SpaceX CEO Musk Lobbies Rosenworcel on Lower Orbits

SpaceX's Starlink is offering users speeds twice of what's required by the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund and latency at a small fraction of the threshold for a low-latency service, CEO Elon Musk told FCC acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, per an RM-11768 post Tuesday. SpaceX said repeated extensive analyses over the past 11 months show that allowing a lower orbit for more than 2,800 proposed satellites (see 2004200003) won't create significant interference issues for other satellite or terrestrial licensees. SpaceX said some opponents, such as Amazon's Kuiper, "have apparently abandoned their own systems" and are focusing on lobbying efforts in opposition to that lower altitude to forestall SpaceX. Amazon emailed that SpaceX "would love to stifle competition and be the only [low earth orbit] system out there. That’s not only unrealistic -- it’s bad for the billions of people on Earth without reliable broadband. The Kuiper team is over 500 people and growing. Amazon is fully committed to Project Kuiper and its mission to deliver fast, affordable broadband to unserved and underserved communities around the world.” SpaceX said multichannel video and data distribution service licensees against the license modification haven't explained how it would affect them, as other non-geostationary orbit systems are already licensed with wider beams and at lower elevation angles in the 12 GHz band.