Eutelsat OneWeb: Constellation - General Thread

[ChrisWilson68]

Would anyone in the quasi-free world want to buy internet data service from the Chinese government and be subject to the censorship of the communist dictatorship. That would give the Chinese dictatorship the ability to censor data worldwide if their LEO constellation became widely used. Why would anyone buy it with that risk?

There are a lot of people in the world who have enough anti-American sentiment that they think the US is just as bad as China.  China pushes that message with a lot of money behind it.  For people who are anti-American, why would a Chinese LEO constellation be seen as any worse than an American LEO constellation?  It wouldn't be marketed as "from the Chinese government" any more than Huawei 5G equipment is marketed that way.  Huawei has had some high-profile losses in its attempts to sell communication equipment over security concerns, but it has also had wins in a lot of the world.

[Asteroza]

Would anyone in the quasi-free world want to buy internet data service from the Chinese government and be subject to the censorship of the communist dictatorship. That would give the Chinese dictatorship the ability to censor data worldwide if their LEO constellation became widely used. Why would anyone buy it with that risk?

There are a lot of people in the world who have enough anti-American sentiment that they think the US is just as bad as China.  China pushes that message with a lot of money behind it.  For people who are anti-American, why would a Chinese LEO constellation be seen as any worse than an American LEO constellation?  It wouldn't be marketed as "from the Chinese government" any more than Huawei 5G equipment is marketed that way.  Huawei has had some high-profile losses in its attempts to sell communication equipment over security concerns, but it has also had wins in a lot of the world.

Soft power play by underwriting/undercutting telecomms costs to bring africa and south america online is nothing to laugh at. One belt road and all the infrastructure plays in africa show the soft power push being done now. There's also a certain acceptance to importing chinese style information controls in certain regions as well. But that could be done without acquiring OneWeb per se (go 100% domestic sourcing), they would just be in the same ITU frequency priority boat as Bezos with Project Kuiper. Whether having that ITU priority is valuable enough to the soft power endgame, is a combo of economic and political calculus.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1244632083689078785

OneWeb Satellites, the OneWeb/Airbus joint venture established to build OneWeb’s satellites, says in a statement this morning it has implemented “temporary furloughs” of staff, but says that is due to COVID-19 and not OneWeb’s Ch. 11 bankruptcy filing.

[Oli]

It looks like the business case for LEO internet constellations is more than questionable.

[Rondaz]

Why should @JeffBezos acquire @OneWeb as invididual rather than @amazon?

https://twitter.com/Megaconstellati/status/1244640814350979072

https://twitter.com/Megaconstellati/status/1244643211630522368

[high road]

It looks like the business case for LEO internet constellations is more than questionable.

A competitor getting their infrastructure up there far faster than anyone else could ever hope to, doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Better to wait, see how it plays out and whether there are viable niches left.

[Oli]

It looks like the business case for LEO internet constellations is more than questionable.

A competitor getting their infrastructure up there far faster than anyone else could ever hope to, doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Better to wait, see how it plays out and whether there are viable niches left.

"wait and see" is what others do. OneWeb has already invested billions and deployed according to plan as far as I can tell.

[ThePonjaX]

It looks like the business case for LEO internet constellations is more than questionable.

The businesses case is stronger than ever after the COVID19 pandemic. The actual infrastructure is reaching his limit because all the people working from home.
And it's not about a country, half of more than people who supports corporations like IBM, Microsoft, google, Amazon, JPM live  in another countries. A lot of companies has the model follow the sun in place:  Let's say has people to support American works hours in North/South America, some people on Hong Kong/India to support Asian Markets, some people on Ireland to support European markets.
Now it's difficult to get money for new infrastructure but all they know for the next pandemic a better infrastructure has to be in place because the natural increase of traffic

[Oli]

It looks like the business case for LEO internet constellations is more than questionable.

