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The visionaries behind Teledesic LLC have been adept at shaping their broadband satellite dream in response to changing terrestrial circumstances. The question is whether by the time they turn their vision into commercial reality, whether their opportunity will have flown away.
With the planned launch of the Internet Protocol-based broadband service delayed repeatedly since its mid-1990s inception, Teledesic's revolutionary constellation composed of hundreds of low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites faces the prospect of entrenched, significant celestial competition by the time it gets off the ground commercially in five years.
Bellevue, Wash.-based Teledesic actually was one of the first companies granted an FCC license for the next generation broadband satellite technology operating in the Ka band (29 GHz). It is expected to complete a complex merger by the end of the year, with ICO-Teledesic Global Limited (ITGL), the entity created by Teledesic co-founder Craig McCaw after his $1.2 billion rescue of the bankrupt satellite mobile phone service enterprise ICO Global Communications Inc.
The so-called New ICO plans to be up and running commercially in 2003 with narrowband voice and two-way packet data services at data rates up to 144 kbps. New ICO's 12 medium-Earth orbit (MEO) satellites-these satellites orbit at 6,000 miles versus geostationary (GEO) satellites orbiting some 22,300 miles out in space-can support up to 12 million users.
A portion of this customer base is considered a linchpin for Teledesic's success, as the combined New ICO/Teledesic team intends to migrate ICO customers to the Teledesic menu of broadband services once the Teledesic constellation consisting of 288 low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites is deployed in 2004 and commercially activated the following year. LEOs fly at less than 1,000 miles above the earth's surface.
Teledesic's strategy hinges on a combination of the ability to deliver very high-speed data rates up to 100 mbps-plus on the forward path, along with a substantial reduction in satellite-induced transmission delay. Reducing latency to an estimated 70 milliseconds compared with the average 250 milliseconds currently encountered with GEO-based Internet traffic and offering global coverage by splitting the 288 LEO satellites into 12 separate planes with 24 satellites assigned to each plane are Teledesic's key objectives.
Sound difficult? Well, McCaw and Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates still are pursuing their joint dream of launching Teledesic, although the original launch date of 2002 was abandoned long ago. Instead, the plan is to commercially activate Teledesic in 2005. As strategic investors in Teledesic, Boeing, Motorola, Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, and The Abu Dhabi Investment Company appear to share McCaw's and Gates' vision.
But many Wall Street analysts still view Teledesic as an ill-defined venture; something way out on the horizon that has substantial technological hurdles to overcome as well as a need to settle both on a firm launch date and a business plan. By the time Teledesic is switched on, the skies should be crowded with broadband players who will be bouncing data-saturated spot beams all over the planet. The list includes several GEO-based ventures. Hughes Electronics Corp.'s Spaceway project is going up in 2003, and Astrolink Technologies Inc. will be there as well with its own Ka-band offering.
Spaceway and Astrolink constitute the higher risk ventures deploying Ka-band GEO satellites using on-board processing. Teledesic is in this on-board switching category, albeit in LEO configuration. The alternative is to use so-called "bent pipe" satellites, which are proven platforms that do little more than retransmit or beam back the signals received from earth. New ICO has adopted this approach.
Besides Spaceway and Astrolink, Loral Space & Communications' CyberStar LP will be up in 2003 along with WildBlue Communications Inc. and SkyBridge GP Inc., another LEO satellite constellation that will have 80 Ku-band satellites in orbit. Skybridge has several well-known backers such as Loral, Alcatel, Mitsubishi Electric, Sharp and Toshiba.
In a newly diminished role with Teledesic is Motorola, which in October terminated its position as the system's prime contractor following the ICO merger. Motorola, which scuttled its plans for a Teledesic-like service known as Celestri before joining the McCaw camp, will remain a strategic investor in Teledesic.
Gone too is the sense that the on-demand multiple access scheme for the millions of active Teledesic terminals might be revolutionary. Multi-Frequency Time Division Multiple Access (MF-TDMA) will be implemented for the uplink and Asynchronous Time Division Multiplexing Access (ATDMA) will be used for the downlink, according to ITGL's S-4. MF-TDMA, for example, is already employed today by satellite service providers.
As for the implementation of dynamic frequency allocation schemes, automated power level control mechanisms, and other related network scaling or subscriber management subsystems, this remains a technical challenge.
So, in a nutshell, New ICO will offer low data rates and mobility, while Teledesic offers broadband muscle to fixed sites. And it will be glued together wherever possible by a network of broadband wireless repeaters for single building, campus and remote WAN connectivity.
Is it just a pipedream? Keep watching the skies.
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