This episode of Telemetry Now, we're joined by Christian von der Ropp, an advocate for bringing hig-quality Internet connectivity to remote and underserved areas around the world. He's also the creator of Connect Saint Helena, an organization that eventually succeeded in bringing submarine telecommunications cable connectivity to Saint Helena Island and something that our very own Doug Madory has written extensively about.
Today, Christian works primarily in the low earth orbit communications satellite field, and both Doug Madory and I are very excited to have him on today. I'm Philip Gervasi, and this is Telemetry Now.
Christian and Doug, thanks so much for joining today on this latest episode of Telemetry Now. And, Christian, thanks so much. An honored guest and and I believe friends with, with Doug for quite a few years now, both professionally and and I believe you've just known each other, over the years. So that's that's really great, and I'm glad to have that connection now.
As we get into today's episode, which has a lot of really interesting information. I'm looking over the outline now, and I can't wait to get into some of these details. But I would love to hear, more about your your personal and professional background. Yes. In telecom, of course, but also maybe some of the projects and affiliations that that you have right now.
Yeah. First of all, thank you very much for having me, on your podcast. Much appreciated.
Yeah. What can I say? I've been a telecoms geek from the early days. I got my first modem in nineteen ninety four, a fourteen four k modem. So I remember the times of BBS mailboxes and dial up Internet.
I still know the AT commands.
And, yeah. So over the years, I followed the development of the Internet. I I actually studied law, but it brought me a lot and, always looked for ways to do, you know, some sidekicks in the telecoms world, installed networks and dormitories during university days, then later on went into the wholesale internet, industry. So, that was involving, you know, trans european connectivity, to internet exchanges. I actually participated in the establishment of an Internet exchange point in Sofia, Bulgaria that was later taken over by Megaport, an Australian, connectivity on demand provider for whom I joined, for whom I then worked.
And, yeah, after that I switched more into a consultancy role and, like, as an independent consultant worked on submarine cable projects, some with success that was the non profit side, The, for profit side was not so successful.
And, maybe six, seven years ago switched more into the satellite industry. That was, you know, when the gold rush around the LEO constellation started.
Right. And, the past six, seven years almost exclusively on, on LEO constellations and particularly on the ground segment. So that's the operational part where I've been busy but I'm also providing, you know, strategy advice to investors in the, satellite industry and and also, you know, to various other organizations and and startups.
So, yeah, in a nutshell, I would say, you know, very much, interested and focused on on telecoms infrastructure, and, you know, bringing Internet connectivity, into the, unconnected and underserved regions of this world.
Christian, I think, I think you and I I'm trying to recall, but I think you and I first got connected. I think you were working at for maybe the caucus cable system in Georgia or, was it a a Georgian Correct.
One of the the sort of providers?
Yeah. It was Sofia Connect, a Bulgarian wholesale connectivity provider that, had a exclusive arrangement with Caucasus online, a, Georgian company that owned the submarine cable across the Black Sea, and that cable, got a lot of interest and traction, in the days of, the Islamic State, when it spread through Iraq and Syria cut many of the terrestrial fiber routes to the Mediterranean and and basically cut off, entire regions of the Middle East, including, the north of Iraq, Kurdistan, from their uplinks. And that is where now we basically established a new route that, went from Bulgaria across the Black Sea into Georgia, Armenia, and then down into into Iraq, into the, Kurdistan region.
We'll we'll be sure to post a map in the, the show notes for everybody getting lost in the geography here. I think I think you and I, I, I think we got connected because we were comparing, like trading notes on connectivity in Iraq and Iran. You had some negotiations with Iranians. I don't have a lot of direct, you know, engagement with Iranian telecommunications folks.
But, Not in the head eye, I have to say.
Okay.
The Kurds back in the days managed to get across Iran to the Armenian border, so we were not involved in that and never provided any services to the Iranians.
That was, you know, something between the the Kurdish Iraqis and, the Iranians.
So that's so how about how about your current projects? You know, I I know you you, you maintain, like, the mega constellations accounts and social media, which follows the industry of, all the the lowest orbit mega constellations.
