else though there's lots of room. Lower orbits are more crowded, relatively speaking,
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That's because regional power companies are (usually) monopolies. How many times are you going to ignore that there's no natural monopoly here?
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A small conglomerate that has satellites will be every close to a monopoly.
Bezos and Musk have both announced plans. If they make any money, others will be sure to follow. The point is: anyone who can raise the capital can enter this market.
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I see it all the time - in most (if not all) states, gas stations are only allowed to change their prices once in a 24 hour period - the wise retailer waits until his neighbor gas station sets their price first, THEN sets their own price to compete. Sometimes station owners want to maximize profits, sometimes they want to move product, sometimes they want to starve their competitor of sales.
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Here in Texas I see easily a dozen "competitors" that want me to "buy" my electricity from them, all with various prices and incentives to compel me to choose them over my current provider. I have plenty of competition, and I see no need to run parallel power infrastructures for each provider that wants to enter the market.
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Don't taunt all the people who are not blessed to live in Texas. Also, shhh, do you want more Californians to come?
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1) Not everyone can afford satellites, and
So what? Is everyone supposed to be able to afford Satellites?
2) By the time a few companies build theirs, there will be no room for others.
A few companies have built "theirs", and still we keep throwing up more each year - satellites aren't permanent, they fall out of orbit, are taken out of orbit, etc...
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The companies that are setting up satellites will gain a permanent global market dominance instantly.
Unlikely, due to pesky physics.
Never say never, I suppose, but in towns and cities there's no way a space-based solution will ever be able to compete with the cost-of-delivery of a high-bandwidth and low-latency terrestrial fiber-based network.
Rural is a different story - Grandpa's farm in Kansas might benefit - But even there a 5G wireless terrestrial solution will always win from a cost-of-operation
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Right - Amazon is going to deploy 3K satellites and offer them to all competitors at cost... Are you confusing Amazon with a non-profit organization?
Amazon, if funding this project 100% privately, is within it's rights to refuse to carry any service it chooses to, because it's theirs, they own it, and that's it. I don't understand hobbling a successful company willing to undertake such a massive and risky venture, so that it's competitors can benefit from their investment and risk.
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"As long as this product competes fairly with all other products and said company doesn't use it to unfairly advertise to or unduly influence any segment of society to their own products,"
Do you mean that the baker that comes to our village each day on his cost with his truck to sell his products should be forced to sell other bakers' bread?
Isn't that a bit UnAmerican?
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Yeah, this is the company that refused to sell the $35 Chromecast because they found it to be too much of a threat to their crappy service. Who knows what they'll block on their network.
I'll get Starlink, thanks.
Source article URL... (Score:3)
...not included in post at time of posting this comment:
https://www.geekwire.com/2019/... [geekwire.com]
Censorship and content blocking (Score:3)
So far track record for big tech on this is abysmal, even "Do no evil" Google working on censored search engine for China. I don't see Amazon behaving any differently.
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Re:Censorship and content blocking (Score:4, Funny)
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China is a signatory to the Outer Space Treaty, but deciding whether taking down a satellite is a violation of that treaty would be a long-fought battle.
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how is said govt going to block access to a sat network?
Internet access requires two-way comms. They should be capable of locating any terrestrial transmitter that can reach orbital receivers.
Even focused directional antennae are detectable when you can put planes or satellites overhead.
There is no need for electronic disruption. They can simply find and arrest the users.
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Are they going to comply with specific government requirements for content censorship? That is, if someone in China going to get satellite internet, are Amazon going to roll over and censor it?
Presumably you'll need a special Amazon antenna and decoding box to use it. They can be controlled.
As if Amazon doesn't create enough junk.... (Score:2, Funny)
now they'll be significantly adding to the junk in space
Light pollution (Score:3)
Time to move all serious astronomy to the far side of the moon.
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Time to move all serious astronomy to the far side of the moon.
True story. [wikipedia.org] Also "home, home on LaGrange, where it's dark and the telescopes play"
630 km? (Score:5, Funny)
They already drop their packages from too high on my porch.
Prime Video for Rural Users? (Score:2)
All it would take is caching hardware, and Prime customers with Amazon satellite service could get timed pre-downloads of popular Prime shows. Without affecting their cap if it's part of a multicast. I'm surprised that nobody is piggybacking on data satellite off-peak hours already, so maybe they haven't thought of it yet.
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If we imagine this is to distribute Amazon Prime content, all you need is a "decoder" box that caches the most popular content locally, downloaded in the background as it is broadcast on a regular schedule. Unique, one-off content can be streamed in real-time, but the vast majority of people want to watch the new Transformer movie, not the latest eco-warrior documentary - the former can be predictively cached, the latter can be streamed on demand.
Or they can work with dish / directv to push movis (Score:2)
Or they can work with dish / directv to push movies / shows to the local DVR disk (wait dish and directv do that now)
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Yes, Satellite TV operators already do this. I'm talking specifically about Satellite Internet providers with no live TV services.
More space garbage (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, I'm in favor of LEO satellite internet as much as anyone else but I have VERY serious reservations about Amazon operating it in any capacity. They've shown, time and again, that they're not willing to do the Right Thing (tm) if it means any kind of hit to their bottom line. Going further, they seem quite intent on weaseling their way into our lives and using data about us all as a competitive advantage, both to their direct competition as well as to ourselves.
And, last I checked, this is at least the second proposal that's offering to launch a constellation of LEO satellites to provide internet services. Didn't SpaceX propose exactly the same service no more than a few months ago? If Amazon manages to do this alongside SpaceX, that's TWO separate and distinct constellations of satellites in low-Earth orbit to contend with. The complications of getting ONE constellation in place without interference are quite high, let alone two. Plus, as more and more nations flex their satellite-hitting technology for military purposes, it can only lead to trouble with regards to dangerous space debris.
