Of late it
appears that the FCC must be running a sale on merger authorizations given the
glut of questionable attempts. With so
much occurring in the incumbent world to retrench, buy market share and close
ranks one can easily fail to see a major, forward looking initiative by Google.
Folks the
prospect of overlapping and globally ubiquitous wireless broadband is REALLY
BIG! See http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aerospace/satellites/google-aims-for-billion-dollar-satellite-fleet-to-spread-internet-access;
https://gigaom.com/2013/06/24/googles-other-plan-to-connect-the-unconnected-satellites/. Google has the deep pockets to follow through
and many factors now favor non-terrestrial options rather than handicap them.
Google can
combine low earth orbiting satellites, blimps, drones and whatnot to cobble
together a near complete footprint, not just one serving equatorial locations.
Innovators, such as Iridium, Globalstar and Thuraya have proved the concept
even if they led on a bleeding edge of innovation. Motorola showed that it could manufacture
satellites on an assembly line, “off the rack” basis instead of designer,
one-off birds. Inter-satellite linking works
instead of each satellite having to make a downward transmission. Handsets have shrunk as has the cost of low
earth orbiting (“LEO”) satellite networks.
More
important perhaps we now have a better sense of how far terrestrial broadband
can penetrate the hinterland, the cost of securing rural backhaul and
challenges even for 4G and 5G networks to handle full motion video and peak
demand.
By way of
full disclosure, before accepting a professorial position at Penn State I
worked for Motorola on the Iridium project.
I preached the LEO gospel at the International Telecommunication Union
and the FCC. Ample spectrum now exists
to support mobile satellites and the relative close proximity to earth makes LEOs
a low latency inter-modal alternative to terrestrial options.
If Leo
Google enters the marketplace, it could disrupt many of the mergers aiming to
buy out the competition and “stabilize” the marlketplace.