What, can you tell us about some of the the stuff you work on now?
Difficult. The strict NDA is in place.
So, what you what you can share?
I'm still working on, on layer constellations on the ground segments, of one in particular.
I'm working on, you know, some infrastructure projects, in the telecoms data center field.
And I have a couple of, you know, assignments for, consultancies, small consultancy Gervasi, mostly technical due diligence for some projects.
I think, I think we're gonna circle back and really get into the LEO stuff, satellite. But before we do that, I think, why don't we go through and tell the story of the submarine cable to Saint Helena?
So I I only learned about this from you. Probably a lot of people in the world only learned about this this issue, from you and the organization that you founded.
I wrote up a blog with a little bit of assistance from you a couple years ago when we when this cable came active after ten years of your, work.
It's kind of an amazing story, but, do you wanna set the set the stage here? What's what was the the challenge?
Although you would be in a better position to tell that because you wrote an excellent rep Thanks. Of, the entire project with a lot of details that even I didn't remember.
But, yeah, essentially, in when was that? Late two thousand eleven, the UK government announced that it would build an airport on the remote South Atlantic island of Saint Helena, best known as Napoleon Bonaparte's, last exile and place of death.
And that airport would have costed, I think, close to three hundred million US dollars to bring, basically, tourism to an island of four and a half thousand people and, you know, unlock economic development. At that point of time, the island was only reachable by, a royal mail ship, the last royal mail ship called RMS Saint Helena. And it took five days from Cape Town to get to the island and back, and you would only have one opportunity per month to get to the island and and back to the mainland.
So, yeah.
It's really almost medieval.
I mean, that's two thousand eleven, but that's really, like, a really like, I think it's hard for It is.
A lot of us were around in two thousand eleven, and it's hard to imagine a place where you can only reach after five days at sea to to get there.
Absolutely.
So I learned about the the airport and the massive investment and the plan to bring tourism to the island. And about the same week, I learned that, South Africans were planning a cable across the South Atlantic called the South Atlantic Express or ZIX, a cable that unfortunately still did not has not materialized.
But more out of curiosity, I wondered if there had been any efforts to lend that cable or lend a branch from that cable on the island because, you know, in the wider scheme, bringing tourism, unlocking economic development, And that was, you know, already back in two thousand eleven. That was fourteen years ago almost.
I thought, you know, without telecoms, without broadband Internet access, it will be very difficult to establish high spending tourism and promote the island and everything. And I thought, a submarine cable, you know, compared to the coast of the airport is is, you know, just a fraction and is, you know, highly complimentary.
So out of pure curiosity, I wrote to the South Africans developing the cable and Yaland government whether there were any considerations to lend that cable, and the answer was no.
So I thought, you know, that that needs to change and that opportunity needs to be highlighted to, you know, the the broader public and to decision makers in the UK because St. Helena is a a British overseas territory and to this state, totally dependent on financial grants from the motherland.
So, yeah, I wrote a few emails, and I And what were they using before? Like, what were they So they they had an Intelsat c band, connection of, I think, a megabit or something back in the days.
It was, ridiculously low, and and it remained, you know, underserved and and on a on a very small bandwidth until the cable was activated.
So, yeah, the the emails I sent did not, result in a huge, you know, echo, huge huge, feedback. So I decided, that opportunity needs to be promoted. So I launched a website, connect saint Helena dot org. Unfortunately, no longer reachable.
And, then I quickly got some media coverage in the UK, and there were some British members of parliament that suddenly, got aware of it was a teacher, British teacher, that was serving on the island back, in the days, Tom Tom Greenwood. So sorry. James Greenwood. He, then launched a petition in the in the UK.
We unfortunately did never get the hundred thousand signatures required, but, that basically kicked off a lot of things. And, you know, there was a a, parliamentary group in the, UK that looks after the overseas territories.
And from then on, you know, there was there was quite some, interest and support. The issue was the cable did not materialize, and that dragged on for a while. Then in two thousand fifteen, get, indication that there might be funding now for the cable, and then the question came how to fund it. We were talking about, you know, ten million US dollars roundabout.