Let's nationalize - no, GLOBALIZE this project so that a single constellation of satellites can serve multiple providers. That way, if China wants to censor content, that provider can do that for their territory. Heck, it wouldn't be that difficult to geo-lock signals to prevent, say, a North American provider out of Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. But - one of the advantages of a global constellation of internet-providing satellites is that you could, in theory, get your internet subscription from your home territory and travel literally anywhere int he world and still get access.
Regardless - this seems very much like a "Me too!" move from Bezos to counter Musk. They seem to be fighting over how much control one hyper-wealthy billionaire can have over the rest of us plebes. And I'm already tired of it.
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This is a market that has plenty of room for me too. Even if you're talking about a total capacity of a few Tb/s for one constellation, that isn't enough to not allow competition.
Kessler Syndrome? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think there are at least four distinct large constellations planned. I have mixed feelings. Competition = good, right? I don't think a Kessler Syndrome is likely, but it's likelihood increases with every single thing we put in orbit.
SpaceX Starlink is roughly 12000 satellites.
Amazon Kuiper is 3200 satellites
Boeing 3000 satellites
OneWeb 2000 satellites
So roughly 20,000 new satellites. That's seems like pretty crowded sky. However, I just did some napkin math. With Earth's radius at 3950 miles and the satellites operating at a maximum altitude of 850 miles, 20k is roughly 1 satellite for every 145k square miles if distributed perfectly evenly at that altitude. So maybe not so bad?
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As for Kessler, it's not really a problem between functional satellites, you are not going to get two functional satellites collide if even one can maneuver. The p
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Much more than a few months ago, more like five years ago, they're actually launching the first batch of them next month.
Next 50 years? (Score:2)
Where Will They Get The Rockets? (Score:3)
Blue Origin?
Has yet to reach orbit even one time.
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Ground based network (Score:2)
Starting to wonder whether an improved ground based communication network may be called for as a backup plan? Or maybe forcing companies to cohost on satellites?
With the amount of satellites being put up, we are rushing to make the Kessler Syndrome a reality. So much of what we take for granted has some dependency on satellites, so if shit happens up there we a screwed.
And physics laws... (Score:2)
Just what we need (Score:2)
Apparently trusted by the competition (Score:2)
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Interestingly, OneWeb has bad blood with SpaceX and refuses to use their rockets to get their own satellites up. I wonder if something similar might happen now with Amazon.
3,236 satellites ought to be enough for anybody (Score:2)
I'm ok with this as long as they don't do more than 3236. Because we all know, 3,236 satellites ought to be enough for anybody.
How will they press the Reset button? (Score:2)
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GOODEVENING HBO
FROM CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT
$12.95/MONTH ?
NO WAY !
[SHOWTIME/MOVIE CHANNEL BEWARE!]
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Is this a problem now, "given the shitty state of IT security these days"? No.
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Ya know, this does kinda sound like the evil plot from a James Bond movie. I can't remember which one, though.
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The surface area covered by low Earth orbit is 10s of millions of square kilometers. I don't think about 3,000 satellites would be all that crowded if moving in a stable path.
Re:Not about internet. (Score:4, Insightful)
Getting them all up there with no mistakes/debris might be a challenge though.
Failure rate for that many satellites will be high, too. They'll need constant replacement/de-orbiting.
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Failure rate for that many satellites will be high, too. They'll need constant replacement/de-orbiting.
Fortunately they get free Prime shipping.
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Failure rate for that many satellites will be high, too.
No, the failure rate won't go up, the number of failures may go up, but the rate won't likely change.
They'll need constant replacement/de-orbiting.
OK, so what? Roads need constant repair, so do train tracks, as well as airplanes and almost everything else? The upside is they'll likely find cost savings in volume production.
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How, exactly? If you put 3,236 satellites into a 300km orbit and spread them evenly over the surface of the planet, you'll still only have one satellite per 172,816 square kilometers. The chances of collision for something passing through to a higher orbit would be very small, particularly if you timed the launch to reduce the chances further.
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Because when people try to visualize the problem of space debris, they often look at a very small picture or animation of earth, forgetting that the globe represents an entire planet. Yes, it's a problem, but people are terrible about conceptualizing anything at that scale.
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Laws [Re:Global Agreement] (Score:5, Informative)
On the other hand - unlike municipal and other laws that prevent you from stringing your own cable on telephone poles or under roads: absolutely nothing is stopping you from putting up your own satellites.
Actually, no, there are laws saying that you can't put up your own satellites without permission from your government. Even if you don't launch them from your own country. https://www.technologyreview.c... [technologyreview.com]
In the US, you need FCC permission to operate, and FAA permission to launch.
https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/regulations/
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I imagine the antennas/decoders will be fancy. Easy for governments to control.
Re:Lag? (Score:5, Informative)
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This is why you need so many satellites in a constellation for LEO. They are not going to be geostationary. There are already satellite constellations up there with terrible lag and only modestly high bandwidth (with caps).
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The speed of light from geostationary orbit to Earth is 119 ms, so time two (up and down) that is 440ms or almost a 1/2 second.
Check your math.
If a one-way trip is 119 ms, a round-trip would be 238 ms, not 440 ms.
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Well... that's what we need Space Force for, obviously. We need those Big, Beautiful space drones with their Big, Beautiful lasers protecting the Walmart satellites from the Chinese and Amazon.
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