Norm: I saw the 1/2 on Saturday...was quite informative with a geat sales pitch.
Also, we know how Bill Gates is setting his future sites on the satellite community in general. Here's a clip from Motorola and how they view his idea and theirs.
Motorola set to challenge Teledesic
INTERSPACE via Individual Inc. -- Motorola is soon to take the wraps
off what is promised to be a satellite-based broadband data distribution
system and architecture that the company believes will pose a serious
threat to Bill Gates' and Craig McCaw's much touted Teledesic.
A Motorola source describes a highly specified architecture that will
offer broadband multimedia serivces to consumers and small businesses,
as well as multinationals, PTTs and other public telephony operators.
The number of satellites in the system was not disclosed, although it is
"many fewer than the original 840 proposed by Teledesic under its
original plan."
Asked how the new system will compare with the M-Star system
revealed last year, a company insider replied: "The new system and
architecture will eclipse M-Star." M-Star is to operate in the 40- 50GHz
range and will form part of the new system which is characterised as a
hybrid 40-50 GHz and 20-30 GHz Ka/Ku system that operates in both
the LEO and GEO. While it is unclear whether the new system was
envisaged at the time of the M-Star filings in September 1996 (Interspace
601), the source says that "certainly, the M-Star filings served a tactical
purpose."
The new project is said to encompass all-new compenents including
space to space links, space to ground infrastructure, terrestrial ground
stations and a "family of customer premise equipment." M-Sat is to be a
global LEO satellite system intended to provide voice and high-speed
data services to users worldwide.
The $6.1 billion system would use 72 satellites in inclined orbits 810
miles above the Earth, according to Motorola's filing with the FCC, and
would allow for two separate service categories: the first including voice
and data to service providers or business customers at 2.048 Mbps, with
either point-to-point or broadcast applications; the second offering a
51.84 Mbps backhaul service for aggregating traffic from multiple
sources.
Customers would include businesses in need of private networks for
high-speed distribution of documents or computer data and corporate
hub networks for applications such as point-of-sale credit approval, an
application currently handled by geostationary VSAT systems. At the
time of the filing, Motorola said it hoped to launch the satellites - which
it would build in-house through its satellite manufacturing unit - in 1999,
with service beginning in 2000. At the time it forecast revenues of $36
billion in 10 years.
The manufacturer said it wants to use the LEO to allow "relatively small,
low-power and low-cost ground terminals", and to ensure that
transmission delays from a terminal to the satellite and back would be
comparable to terrestrial broadband services. M-Star terminals would
have antenna sizes ranging from 66cm to 1.5m.
M-Star would operate in the "millimetre wave" frequencies using three
bands that already have global satellite allocations. The service link
would operate in the FSS bands of 37.5 GHz to 40.5 GHz and 47.2 GHz
and 50.2 GHz. Inter-satellite links would use the intersatellite band that
straddles the portion of spectrum between 59 GHz and 64 GHz.
Motorola's choice of millimetre wave frequencies for M-Star allows the
company to carry substantially higher amounts of data than in lower
bands, and to avoid the increasingly difficult co-ordination procedures
necessary in lower regions of the spectrum. However, millimetre wave
frequencies are line-of-sight and susceptible to blockage by rainstorms or
buildings.
Some experts say, however, that the higher gain associated with the
frequencies to be used for M-Star could offset the atmospheric
interference issues.
M-Star was the company's third ambitious satellite system in the past
few years. Motorola is a 25 per cent backer in the $4.5 billion Iridium
project, and is also developing a Ka-band (28 GHz) network of
geostationary satellites called Millennium to provide broadband
communications.
It appears that the new project is an amalgam of both technologies - it is
said to have "taken Iridium technology and evolved it". For example,
with regard to intersatellite communications, the new system will not use
the RF frequencies used by Iridium. Otherwise, the satellites will be
heavier, more powerful and will enjoy a longer lifespan.
The source said the Iridium project will be unaffected by the new
development, adding that Iridium 2, which is meant to add new
capabilities to the system using the same satellites, "is well on the way".
The financing behind the new project is also under wraps for the time
being, but it is undersood that there will be a degree of 'vendor financing'.
The launch date of the new project remains secret, although two of the
three necessary spectrum filings have already been made. However the
operational, terminal and country-specific filings are still in the works.
Motorola is said to be confident of gaining the necessary regulatory
approvals as is it not intending to become a service operator, nor is it
seen as a monopolist.
After a three-day delay due to winds and thick cloud, Thor 2 was
successfully launched aboard a McDonnell Douglas Delta 2 on May 20
from Cape Canaveral. The three-stage vehicle lifted off from Space
Launch Complex 17A at 6:39pm EDT, boosting Telenor's Hughes-built
spacecraft into a geosynchronous transfer orbit.
Telenor Satellite Services managing director Knut Reed admitted to being
"extremely relieved" that the launch, severely delayed while the Air
Force carried out its lengthy investigation under a veil of secrecy, had
finally taken place (Interspace 618). The Thor 2 mission was also the
first Cape Canaveral launch directed from the new operations building
about four miles from the launch pad.
The failure on January 17 of a GPS satellite for the US Air Force caused
$45 million in damage, destroying 10 per cent of the facility, and led to
the use of the new facility in May rather than in August.
Prior launches had been directed from the former blockhouse, which was
built in the late 1950s to launch the Thor intermediate range ballistic
missile, predecessor of Delta. |