And the UK government signaled readiness to fund the cable, like the initial CapEx, but then there would also be a significant topics because, you know, if you have a a branch from a submarine cable, you also have to contribute to the yearly operations and maintenance costs, and there's some sorts of, insurance in case case of a cable break that, you know, there will be a cable laying ship that comes and repairs the cable.
So that that coast had to be covered somehow, and the island government had no clue how to cover that coast. Again, they're only four and a half thousand people, do not have a huge GDP.
So, I had to be creative and came up with, the concept of attracting satellite ground stations to the island, which obviously need a lot of backhaul capacity, fiber capacity, would become an anchor tenant on the cable and by that help contributing to the operational cost.
I have to confess the idea is stolen from, the Svalbard Islands, nor Norwegian archipelago in the, you know, in the polar circle that got a submarine cable, actually, two separate cables forming a ring, just to connect some strategic satellite ground stations up really there. Okay. And, yeah. So I offered to the island government to reach out to satellite operators, see if there was an interest to, locate ground stations on the island, LEADS capacity on the submarine cable.
Within, I think, two months, I collected fifteen expressions of interest. They later grew to twenty one or something, and, that really tipped the balance in favor of a funding decision.
Things looked much rosier from that point of time, but still the cable would not materialize.
And it took them until twenty eighteen when I heard rumors that Google was planning some cable around Africa.
So I reached out to a gentleman called Andrew Metcalfe who, back in the days, was managing submarine cable projects for Google. And, we had an interesting chat, And, what I found out was that a cable from Europe down to South Africa was playing planned that was later named Equiano.
And, Google, you know, in a in a clear demonstration of of, you know, social responsibility, showed readiness to lay a branch from Equiano to the island, which was much longer than what we had anticipated. So from the original cable Sykes, the branch would have been less than fifty kilometers. So it would have been an unrepeated cable, or branch because, obviously, on submarine cables, you need repeaters every sixty to seventy kilometers.
But for Equiano, we were we were talking about twelve hundred kilometers of for just the branch, many repeaters on that, which increased the cost dramatically.
So, yeah, Google was ready to to lend a branch, to build a branch from from the island, and then the funding question came up again.
Then, unfortunately, the British government backed away from the original, you know, wasn't a commitment, but their, indication that they might fund the cable.
And, what happened then is that the European Development Fund, granted twenty one point five million euros that covered the cable built. That, was the last present to the island because after that followed Brexit, and St Helena, lost its, eligibility to funds from European Development Fund.
And The the final the final kiss off from the EU to Yes.
The Yes.
Right. Yeah.
It's kind of a little bit of irony there.
A big kiss was that.
But, yeah, it took then, I think, another three years until the cable ended.
It was early August twenty one, early August twenty one, I think, when the cable finally landed, but it was only activated, I think, one and a half, two years later.
On the one hand, because the cable was not completed, so they they started actually the Kriano cable with a branch. So the laying campaign started on on the island, and then, you know, it took another year until it was completed.
And then the island's government had issues with the telecoms monopolist on the island to, basically rejected to, yeah, activate the cable. So, but that's a that's a different story and still a huge issue, the monopoly on the island, which is why people, unfortunately, still do not get the full benefits from the cable, and that manifests in a very small bandwidth they get. So the best you can subscribe to on the island is is, you know, an ADSL two connection, which gives you ten megabits in a few cases, fifteen, sixteen on the on the downlink and just a megabit uplink. So that's, very, very unfortunate and and, also very frustrating for me because, you know, I spent more than a decade on this nonprofit campaign. I mean, I've been I I used I I did this all over the years, in an unpaid capacity. It was my hobby.
And, yeah. So that that was St. Helena. But one of the companies I approached when I was looking for these expressions of interest was OneWeb. And, when the cable finally materialized, I, you know, I pinged them and told them, look. It's now time to look for a site on the island.
The cable is definitely coming.
The island is not too big, and it is very rugged, very mountainous. And, obviously, for a LEO satellite ground station, you need a pretty good visibility, to the horizon, at least to, you know, certain elevation angles because you want to have, a long, you know, pass window during which the the antennas can connect to the to the satellites.
