{"id":65623,"date":"2018-03-27T18:14:39","date_gmt":"2018-03-27T10:14:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/astranis-targets-cellular-backhaul-with-geo-smallsats\/"},"modified":"2018-03-27T18:14:39","modified_gmt":"2018-03-27T10:14:39","slug":"astranis-targets-cellular-backhaul-with-geo-smallsats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/astranis-targets-cellular-backhaul-with-geo-smallsats\/","title":{"rendered":"Astranis Targets Cellular Backhaul with GEO Smallsats"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Unlike SpaceX<\/strong> and OneWeb<\/strong>, NewSpace startup Astranis<\/strong> is sending its smallsats all the way out to Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) to deliver broadband internet. From there, the company intends to work alongside other satellite operators and Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to meet demand for cellular backhaul.<\/p>\n

According to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) John Gedmark, Astranis\u2019 primary mission is a familiar one: to bring online the 4 billion people that are currently without internet today. When it comes to unserved and underserved populations, many automatically think of rural communities in regions such as Africa or South America. But for Gedmark, the problem is closer to home, too. \u201cI\u2019m personally from the state of Kentucky. If you go to Kentucky today there are still a million people who do not have broadband access,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

To close this digital divide both domestically and overseas, the company\u2019s founding team wanted to find \u201cthe most direct route to lowering the cost of satellite bandwidth,\u201d Gedmark said. So, rather than plan out and launch a massive mega-constellation at the outset, the company is working in increments \u2014 launching small chunks of bandwidth over specific regions, and adding more over time as needed.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"\"
John Gedmark, Astranis CEO. Photo: Astranis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Not only does this reduce capex pressure for Astranis, it also enables the company to \u201cmore immediately start putting a dent in the problem\u201d instead of waiting for multiple satellite deployments to begin offering services.<\/p>\n

Each smallsat will clock in at around 300 kg, and will carry four to six Ka-band spot beams and broader Ku-band beams. \u201cWe want to be the first to really bring V-band into play,\u201d as well as intersatellite links in GEO later on in the developmental timeline, Gedmark said.<\/p>\n

Gedmark believes traditional full-sized satellites in GEO have become too large, risky and expensive in the current market. The bigger the satellite, the more a company\u2019s business depends on it functioning perfectly. Plus, the cost of assembly goes up in turn, as well as the time to procure and build the spacecraft. And any operator that sets aside $300 million for a new GEO satellite must be absolutely certain its capacity will be filled, otherwise it\u2019s impossible to justify the investment.<\/p>\n

Smallsats, on the other hand, offer a bit more flexibility. Not only are they significantly cheaper and faster to manufacture, but also \u201cyou can put one up and test out the market before making a further investment,\u201d Gedmark said. \u201cIt gives you this ability to make things more granular in a way that we\u2019ve seen in other industries but we haven\u2019t seen GEO yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Astranis\u2019 primary business case rests on using its satellite bandwidth for cellular backhaul. Gedmark believes it comes down to a matter of cost: the reason MNOs are lacking coverage in many regions is because it\u2019s economically unfeasible to build fiber out to far-flung cell towers. If, however, the bandwidth is cheap enough, MNOs would be \u201cmore than happy\u201d to expand the coverage of their networks using satellite, he said.<\/p>\n

Astranis will also partner with other satellite companies to take advantage of vacant orbital slots. A number of entities own spectrum that goes unused because they can\u2019t justify pulling together capital for a new satellite. To ensure these companies can reap value from the spectrum they own, Astranis will build and launch satellites for them to use for their own services.<\/p>\n

Gedmark isn\u2019t particularly worried about the latency associated with GEO because the large majority of internet traffic, such as social media and streaming video, is not latency sensitive. For the small sliver of traffic that is, including video games and voice calls, there are other potential solutions, he said, such as microwave point-to-point. For now, the company is targeting the \u201clow hanging fruit\u201d of cellular backhaul \u2014 which, coincidentally, is the biggest market, Gedmark said.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Astranis announced the closing of its Series A round led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz<\/strong>. The company also launched its first prototype on an Indian Space Research Organization<\/strong> (ISRO) Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) in January. Testing has progressed smoothly since then, Gedmark said, laying the foundation for additional deployments by the end of 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unlike SpaceX and OneWeb, NewSpace startup Astranis is sending its smallsats all the way out to Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) to deliver broadband internet. From there, the company intends to work alongside other satellite operators and Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to meet demand for cellular backhaul. According to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) John Gedmark, Astranis\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65623"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}