But this new wave of spaced-based internet
faces hurdles. It is expensive to launch,
technologically complex and could prove too
costly for the very people it hopes to reach.
And then there’s space junk. More on that in
a moment.
Satellite internet already exists, dominated by a
handful of companies like HughesNet and Viasat
that have huge, expensive satellites sitting 22,000
miles (35,000 kilometers) from Earth and covering
big territories on the ground. But the service is
expensive and limited, comes with data caps and
lags, and doesn’t have many users.
The new satellites are smaller, cheaper, and closer
to Earth, so theoretically signals travel faster
and applications like online gaming that need
instant responses would work better. And they
have some heavyweight backers. In addition to
Amazon and SpaceX — the company of eccentric
billionaire and Tesla founder Elon Musk — the
race has also been joined by OneWeb, which is
backed by investors including Virgin founder
Richard Branson, U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm and
Japanese tech conglomerate SoftBank.
But the industry is still in its infancy, and
at least three years away from widespread
commercial service, said Kerri Cahoy, professor
of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, and even
further from making any money.
“I would be surprised if something were
profitable in 10 years,” she said. There are also
competing efforts at extending connectivity,
including Google with its Loon balloons, which
are solar-powered cell towers made of plastic
sheets that float on the winds, and others
working on solar-powered drones.