So, at that point of time, OneWeb offered me, in a way, consultancy contract, and, that lasted for almost, five and a quarter years, I think, with a little interruption, which was the bankruptcy.
But, yeah, that's a different story. Mhmm. So that that bit is essentially was so St. Helena, my nonprofit project, was also the driver and the reason, why I shifted, to satellite to the satellite industry.
Got it. So I, I'm just pulling up the blog post that I wrote again with some a lot of input from you and, the storage from you. So, the the cable came we began carrying traffic on the first of October twenty twenty three.
So this is, like, now it's a couple years back.
But, yeah. So we have these different projects. You mentioned the SAEX, the South Atlantic Express.
Saks cable was one that did get put in, but then it was not feasible to, build a branch or there was too late in the process, for them to, do a branch and end up being Equiano from Google. And you mentioned Andrew Metcalfe. I actually just, saw him, in Atlanta a couple months ago, and we hung out. We got to talk about submarine cables, for a while for an evening.
But, Yeah. So, so so you mentioned so this brought you into the world of, low Earth orbit satellite, and, I think, you know, this is a I think most people know this through STARLINK. STARLINK is definitely the most famous, technology here. It's not the only one.
One thing I'd try to point out to people, who are, you know, new to this topic is that, there was satellite based Internet before Starlink. I think that's not always understood.
It may not have been good or, like, there's a lot of technical marvels to Starlink, but, you you know, you had geostationary, for decades, high latency, low bandwidth, generally high cost per megabit.
And then there's medium Earth orbit and we just have o three b is the only, company that operates in that to my knowledge, provide service. So, with geostationary, you got one satellite and, far out in space, you just, have to aim a dish at it. Medium or, Earth orbit, then you have multiple satellites, and you have a larger ground installation that has to track have multiple dishes that are tracking multiple satellites, and you're doing these handoffs and stuff. So the complexity gets higher on the ground. And then with the low Earth orbit, now you have thousands of satellites, and then the the ground terminal equipment is very small.
But so, again, we we will know Starlink, because that's definitely the most famous one. But there there are other companies. In fact, I think something that I have so much, trouble keeping up with is, you know, what is the lay of the land here, besides besides Starlink? And it's, whatever, six to seven thousand satellites in orbit overhead at any given time.
Who else is out there?
Besides besides Starlink, we we obviously have one rep who, have completed the constellation, I think it was I don't know what? Twenty two?
Twenty two, twenty three, when they went into operational service.
Then, we have Amazon with with When you say completed the constellation sorry to interrupt you.
When you say completed the constellation, I mean, it's it's only a few hundred satellites. Correct?
It's right about six hundred.
Yeah. Six hundred.
Is that they started they started commercial service a little bit earlier because it's a polar orbiting constellation, which means that at high latitudes, you have a higher density of satellites.
So, they could they were able to start commercial service at high latitudes, for instance, in Canada, at an earlier point, and the, you know, full constellation of around about six hundred satellites was only needed, then to, you know, provide near global coverage. And I'm saying near global because the the issue with OneWeb is it is, vent pipe system. So the satellites have, no, inter satellite links, and not have no, regenerative payloads. So they are dependent on a gateway in line of sight of the satellite.
And the gateways need to be on land, land with the already mentioned clear view to the sky from a certain elevation angle, and you need fiber connectivity for the backhaul.
So there are unfortunately some areas in the world, including the Pacific Ocean, where there is no Lend Master builder gateway.
So, that is why one web, and with the current architecture can never, have full global coverage, something that Starlink, has managed to to achieve.
But do they plan to have more satellites, or or can they do ISL with their satellites?
Not with the current satellites. I mean, there have been plans for a a a gen two of, one lab around for a while. But as we know from media, the company is in a difficult financial situation.
And, I'm I'm not sure whether there will be a a gen two because OneWeb will be, or their parent utilset will be a consortium member of or already are a consortium member of the European sovereign constellation, IRIS square, and that is supposed to, feature into satellite links.
However, the big issue, I know many of of Iris Square, but, one of the big issues on the technical side is they're only planning gateways in Europe.
