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Amazon to acquire Globalstar and expand Amazon Leo satellite network

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Re: Amazon to acquire Globalstar and expand Amazon Leo satellite network

#51

Post by direwolf20 »

cubefox wrote: post #35
jameslk wrote: post #13

SpaceX and Amazon seem to be headed for competing with traditional telecoms and ISPs. I'm betting the next acquisition target will be AST SpaceMobile. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see big telecom/ISP mergers pass regulatory approval now that they have competition from the heavens

> SpaceX and Amazon seem to be headed for competing with traditional telecoms and ISPs. Traditional ISPs already have a nice network of copper and fiber optic cables. I don't think satellites offer any advantage to most people here, except for those living in an area with slow wired connections.

It's all about bypassing regulations, just like Uber and AirBNB. Most US ISPs have old copper cables that only support DSL. Upgrading them means digging up the streets and that's expensive and a legal minefield. And those ISPs are local monopolies so why would they spend money just to keep the same number of customers who are locked in anyway?

Re: Amazon to acquire Globalstar and expand Amazon Leo satellite network

#52

Post by ericmay »

iso1631 wrote: post #28
sublinear wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Defense systems in space need to be... in space. I don't think people are looking at this the right way. They need to be inaccessible to terrestrial and air weapons, have lower latency, not be dependent on power plants, etc.

Far easier for someone like Iran or China or the US to take out an LEO satellite than an underground data centre, or even a surface on in the case of DCs in US or China.

I don’t think Iran has the capability to shoot down LEO satellites. Kind of weird to loop them in with China here other than China helping Iran.

Re: Amazon to acquire Globalstar and expand Amazon Leo satellite network

#53

Post by reportingsjr »

direwolf20 wrote: post #51
cubefox wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SpaceX and Amazon seem to be headed for competing with traditional telecoms and ISPs. Traditional ISPs already have a nice network of copper and fiber optic cables. I don't think satellites offer any advantage to most people here, except for those living in an area with slow wired connections.

It's all about bypassing regulations, just like Uber and AirBNB. Most US ISPs have old copper cables that only support DSL. Upgrading them means digging up the streets and that's expensive and a legal minefield. And those ISPs are local monopolies so why would they spend money just to keep the same number of customers who are locked in anyway?

I don't think that is very true in this day in age. Here in Cincinnati, the vast majority of houses now have fiber run to them. There are still some stragglers, but that's mainly because slumlord apartment owners don't feel like dealing with upgrades.

Re: Amazon to acquire Globalstar and expand Amazon Leo satellite network

#54

Post by crowcroft »

Naive question - let's assume this all becomes a really competitive market and 10+ companies are pumping satellites into orbit.

Are we going to run out of space?

At some point it probably makes the most sense for there to be one wholesaler of satellite connections and then many retailers right? The market skews towards being an international natural monopoly, right?

Re: Amazon to acquire Globalstar and expand Amazon Leo satellite network

#55

Post by gangstead »

supernova87a wrote: post #38

I remain convinced that the main successful business model in the satellite communications industry is to wait for the first incarnation of the satellite company to fail / go bankrupt / flounder, and then be part of the 2nd round of financing or ownership that comes in to buy it out and operate it... I don't know why this is the pattern but it seems to have played out several times over the last 2 decades that I've c…

They were about $3 billion in the hole when they went through bankruptcy in 2002 and the new owners bought it for $43 million (from Wikipedia). In 2025 they earned a return of $-8 million on that investment (plus any other money raised since then, such as $1 billion from Apple). So even the second incarnation doesn't seem to be a good business model even with free satellites.

The business model that works seems to be spectrum gambling. Do the minimum amount of satellite investment for decades until someone with a real business plan comes along and has to go through you to get it.

Re: Amazon to acquire Globalstar and expand Amazon Leo satellite network

#56

Post by lxgr »

See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47770323 My comment from there:

Interesting, I was expecting Apple to eventually buy them.

Still, makes sense to me: The aging Globalstar satellite constellation itself is probably not very interesting to Amazon, but their global L-band and S-band spectrum is, as are their existing licenses to operate a mobile satellite service in most countries.

Re: Amazon to acquire Globalstar and expand Amazon Leo satellite network

#57

Post by lxgr »

crowcroft wrote: post #54

Naive question - let's assume this all becomes a really competitive market and 10+ companies are pumping satellites into orbit. Are we going to run out of space? At some point it probably makes the most sense for there to be one wholesaler of satellite connections and then many retailers right? The market skews towards being an international natural monopoly, right?

I'd say there's plenty of room for competitors along multiple dimensions: Geopolitical security (this alone will probably preclude a single monopoly), price and lack of a moat (once a monopolist starts jacking up prices, there's an immediate incentive for an alternative), delivery profile (store-and-forward for IoT-like use cases vs. dumb pipe vs. in-space forwarding), frequency band (L- or S-band for direct to device vs. Ku/Ka band requiring directional terminals) etc.

The only thing that's actually scarce and that could be monopolized rather easily is frequency spectrum. In fact, I suspect this to be a frequency/operating license driven acquisition.

Re: Amazon to acquire Globalstar and expand Amazon Leo satellite network

#58

Post by Zigurd »

supernova87a wrote: post #38

I remain convinced that the main successful business model in the satellite communications industry is to wait for the first incarnation of the satellite company to fail / go bankrupt / flounder, and then be part of the 2nd round of financing or ownership that comes in to buy it out and operate it... I don't know why this is the pattern but it seems to have played out several times over the last 2 decades that I've c…

Iridium was first. It was a cautionary lesson. Listen to Patrick Boyle regarding Starlink. Not everyone was paying attention in class.

Re: Amazon to acquire Globalstar and expand Amazon Leo satellite network

#59

Post by newpavlov »

crowcroft wrote: post #54

Naive question - let's assume this all becomes a really competitive market and 10+ companies are pumping satellites into orbit. Are we going to run out of space? At some point it probably makes the most sense for there to be one wholesaler of satellite connections and then many retailers right? The market skews towards being an international natural monopoly, right?

>Are we going to run out of space?

In a certain sense, we do. Pumping thousands satellites to LEO increases probability of triggering the Kessler syndrome. Luckily, LEO orbits are also self-cleaning on reasonable time scales (decades), so I think that some day we will trigger it (potentially, with some "help" from anti-satellite weapons) after which some kind of international regulation will be introduced to prevent repeating it in future.

Re: Amazon to acquire Globalstar and expand Amazon Leo satellite network

#60

Post by lxgr »

Egonex wrote: post #36

People think that with better D2D technology, emergency and telemetry messages will still be short and to the point. These messages will not be like streaming videos. When companies work together on things, like spectrum and constellations and handset deals it changes how people get billed.. It does not change the fact that people want to keep the messages small when millions of devices are using the same channel. I…

With small enough spot beams, the difference between a large rural cell and a very narrow direct-to-device spot beam footprint is really not that big anymore. Starlink apparently already offers video calling over direct to cell in the US via T-Mobile!
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