The businesses case is stronger than ever after the COVID19 pandemic. The actual infrastructure is reaching his limit because all the people working from home.
And it's not about a country, half of more than people who supports corporations like IBM, Microsoft, google, Amazon, JPM live  in another countries. A lot of companies has the model follow the sun in place:  Let's say has people to support American works hours in North/South America, some people on Hong Kong/India to support Asian Markets, some people on Ireland to support European markets.
Now it's difficult to get money for new infrastructure but all they know for the next pandemic a better infrastructure has to be in place because the natural increase of traffic

The pandemic will pass and there won't be another one for a decade. Airlines and cruise lines, the primary customers for low latency satellite internet, will go bankrupt and won't invest anything.

[ThePonjaX]

It looks like the business case for LEO internet constellations is more than questionable.

The businesses case is stronger than ever after the COVID19 pandemic. The actual infrastructure is reaching his limit because all the people working from home.
And it's not about a country, half of more than people who supports corporations like IBM, Microsoft, google, Amazon, JPM live  in another countries. A lot of companies has the model follow the sun in place:  Let's say has people to support American works hours in North/South America, some people on Hong Kong/India to support Asian Markets, some people on Ireland to support European markets.
Now it's difficult to get money for new infrastructure but all they know for the next pandemic a better infrastructure has to be in place because the natural increase of traffic

The pandemic will pass and there won't be another one for a decade. Airlines and cruise lines, the primary customers for low latency satellite internet, will go bankrupt and won't invest anything.

I disagree. The primary customers are corporations: IT, banks, financial ones and you don't prepare for the next pandemic starting in 8 years, you start now.

[Rondaz]

.@OneWeb: We'll use Chapter 11 to ride out Covid-19 storm, then solicit bids for our assets - filings in Ku/Ka V-, E-bands, MEO & LEO. But 2 of 3 biggest secured-debt holders, @SoftBank & @Airbus, waist-deep in their own issues.

https://twitter.com/pbdes/status/1244682831336484864

[Oli]

It looks like the business case for LEO internet constellations is more than questionable.

The businesses case is stronger than ever after the COVID19 pandemic. The actual infrastructure is reaching his limit because all the people working from home.
And it's not about a country, half of more than people who supports corporations like IBM, Microsoft, google, Amazon, JPM live  in another countries. A lot of companies has the model follow the sun in place:  Let's say has people to support American works hours in North/South America, some people on Hong Kong/India to support Asian Markets, some people on Ireland to support European markets.
Now it's difficult to get money for new infrastructure but all they know for the next pandemic a better infrastructure has to be in place because the natural increase of traffic

The pandemic will pass and there won't be another one for a decade. Airlines and cruise lines, the primary customers for low latency satellite internet, will go bankrupt and won't invest anything.

I disagree. The primary customers are corporations: IT, banks, financial ones and you don't prepare for the next pandemic starting in 8 years, you start now.

Not yet established customers. Also, why create excess capacity for a hypothetical event a decade from now? By then the West will hopefully be prepared to contain a novel virus.

[gongora]

The LEO constellations are not being done for pandemics.  There are plenty of other uses.  There are still many people in the world, including in industrialized countries, that don't have good broadband.

At least one Chinese constellation (Hongyan) was filed with the ITU a while ago, and they have put up a test sat.

[high road]

It looks like the business case for LEO internet constellations is more than questionable.

A competitor getting their infrastructure up there far faster than anyone else could ever hope to, doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Better to wait, see how it plays out and whether there are viable niches left.

"wait and see" is what others do. OneWeb has already invested billions and deployed according to plan as far as I can tell.

Exactly. It's those others that Oneweb, having sunk billions of dollars and less than half the infrastructure needed for a minimal service to show for it, is now hoping to convince to invest in them. That doesn't.mean the business case is questionnable, it's just very bad timing.

[ThePonjaX]

The LEO constellations are not being done for pandemics.  There are plenty of other uses.  There are still many people in the world, including in industrialized countries, that don't have good broadband.