So while the constellation principle could now, when I say now, I mean, two thousand and thirty one, thirty two at the earliest when the, satellites are supposed to be in orbit, they could, in theory, provide global coverage, but all the traffic would need to be taken back to Europe where the gateways are.
That means you're undermining the entire latency advantage of LEO because you will increase latency easily by, you know, a hundred, two hundred milliseconds depending on which region and world you are. So I have huge doubts that IRIS Square will be of any commercial relevance, particularly outside of Europe because, with the with the planned architecture, it is, just nonsensical, and no commercial customer, well subscribed to a system that, ruins your latency advantage and takes all traffic, to Europe. You know, we're seeing the exact opposite.
Stalingrad, deploying gateways all over the world. They're building, additional pops. So to increase to reduce the latency on, you know, the targets, like, sub twenty milliseconds wherever you are in the world. And that, dictates that you bring down the traffic, on a on a gateway as close as possible and terminate it into the Internet and not, you know, take it across half the world back to, your headquarters.
So, yeah, that's that's, one rep.
Again, I've been How about how about, Project Hyper from Project Hyper.
Hyper.
Yeah. So Project Hyper, will have satellite links from day one, that, has been, you know, baked in into the design from the very beginning.
And, that will be a system that will resemble Starlink in its architecture a lot, including the orbit geometry.
So it's not a polar orbit.
It's gonna be what's what's the term for the So the initial shells will be an inclined orbit like Starlink.
But just as Starlink, they will also have additional shells in, in polar orbit, and that is to basically cover the, polar regions of the world, because with the inclined orbits, what Starlink deployed initially, you can only cover up to a certain latitude of well, Starlink was around about fifty three degrees. That's the inclination that, you know, the beams extend a little bit, above that or beyond that. So you would would have coverage maybe now up to fifty five degrees or something like that.
But, yeah, Kuiper will be a global system. Question is, you know, when will they launch? They are already late. So, and I don't mean yesterday's, launch that was scrapped, that would have been twenty seven satellites, but the, first FCC milestone of, bringing half of the satellites into orbit, and we're talking about, I think sixteen hundred, should be, the the quantity in orbit by July twenty six that it will already be almost impossible to achieve. So, I wait every day that they file with the FCC for a for a wafer because, I don't see how they can launch, you know, and we talk about probably fifty, sixty launches, until July twenty six.
How many satellites do they have now in orbit?
In orbit, two prototypes.
Two prototypes. Okay. It's not sixteen hundreds.
No. And twenty seven loaded onto a rocket waiting for launch.
Well, I don't know how much, how many satellites they have already produced that, you know, might be Sure.
In storage and just, you know, ready for, integration onto a into a launch vehicle.
You know you know, Kristen, you've mentioned you've mentioned a couple of time like, you mentioned some of the commercial challenges here. There's the OneWeb, bankruptcy. I think it's it's worth calling out that in this this has been a really difficult area to there's a there's a lot of famous company companies that came and went, Iridium being one of them, that tried to try to do this.
It's been something that people have been seeking and trying to find a way to do it, and there's been a lot of, this is a high risk. There's a lot of money involved, and most most of these projects don't pan out. Starlink seems to be the one that maybe has escaped, you know, the grips of gravity, to to get to reach outer orbit here. But, so how about so there's also, like, projects from China as well. Is there not, like, of, North Orbit?
Absolutely. Yeah. There are two very large constellations, planned. One is Guwang, also known as a Sapnet, and the other one would be formerly g sixty, known as Qu Yuan Fun or Thousand Sales.
So those are the two major players, from China.
A lot of resemblance to Starlink in the Orbiter geometry, in the design. We've just seen the first user terminal, earlier this week on TikTok.
So, I fear that is, a replica of of Starlink, and the thing is the Chinese government is very serious about it. We, have just seen in the Ukraine conflict what immense value, LEO constellations have on the battlefield, and, I have no doubts that the Chinese will deploy these two constellations.
It's, a question of time. I think the bottleneck is, as for anyone else but SpaceX, the launch cadence, the launch capacity in the market, but they are making significant progress.
