2degrees has revealed it could be ready to launch a satellite-to-smartphone texting service as soon as five months from now.
That would mean bragging rights for 100 per cent in mobile coverage in a country where 2degrees, One and Spark all cover around 97 per cent of where people live, but only around half the landmass.
It would also beat One NZ to the punch. On April 1, as his firm rebranded from Vodafone NZ, CEO Jason Paris revealed a satellite-to-mobile partnership with Starlink, which will see 100 per cent satellite-to-mobile coverage, initially for texts, from “late 2024″.
But 2degrees boss Mark Callander was also candid about the limitations of the initial service, whenever it does actually arrive, via a hookup with US satellite startup Lynk.
So was Lynk chief commercial officer Dan Dooley, who appeared with Callander at an Auckland briefing this morning.
The idea with satellite-to-smartphone services is that when you’re out of cellular network coverage, you can use a satellite - acting as a “celltower in the sky” - to send or receive a text message from anywhere in NZ with line-of-sight to the sky. Voice and data services will follow.
2degrees ran a successful test of Lynk’s service last week, sending a test text, and receiving a reply. (The telco went with a dad joke for the historic exchange: “Hi do you know any satellite jokes?” - Yes, but they would go over your head.) Multiple smartphones were used for the text message.
A key selling point for Lynk’s service (and one in the works from Elon Musk’s Starlink) is that no satellite phone is required. Any brand of smartphone, unmodified, can use Lynk.
Rivals have been quick to point out that Lynk, a US startup, only has three low-Earth orbit satellites in the sky today.
Dooley did not try to spin that reality.
The Lynk CCO said his firm’s three satellites cross New Zealand a half dozen times a day, providing a three- to five-minute window to send and receive a text each time.
“I wish we could snap our fingers and get 1000 satellites up and have ubiquitous coverage, but that’s not possible right now,” Dooley said.
“So we can’t say we can give you ubiquitous coverage. We can give you ubiquitous coverage, but only for a few minutes at a time”
Another six Lynk satellites will be launched in January, which Dooley said would cut the time between flyovers to about one hour and 55 minutes.
At that level, he said Lynk could be used by Nema to send a civil emergency alert (which would go to 2degrees, Spark and One NZ customers).
Callander said that even though the service was initially limited to sending or receiving texts a few times a day, the satellite-to-mobile service would be useful at filling coverage gaps after a natural disaster.
Lynk plans to launch another 40 to 50 satellites in 2024, then another 250 to 300 in 2026 before eventually blanketing the planet with 5110 birds.
So Lynk has a long way to go, as Dooley freely acknowledges. But its rival is also effectively starting from scratch. Starlink already has 4000 low-Earth-orbit satellites in the sky, but none of them support satellite-to-mobile. That will require larger “second-generation” satellites, which Musk’s firm wants to start launching en masse by the end of this year - but that, in turn, requires SpaceX’s larger Starship rocket; the one that failed on its maiden test launch in April.
Voice and data calling is possible from satellite to smartphone today, Dooley said. He would not give specifics on upload and download speed but said it would be enough for Netflix - even if that was of little practical consequence today, with only three to five minutes of connectivity every few hours. (Two of Lynk’s satellites have 2G - for internet-of-things gadget connections and 4G, for everything else, while the third added 5G.)
Once Lynk does have 5000 birds in the air and can provide text, voice and data services 24/7, everywhere in NZ, why would it need 2degrees and its land-lubbing celltowers? Why not go direct to the consumer? (And the same could be asked about Starlink ultimately eating One’s lunch.)
“We’ll always be wholesale,” said Dooley, whose career includes wholesale roles at US telco giants AT&T, Sprint and Nextel. The COO said buying spectrum was “very expensive” and involved local regulatory approval. Mobile network operators like 2degrees were better placed to handle that, as well as manage customers.
Callander said 2degrees would need regulatory approval from MBIE, plus another “five or six months for network integration” before it could launch a text-to-mobile service.
While limited, that would put it ahead of One NZ, which as things stand is looking at “late 2024″ for its Starliink text-to-mobile offering (it has no timeline for voice or data yet).
Yes. Callander said satellite-to-mobile texts will be treated like roaming. That means extra charges for most - which will be determined closer to launch - though it’s also likely to be included with some higher-end phone plans.