I didn't say that. I say after the pandemic you have one more reason to build strong global communications infrastructure and if possible redundant. I know, I work in IT for a corporation.  We're using more resources than ever as we know another corporations too.

As any other risk you take it in account before these happens and build in the non-critical times.

[DistantTemple]

The LEO constellations are not being done for pandemics.  There are plenty of other uses.  There are still many people in the world, including in industrialized countries, that don't have good broadband.

I didn't say that. I say after the pandemic you have one more reason to build strong global communications infrastructure and if possible redundant. I know, I work in IT for a corporation.  We're using more resources than ever as we know another corporations too.

As any other risk you take it in account before these happens and build in the non-critical times.

During the pandemic, lots of people are being forced to become highly skilled and comfortable with online working. ISTM that afterwards there will be a significant fraction that will continue to use it at least partially. I guess the pandemic will slowly tail off, and moderate restrictions and "social responsibility" will mean online and home working will be the norm where possible for many months. As businesses come back to life, unnecessary travel will still be avoided. Thus afterwards good reliable fast internet will be much more of an expectation than before. Government programmes to provide it in all areas will continue.

[RocketGoBoom]

Exactly. It's those others that Oneweb, having sunk billions of dollars and less than half the infrastructure needed for a minimal service to show for it, is now hoping to convince to invest in them. That doesn't.mean the business case is questionnable, it's just very bad timing.

The failure of OneWeb, and at the same time the virus causing so much economic chaos, will likely put a hold on any other constellations getting funded in the near future ... perhaps for years.

The only other LEO constellation (besides SpaceX) that seems to still be doing anything is Telesat in Canada. They have funding from the Canadian govt and some pension funds. But they still have not even selected a manufacturer for their satellite design. With recent events, they might even abandon their LEO plans. New investors will be very hard to come by in this environment unless they have some plan to do it better or cheaper than SpaceX. Frankly, it is hard to picture that scenario happening anytime in the near future.

Elon seems to have the luck of the Irish with his timing. Right before all of this chaos started, he raised $2 billion for Tesla near the crazy high stock price of $760 per share (now at $500 ish). And he raised $500 million for SpaceX when he was only initially seeking $250 million. He closed that deal in late Feb - early March right before the market totally crashed. His timing was insanely lucky. Elon can keep rolling at full speed while everyone else is in standby mode.

[meekGee]

It looks like the business case for LEO internet constellations is more than questionable.

That's like saying that electric cars are bad business because Fisker or Faraday or someone else went bankrupt.

Or that rocketry are a bad business because of Kistler or Beal.

You can say it's not proven yet, but we've heard this song before too wrt to SpaceX...

The market is credible enough that there are multiple players, and the player that was in the weakest position just gave up the ghost - indicating exactly nothing.

[Asteroza]

It looks like the business case for LEO internet constellations is more than questionable.

That's like saying that electric cars are bad business because Fisker or Faraday or someone else went bankrupt.

Or that rocketry are a bad business because of Kistler or Beal.

You can say it's not proven yet, but we've heard this song before too wrt to SpaceX...

The market is credible enough that there are multiple players, and the player that was in the weakest position just gave up the ghost - indicating exactly nothing.

The startup death chasm, or perhaps Gartner's Trough of Disillusionment on their hype cycle curve...

[DistantTemple]

The question is how do they get them into space and how much each to launch.

F9 is a no go based on some tweets I've read.

Given the volume of launches required current and future LVs list prices for single launches a not valid.
For example buy 20 Vega and their $30m should come down to <$20m. Not only will build cost of LV drop also there will be large reduction in profit per launch eg from $10m to $5m.

(my bold)
Stunning follow on from above post. And very instructive to read early posts in this thread about contracts with Virgin Galactic etc for lots of launches.

But the F9 change from 2015 is stunning. (I don't know if the "F9 is a no go" is to do with confidence in F9 in 2015, or contractual/competition/company policy etc etc).