And, I How much do we know about, like, how many how, like, how many satellites they have in in space, the the Chinese constellations?
So I don't recall the exact number of the prototypes, but it's several dozens. Okay.
I think they the last launch was was it, like, fifty, sixty or something that order so far from being able to provide any meaningful Gervasi, but I think those are also rather prototypes at this stage. So And they too hope to have thousands of satellites, in I mean, both constellations are in the order of, twelve to fourteen thousand satellites.
Whether they will be fully deployed is another question. I mean, there have been a lot of ridiculous filings with the ITU for installations of hundreds of thousands of satellites, and and the, you know, rationale behind that is is twofold. On the one hand, you don't necessarily know in which orbits you will exactly go, when you plan a constellation like this.
For, the ITU filings, there is the first come first serve principle, so whoever finds his constellation first gets the highest ITU priority, that means, following constellations, the following satellites need to basically yield to you. The trouble, we have with satellite communications is is, with a few exemptions, and that would be Iridium and Globalstar.
But there is no one that would have exclusive spectrum rights. So there are a few frequency ranges, and, they're shared by all the satellite operators that, you know, goes back to the times of geostationary satellites where you just separated the, the geostationary satellites by two degrees on the, equatorial belt and that avoided, interference. But now, you know, you have these different orbits, different orbitals geometries, so the trajectories would crisscross in in sky all the time, and you have a lot of, so called in inline interference events.
So our in Yeah. Can we where you Go ahead.
No. Go ahead. Finish your thought, please.
Interference.
Yeah. So, that is, the the the big trouble, and I think that would be our next topic. But, the the the other reason why some, you know, providers have made these findings, is simply, you know, psychology scare away competitors or potential competitors.
And, yeah, I think that's that's that's the reason why. But but the big trouble that you have is there are there are rules, there are milestones, so you have to deploy a certain number of satellites, after a few years. So, I think after seven years you need to, launch the first satellite, that's the bring into use.
Then you have another two years to launch ten percent of the satellites, and after another two years, fifty percent of the satellites. So, those rules exist on the high Q level, and in the US, there are also milestones dictated by the FCC.
And if you don't launch that quantity of satellites, your finding is scaled down to the proportionate number of satellites, you know, so pro pro rata for what you were supposed to launch by that time.
So, that's that's that's the trouble there, and, I'm not sure if the Chinese would launch the full twelve thousand satellites. I think, you know, the low thousands, at these altitudes should should be good. And, there will also be, at at some point of time, increased issue with collisions and collision avoidance.
So Yeah. So I was I was gonna ask about that. So I'm not I'm outside the space the the space, so to speak.
And, so I think we we talk about it's termed these these fall under the umbrella, term of space safety of things like trying to, like the there's, you know, just the publication of, the orbits and make what people are doing to make sure the satellites are not running into each other.
The the satellites themselves have a little bit of propulsion. Is that correct? So, like, if they think they're gonna be on a collision course, they can adjust a little, to avoid running into each other. And then, like, the, the nightmare scenario, that I don't know. I'm a I'm a layperson, so this sounds scary to me. Maybe maybe you can put my, concerns to rest. But, this idea of the Kessler syndrome or Kessler effect, this is the opening scene of the movie Gravity with, Sandra Bullock and George Clooney when, you have a couple things run into each other.
Everything in in orbit is moving very fast. So seventeen thousand miles an hour, like and so when two things run into each other, even if they're very small, there's enormous amount of momentum, and they'll blow a hole through just about anything.
The concern is then if you have two things crash into each other, there's all these projectiles also going something on the order of seventeen thousand miles an hour, then they hit other things. And other things, we end up, like, the have all this debris that's all running into each other, and we just lose that, you know, area. I guess I guess the what what has been told to me explained to me is that, even though there's six thousand, satellites or seven thousand satellites, in this, in the space, If you could imagine, like, cars driving the surface of the Earth, something we're more familiar with in their random directions, how often would six thousand cars driving somewhere on the surface of the Earth?
How often would they run into each other? Well, now also add the z axis here. So it's not just the surface, it's there's different depths.
