Satellite

UK operator BT teamed up with satellite company OneWeb to explore how the latter’s service could help close broadband gaps in areas beyond the reach of its mobile and fiber networks. Working together under a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), the companies aim to determine how connectivity from OneWeb’s constellation could be used to deliver increased coverage and capacity to consumers and businesses in remote areas across the UK. In addition to using OneWeb’s technology to improve mobile service, they aim to explore other connectivity options including fixed wireless access broadband.

A bipartisan pair of Colorado lawmakers want the Justice Department (DOJ) to investigate T-Mobile's plans to shut down a network used by Dish customers. T-Mobile agreed to help Dish stand up its own 5G network as a condition of obtaining approval for the Sprint merger, but Dish argues that T-Mobile is putting its customers at risk with its shutdown plans.

Ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), and Mike Rounds (R-SD) introduced the Recognizing and Ensuring Taxpayer Access to Infrastructure Necessary for GPS and Satellite Communications (RETAIN GPS) Act (S.2166). The April 2020 Ligado Order from the Federal Communications Commission recognized the likelihood of interference to GPS signals and requires Ligado Networks to pay the federal government the costs for repairs.

The largest pay-TV providers in the US – representing about 95% of the market – lost about 1,895,000 net video subscribers in 1Q 2021. The top pay-TV providers now account for about 78.7 million subscribers – with the top seven cable companies having 43.1 million video subscribers, other traditional pay-TV services having about 28.9 million subscribers, and the top publicly reporting Internet-delivered (vMVPD) pay-TV services having about 6.7 million subscribers.

Not everyone is thrilled with Starlink or SpaceX. Some reviews complain that the service is unreliable and can be slow. Astronomers are concerned that the thousands of satellites that Starlink and similar services plan to deploy will obscure their vision of the sky; others worry that the satellites will add to space that is already too crowded, and increase the risk of collisions.

Starlink, a new satellite internet service from SpaceX, is a spectacular technical achievement that might one day ______. But right now it is also very much a beta product that is unreliable, inconsistent, and foiled by even the merest suggestion of trees. The Verge has not written a story about broadband access or telecom policy in recent memory without a chorus of commenters responding that Starlink would fix it in some way. Access gap?

SpaceX has received more than 500,000 orders for Starlink broadband service. The preorders required a $99 deposit for service that would be available in the second half of 2021. The 500,000 total orders presumably include both US residents and people in other countries; we asked SpaceX for more details and will update this article if we get a response. A preorder doesn't guarantee that you'll get service, and slots are limited in each geographic region because of capacity limits.

Starlink is still in beta phase, but Ookla decided to use data from Speedtest Intelligence to investigate Q1 2021 performance in the US and Canada to see if the program is living up to expectations. In the US  during Q1 2021, median download speeds from Starlink ranged from 40.36 Mbps in Columbia County, Oregon to 93.09 Mbps in Shasta County, California.

SpaceX was granted permission to use a lower orbit for Starlink satellites, as regulators agreed with SpaceX that the change will improve broadband speed and latency while making it easier to minimize orbital debris.

Elon Musk’s internet satellite venture has spawned an unlikely alliance of competitors, regulators, and experts who say the billionaire is building a near-monopoly that is threatening space safety and the environment. The Starlink project, owned by Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp.