Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, watch out. Starlink is targeting your territory.
The low Earth orbit satellite outfit owned by Elon Musk's SpaceX has received approval from the Federal Communications Commission to deploy 15,000 satellites to create a direct-to-device (D2D) network that could compete with the leading wireless carriers on terra firma.
The federal agency also waived a rule requiring satellite companies to lease spectrum from an earthbound company to provide D2D services. Now SpaceX can use its own spectrum for the service.
In addition, SpaceX has agreed to acquire low-frequency cellular spectrum to support ground-based coverage for its planned mobile service, including indoors. The deal requires FCC approval.
"The approval is significant for many reasons," said Dimitris Mavrakis, a senior research director at ABI Research , a global technology intelligence firm.
"It is an approval of a massive constellation in a very low Earth orbit, lower than typical Starlink satellites," he told TechNewsWorld. "These new satellites will be deployed specifically for D2D services in this orbit, making this plan the first of its kind."
"Moreover," he continued, "SpaceX now owns its own spectrum for D2D, bought from EchoStar recently, and has permission to deploy its D2D satellites. It's the first satellite constellation aiming to compete against terrestrial networks."
Approval to deploy 15,000 satellites gives SpaceX the scale to move from a niche dead-zone supplement to a credible nationwide full-service telecom provider, explained Ram Chandra Sachan, a network and security architect for a multinational information technology services provider in Bengaluru, India.
"Combined with the FCC's waiver removing the requirement to lease spectrum from a ground-based operator, SpaceX can now own its full-service stack — spectrum and backend infrastructure — while also leveraging Starlink's existing customer relationships," he told TechNewsWorld.
"The waiver of the lease provision is huge," declared Jim Dunstan, general counsel of TechFreedom , a technology advocacy group in Washington, D.C.
He explained that the FCC designed D2D services to ride on the back of existing terrestrial licenses, ostensibly to avoid interference.
"But that has never held water, since cellular systems — both towers and receivers — are absolutely designed to reject all but the strongest signal," he told TechNewsWorld. "That means that there was never really a possibility of interference into the terrestrial cellular networks, because the satellite signal would always be the weakest signal."
"That requirement was really the FCC's way of placating terrestrial operators and keeping them in the driver's seat," he contended.
"The waiver, if it holds through subsequent licenses, means that SpaceX is no longer a carrier-to-carrier [B2B] provider," he continued. "It can go directly to consumers, and there's lots of talk that SpaceX has an eye on that market."
"If SpaceX can make this work — and there are still some significant technical hurdles out there to get D2D service to be anything close to as good as terrestrial wireless in terms of sound quality — they could become a true fourth competitor," he added.
One of those hurdles is indoor coverage. "A phone has a tiny antenna and limited transmit power, and the link to a satellite hundreds of kilometers away is already near the edge," explained Mohamed Idrissi, a telecom network architect in Paris and founder of 5GWorldPr…