Bloomberg Businessweek - USA (2020-01-27)

T E C H N O L O G Y

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Edited by

Jeff Muskus

BloombergBusinessweek January 27, 2020

Foryears,paradesofcompanieshavebeentrying

tocreateanall-encompassingglobalwirelessnet-

workthatwouldhavethepowertoconnectevery

imaginableobjecttotheinternet,reachingplaces

impervioustocelltowersandfiber-opticcables.

SiliconValleystartupSkyloTechnologiesInc.says

it’scometheclosestsofar.

TheSanMateocompany’ssmallbutpowerful

antenna,whichit unveiledonJan. 21 afterthree

yearsofdevelopmentinsecrecy,canconnectto

priceysatellite-basedinternetservicesandrelay

theirbandwidthtohundredsofotherdevices.

Similartechnologyis alreadyonthemarket,but

Skylo’s founders say theirs does the job way better

for way less. “If this type of connection was avail-

able for a few dollars per month, it would open

up entirely new markets for people who are com-

pletely unconnected and underserved,” says Chief

Executive Officer Parthsarathi Trivedi.

Satellite services have long served people liv-

ing on islands, vacationing on cruise ships, or hik-

ing in the mountains. Typically, the equipment to

run these systems costs thousands of dollars and

requires bulky antennas that must be manually

angled in certain directions. The Skylo antenna,

essentially a flat circuit board about the size of a

dinner plate, uses software to lock onto satellites so

it can transmit data to nearby devices via Wi-Fi or

Bluetooth. Customers will need to buy the antenna,

which costs less than $100, then pay for Skylo’s ser-

vice, which starts at $1 for a limited amount of data.

The antenna is meant to be easy enough for cus-

tomers to install themselves by, say, bolting it onto

the roof of a boat or truck.

Cheap Internet,

Anywhere

● Skylo says its tiny antennas

can distribute good-enough

access in far-flung areas

for cheap

Trivedi

This is a logistics play, not the kind of effort to

get everyone using Facebook that’s become so

fraught over the past few years. Skylo says it’s not

trying to deliver high-speed internet to homes or

buildings. It’s more interested in allowing boats at

sea or truckers on rural routes to send and receive

short bursts of data for cheap. (No Netflix in the

Sahara, unfortunately.) Its investors, including

Innovation Endeavors, SoftBank, and Boeing’s ven-

ture capital arm, HorizonX, have bet $116 million so

far that Skylo’s technology will be cheap enough to

attract millions of customers who have sparse wire-

less access otherwise and little in the way of dispos-

able income.

The company has spent months conducting

tests of its hardware and service in Southeast Asia

and elsewhere. In India, trucking companies are

using hubs to track their fleets and make pickup