And, and so then the the the probability that two things run each other becomes, like, starts to become very remote, once you add that z axis. And, also, the surface of the Earth is a smaller sphere than orbit, which would be bigger, a large a higher radius.
So I know I've I've had people explain to me like, like, there's it sounds like a big number, but the space is just so vast that with proper coordination, we can avoid, two things running into each other.
But, do I do I have that correct?
Yes, sir. I mean, the example that you gave is is absolutely right. I mean, and and and when you look at those, you know, simulations and pictures of space debris, they're not to scale. Right? So, you know, the the satellites are tiny, they're not visible to the human eye, particularly on a picture that would show the entire Earth.
So that's right. The the issue is that even the smallest little boat, the smallest little fragment has an enormous kinetic energy and can, you know, basically blow up any satellite, any spacecraft that, it collides with. So I don't think the the risk right now is is, humongous, but at the same time, if something happens, the, you know, the debris cloud that can be released by a collision event can have a cascade effect, and, you know, in the worst case lead to the Kessler syndrome. But interestingly, right now the bigger issue is not, the satellites and and the the count that we we have in orbit, the bigger issue is the upper stages. So, you know, the the upper stage of launch vehicles, and particularly with the recent launches by the Chinese for the, Korean I'm not sure how you pronounce it, thousand sales, constellation. So they released, hundreds of fragments into fairly high orbits of seven twenty to seven eighty kilometers.
At that altitude it will take somewhere between twenty five and one hundred years for the debris to come down, so the risk is gonna stay there for a long time. There's also an issue of tracking debris, so right now the smallest kind of debris that we can see with, at least in the civilian space are, you know, in the range of few inches.
So, anything below that is right now invisible, so you cannot avoid a collision, it's something that you cannot see.
That that's that's certainly a growing issue, and at the same time also, the weaponization of space, so we see a lot of activity with, you know, stalker satellites.
We are seeing, studies by the Chinese that, outline how you could bring down a mega constellation, and I think, you know, those are clear messages to the Western world, and, they're not gonna sit and wait.
So, yeah, that that is another risk, I think, that is underestimated.
So, in the next big conflict and, God forbid, but, if someone decides and there are few powers that have the capability to, do antisatellite, attacks, we might be in big big trouble, which is why I think we also need more diversity in terms of altitude. So when we look at Starlink and Kuiper, they're both in fairly low orbits, both in the range of five fifty to six hundred kilometers.
Starling is also going into very low Earth orbit, so range of three thirty to three eighty kilometers.
The good the good, news is if something happens there, it will de orbit or decay naturally fairly quick. But at the same time, in case of a Kessler event or an intentional attack, we might lose a lot of capabilities in space.
So, that that is, by the way, one of the, few advantages of one web that they're at, twelve hundred kilometers, almost, more than twice in Starlink, actually, where they might be a little bit safer from these scenarios.
Alright. Well, let's let's hope none of that comes to be.
And, before we run out of time, let's let's talk about this latest development with Starlink. I published something Cabisco again with some of the assistance from from you, around these, new Starlink community gateways. So I think, generally, people know Starlink as I've got a little dish I put in my backyard. I'm in some rural place, and now I've got high speed Internet. And there's a lot of a lot of satisfied customers out there of, that couldn't get service any other way. But this is a different model, and it's, it's kinda interesting. Do you wanna explain, what it is?
Sure.
So, yes, Starlink launched the the so called community gateways. And, what does it do? So, as I mentioned, Starlink has intercept light links. Originally, Starlink launched as a bent pipe system just like one that that means the satellites had to have a connection, to a gateway that would have been and still is in Ka band.
And then there is a separate separate antenna or a phased array antenna on the satellites that forms the beams for the user beams of the user links that's in Ku band, and the difference is essentially not only the frequency but also the Ka band antennas have a very focused narrow beam that is meant to go point to point, be directed to that specific ground station and or gateway, whereas the user beams, the Ku band antennas are meant to cover big geography and, serve, you know, hundreds or thousands of customers, so point to multipoint.
Now until the time when Starlink introduced inter satellite links, McCabe and antennas were always busy and satellites were providing service because they had to connect to the gateway.
