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Google and Facebook Cancel Satellite Plans
schwit1 writes: Facebook and Google have both cancelled their plans to build satellite systems to provide global internet access.
It appears Google pulled out earlier this year, while Facebook's decision was revealed today (paywalled). Google remains a partner in Skybox, a space imaging company, as well as O3b, which is trying to provide internet using satellites.
"While Facebook’s cancelled project comes from the more traditional approach to satellite internet, the current hope of Wyler and other satellite entrepreneurs is that constellations made up of many small satellites could solve those two problems. They would offer faster service, since they are closer to earth than the typical communication satellites, which fly at high altitudes to maximize coverage; and they would cost less, since tiny satellites are typically less expensive than their larger siblings. But even this plan may over-promise—one of the pioneers of the satellite business, Martin Sweeting, chairman of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd., compared interest in small satellites to the froth on top of a cappuccino. The technical challenges to flying and operating a full-fledged constellation of them may still prove too difficult to surmount."
"While Facebook’s cancelled project comes from the more traditional approach to satellite internet, the current hope of Wyler and other satellite entrepreneurs is that constellations made up of many small satellites could solve those two problems. They would offer faster service, since they are closer to earth than the typical communication satellites, which fly at high altitudes to maximize coverage; and they would cost less, since tiny satellites are typically less expensive than their larger siblings. But even this plan may over-promise—one of the pioneers of the satellite business, Martin Sweeting, chairman of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd., compared interest in small satellites to the froth on top of a cappuccino. The technical challenges to flying and operating a full-fledged constellation of them may still prove too difficult to surmount."
But Motorola did it. (Ducks.) (Ducks 65 more times.)
But the history of Iridium tells a tale that Google appears to have listened to.
It's 66 satellites, not 77 (the actual atomic number of Iridium, the purported reason for the name) because 66 satellites are cheaper to launch and maintain than 77. And still, the company went bankrupt because they couldn't get customers willing to subscribe to the service. And the successor company depends on the US DoD as a major customer -- 23% of their 2012 revenue. That's quite a lifeline -- not one I envision Google's corporate culture rushing out to embrace.
The technical challenges aren't hard, notwithstanding the validity of the "it's rocket science" jokes. The financial and market challenges are the real ones. It's not the same as sticking a website out there and labeling it "Google Foobar (beta)". It makes money from Day One or it gets the hose again.
Google didn't abandon the idea, they invested $900 million in SpaceX instead of trying to do it themselves. And SpaceX isn't going to try to communicate directly to the handset, they are creating a worldwide, LEO based, Internet backbone. It's a completely different business model that will leverage lower cost launches and lots of existing real-estate and infrastructure (Tesla super charger stations and probably some SolarCity projects as well) to bootstrap in the US and much of the developed world. Profits from the project will then likely be used to expand into the developing world. And with almost a billion dollars backing the project it does not have to be profitable from day one.
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