Yes, no modification is required. To simplify, Lynk’s system tricks a phone into thinking it’s simply sending and receiving a text from a celltower.
The pending satellite-to-mobile service from Starlink will also work with any make or model of smartphone.
While communications satellites have been with us for decades, the field has been dominated by geosynchronous satellites that orbit at around 37,000km, introducing a lot of latency, or lag. Musk’s Starlink put up low-Earth orbiting satellites - which skirt the planet at just 600km altitude - which solve most of the lag issue. And while double-decker bus-sized geosynchronous satellites match the Earth’s spin, effectively meaning they are always aimed at a fixed patch of territory, LEO satellites act as a swarm. The idea is that by the time one zips over the horizon, another will have come into coverage.
There’s nothing - in technical terms - to stop Lynk working with all three of NZ’s mobile carriers.
As things stand, Spark says it’s in talks with an unnamed firm about its own satellite-to-text trial, which will take place soon. Dooley said: “We’re talking to everyone.” (UPDATE: Spark said on June 6 that it would trial Lynk’s service “as early as the end of the year”).
And for One, spokesman Matthew Flood told the Herald, “One New Zealand conducted a field test with Lynk back in January, but ultimately went with SpaceX.”
Why?
“We decided on SpaceX due to its vertical integration covering satellite development, rocket delivery and low-Earth orbit network management. One New Zealand customers will benefit from our direct collaboration with SpaceX for both Starlink Broadband for Business and satellite-to-mobile services.”
(Separately from their respective satellite-to-mobile initiatives, 2degrees, One and most recently Spark have all signed on to be local resellers of the Starlink Business satellite broadband service, which requires a $4200 dish.)
2degrees and LEO startup Lynk successfully demo’d a satellite-to-mobile connection from a mobile blackspot 30 minutes north of Whanganui, sending a txt (“Hi! Know any satellite jokes?”) and receiving a reply (“Yeah, but it would just go over your head”) pic.twitter.com/e8KqQdURBy
— Chris Keall (@ChrisKeall) June 1, 2023
“SpaceX has a proven track record of launching over 4000 satellites into space, which is important given the ultimate success of this service will rely on almost continuous satellite coverage to reduce delivery delays,” Flood said.
Starlink will also offer satellite-to-mobile service at bands above 1 gigahertz (that is, offering a faster service if over a narrower area per satellite), while Lynk is initially sticking to sub-1GHz - which Dooley said would make for easier implementation between different phone companies in different countries.
The COO also touts that Lynk was the first to patent satellite-to-smartphone technologies, and the first to gain provider to gain FCC approval.
Lynk’s first three satellites were launched by SpaceX Falcon9 rockets (which was sporting of Musk, given Starlink is a fully-owned subsidiary of SpaceX).
Dooley said Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket was too small for Lynk but that his firm was open to using the Kiwi-American firm’s much larger Neutron rocket, which is due for its first test flight next year.
In the here and now, the six Lynk satellites scheduled to be launched in January will all have propulsion, fuel tank and control systems designed and made by Kiwi-Dutch firm Dawn Aerospace, which recently signed a major contract with Lynk.
Rocket Lab is already in the satellite systems frame. Late last year, Apple launched SOS Emergency satellite-to-text for iPhone users in North America, with New Zealand and other countries recently added. Apple is partnering with low-Earth orbit satellite network operator GlobalStar, which recently became Rocket Lab’s largest single customer in terms of forward bookings.
It costs around US$200,000 ($333,000) per Lynk satellite, Dooley said. That is, in aerospace terms, it’s cheap-as-chips compared to around US$80 million for a much larger, high-orbiting geosychnous satellite.
But that still works out at upward of US$1 billion to get 5110 Lynk satellites into space.
Dooley said getting the first nine satellites into space was relatively low-cost. By the time Lynk got to launching tens or hundreds of satellites per year, it would have them as a proof-of-concept, broadening funding options. It would also have revenue from anchor customers.
So far, Lynk has signed deals with telcos in 24 countries, Dooley said, including Canada’s largest player Rogers.
Even sticking to the wholesale market, Lynk has estimated that the “direct to device” market will be worth US$400b per year.
Dooley said Lynk’s satellites had a seven-year lifespan. They were designed to burn up on re-entry, leaving no space junk behind.
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