Now with the inter satellite links, you suddenly had satellites that were far from the gateway, so we're not even able to connect to a gateway because, you know, they were, beyond the horizon.
And in that situation, the satellites still have connectivity to the ground, and that is through inter satellite links to its neighbors and, you know, through a chain of, neighboring satellites to the next gateway. But in that situation the cave and antenna was some suddenly idling.
So, Starlink basically repurpose these idling cave and antennas and put them into use by offering what they call the community gateway. So a remote community island nations, but I just saw it there are some places in Africa and Rwanda, I think, now also activated, Starlink community gateways.
So these places link up in k band with, the big advantage that you have a lot of capacity there, so you can do ten gigabit links versus in the Ku band you're limited to maybe a gigabit.
They're working to increase that, but there's at least an order of magnitude difference between the achievable bandwidths in Ku over k band. The trouble is only that for community gateways or in order to use the the the k band gateway links, you need pretty large and sophisticated antennas. So, that would be mechanically steered antennas put in a in a radome. They look exactly the same as in the Starlink gateways. They're probably actually the same antennas, and, you need four of them. So because of a community gateway is one point two million dollars, at least that's what the, Starlink website says.
And they charge, what's that, I think, fifty thousand US dollars per gigabit a month. So, not affordable to, you and me. But, you know, for an island community, it's it, is definitely, interesting. I think it is, in many cases, cheaper than what we did in St. Helena, lending a submarine cable.
And it is, much easier and quicker to deploy. I mean, that's something you can probably ship and install in in a few weeks, whereas a submarine cable takes years to be completed.
So but that also means, you know, styling from being a last mile service is now becoming, a an aggregator. It's a middle mile service and potentially, it it, you know, could become part of of the global Internet, backbone. So I don't think, there is, or or Starlink's gonna carry half of the world's Internet traffic at as Musk, in one of his early talks about Starlink, said. So that that that's nonsense, because you you will never be able to achieve bandprints anywhere close to what you can do in a fiber optic cable, but it's I think it will play an increasing an increasingly important role particularly for remote communities, but I also see the mega constellation Starlink and Kuiper providing connectivity to other satellites and other spacecraft, so that's something Starlink has already been experimenting with with that recent Dragon mission.
So the the crew capsule was connected through laser links to the next Starlink satellites, and that's how, you know, they maintained connectivity, high bandwidth connectivity while they were, in in orbit.
And, I didn't know that.
Yeah.
And it's it's it's very interesting what's happening there, because, I They just put a dish by the window and point it in the general direction.
Right. So these these are quite expensive, so easily quarter million US dollars.
They're basically a gimbal type of thing with, sophisticated pointing mechanisms inside, and they need to, you know, work very, very precisely.
But they can do hundred gigabits. That's at least what Starlink claims today and what other LCD manufacturers promise.
And that that is a a very interesting technology and something that I'm convinced will will proliferate over the coming years.
And I wonder if we're ever gonna have a data center that exists in orbit. Well, I I'm not too sure if that makes a lot of sense.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, I think we'll be at least a decade away from that. Although they they got arguments including the the power available in space.
So if you had a very large, solar It's cold.
Race in space, you could you could put, then if you need to replace, a component or something, that might get difficult up there.
Alright. Well, I wanna, be mindful of your time. I know you only have so much time to to spend with us, but, it was, super interesting, hearing hearing your explanations for this stuff.
Phil, do you have any comments?
Comments. Yeah. I really like that whole data center in orbit thing you just brought up, you know, with regard to cooling and, and power and stuff. That's a that's an interesting one, with all the talk about data centers now, especially. But, no. This has been great, Christian. So thank you so much for joining us today.
Much appreciated.
You too. It was a pleasure, and I look forward to, your next episode on lion listener and, music.
Absolutely.
Great.
So if you have, to our audience, if you have an idea for a show or you'd like to be a guest on Telemetry Now, we would love to hear from you. You can reach us at telemetrynow@kentik.com. So to now for now, thanks so much to our guests for joining us today, and, thanks so much to our audience for listening. See you next time.