Land Mobile Not Considered Big Immediate LEO Opportunity

SpaceX's move this spring into offering broadband service aimed at RVs (see 2205240020) might face some competition from low earth orbit constellation rivals, but the broader land-mobile broadband market isn't likely to be a big growth area soon for LEO, satellite broadband and vehicle connectivity experts told us. The FCC International Bureau approved SpaceX operating Ku-band earth stations in motion (ESIM) and Kepler operating Ku-band earth stations in vessels (ESV) in U.S. territorial waters and on U.S.-registered watercraft internationally last week, but with conditions.

The land-mobile satellite broadband market, to be more than a niche and attractive to LEO operators, depends on affordable flat-panel antennas that work when the vehicle is in motion, said Quilty Analytics analyst Caleb Henry. Many companies are working on flat-panel antennas for various markets, but land-mobile is not generally considered lucrative or as potentially big as others such as aviation or government connectivity, he said. He said Amazon talked about flat panel development progress it's making, and if that bears out the Kuiper system could also enter the land-mobile space, he said. Amazon's original 2019 application with the FCC (see 1907050053) said its mobile terminals "will be supported for specific mobility applications (e.g., aeronautical, maritime, and land-mobile)."

SpaceX likely will get competition from other LEOs in the ESIM space on applications like RVs and small boats, but mostly in "communications on the pause" use cases -- meaning a vehicle when it's stationary, emailed Northern Sky Research (NSR) analyst Alan Crisp. Communications on the move use cases are substantially more expensive and not likely to get consumer adoption in the short or medium term, he said. He said the broadband-for-person-vehicle market might start ramping up around 2027, with NSR projecting 29,000 active terminals in use by 2031.

The RV market has had multiple in-motion, real-tme access proposals over the years that never came to fruition, said Roger Lanctot, connected auto analyst at tech consultancy Strategy Analytics. He said the enabling tech, flat-panel antennas, will get more affordable as government and commercial businesses increase volume and drive down costs, but that's years off.

Aaron and Lauren Grijalva, who in 2018 became full-time RVers with their two children, call their Starlink service "a game changer" from the mobile carrier service they had used for wireless connectivity. The Verizon mobile worked well, though the couple hit dead zones in some remote areas, and also had slow service in some metro areas, said Aaron Grijalva. Camping in Baja, Mexico, last winter, the couple -- who blog and maintain a YouTube channel about their RV lives as the Wanderpreneurs -- piggybacked off another RVer's Starlink service and opted to subscribe, they said. That was before Starlink launched its service targeted specifically at RVs. "Even bad speeds are plenty fast enough for what we want to do," he said, saying the only downside is making sure there are clear open skies overhead, as the signal in a forest setting can be compromised.

Both SpaceX and Kepler faced opposition from Dish Network and RS Access for the use of the 12 GHz band in their earth station plans. The International Bureau order said the FCC doesn't specifically have rules addressing non-geostationary orbit ESIM operations in the band, but nothing stops it from considering requests case by case. A new class of SpaceX terminals "will expand the range of broadband capabilities to meet the growing user demands that now require connectivity while on the move," while Kepler's ESV service also will provide needed connectivity, it said. The agency said the proposed unprotected ESIM operations in the 12 GHz band "will not materially impact the interference environment in that band."

Noting the commission's pending 12 GHz rulemaking, the bureau set some conditions on the authorizations to ensure they don't materially affect the proceeding's outcome. It said the applicants' ESIM operations have to accept any interference from both current and future services authorized in the band and must not cause harmful interference to authorized services. It said Kepler and SpaceX also need to disclose to customers that their ESIM services don't get interference protection. With the Kepler and SpaceX licenses being unprotected, the bureau said it doesn't anticipate ESIMs in the 12 GHz band will materially affect the analysis in the 12 GHz rulemaking.

Dish criticized SpaceX for allegedly promoting use of its Starlink terminals as quasi ESIMs without FCC OK (see 2206130028).