Add Millions More to the Musk Account

           A Feb. 11th New York Times article missed a sizeable subsidy from the Federal Communications Commission that will add millions of dollars more to subsidies flowing to Elon Musk’s commercial ventures.  See (Elon Musk’s Business Empire Scores Benefits Under Trump Shake-Up; https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/us/politics/elon-musk-companies-conflicts.html.

            Under new leadership, the FCC will reverse a prior determination that Starlink, does qualify for universal service funding, because the low earth orbiting network has substantially higher cost of service compared to terrestrial options, and it does not meet baseline requirements on data speed and reliability. This means Mr. Musk's Starlink venture will qualify for over $800 million in subsidies aiming to bridge the Digital Divide.  

            Consistent with FCC Chairman Carr's game plan, set out in the Heritage Foundation Project 2025, https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf, the FCC will exempt Starlink from essential environmental regulations. When launching thousands of satellites, Starlink significantly adds toxic gas into the atmosphere.  These satellites have a short operational life and their descent back to earth releases more toxicity from the incomplete vaporization of aluminum and other particles.  

 

Leo Google

           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.