Is US Internet search engine giant Google about to repeat archrival Microsoft's costly mistake?
Yesterday, a consortium announced it had seeded the first $60 million of a total of $650 million needed to launch 16 satellites to orbit around the equator.
The consortium consists of Google, Internet connectivity company O3b, international cable operator Liberty Global, banking group HSBC and others.
Greg Wyler founded O3b, which stands for the "other three billion". He previously set up a telecommunications company in Rwanda, but left after some criticism by that country's government.
Wyler wants to launch the low earth orbit satellites to overcome the infrastructure issues faced in developing countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia that prohibit inhabitants from accessing the Internet.
The consortium plans to have the satellites operational by the end of 2010, and aims to provide a capacity of 10Gbps (equal to SA's current international connectivity demand). The service will be provided by telecommunications operators licensed in their respective countries.
The sceptics
"Low earth orbit satellites. Whew! Who would have thought? They sure are not risk-averse," says Steve Song, telecommunications fellow at the Shuttleworth Foundation. "Hopefully, they will be luckier than Teledesic or Iridium. If they pull this off, it will be mud in Bill Gates' eye. I believe Bill Gates lost a packet on Teledesic."
Teledesic was founded in the late 1990s to provide satellite Internet connectivity through 840 active satellites. The project was officially abandoned in 2002. Microsoft lost $30 million on its satellite start-up. Similar fates befell other satellite ventures, such as Iridium and Globalstar.
Roy Ingle, IT entrepreneur and former director of electronics group Altech, says low earth orbit satellite systems have been the singularly largest communications failure ever.
"Funding to start up one of those systems has never been an issue. The problem is the technical challenges that a low earth orbit (LEO) system has to overcome," notes Ingle, who was involved in both Teledesic and Europestar.
"Teledesic approached me during its start-up phase with the aim of gathering a footprint of schools in Africa in order to provide them with free Internet connectivity, but the whole thing failed dismally."
Ingle says the problem with LEO systems is that the satellites move continuously in orbit, unlike the high-orbit satellites that are geostationary. This means that communications signals have to be constantly transmitted between the LEO satellites, as they are revolving around the earth. By contrast, the higher orbiting geostationary satellites stay in one location and transmit without interruption.
"That is why Teledesic ended up being such a disaster. The solution is fine for someone on the move, but not for a stationary location that needs an uninterrupted signal."
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