This article was spurred on by a series of announcements about Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites being launched recently, including this one from Kongsberg. Another was about Mioty being transported within NB-IOT. (I will write about this next week from the perspective of the difference between the U.S. and ROW, particularly EU).
But, for today, let’s talk about the impact of LEOs. What’s most interesting about these announcements to me is they are building a competitive market where cellular protocols are facing competition from other protocols, such as Bluetooth, LoRaWAN, and Myioty.
Let’s start with the distinctions and why they are significant.
GEO Satellites: Positioned at about 35,786 kilometers above the equator, GEO satellites experience higher latency, often around 240 milliseconds, due to the greater distance signals must travel. This increased latency can impact time-sensitive applications and necessitates protocol adjustments to manage delays effectively.
Before LEOs came on the market, GEO Satellites were used for IoT applications in agriculture, asset tracking, environmental monitoring, logistics, maritime, transportation, and Oil / Gas. These applications work on both satellite solutions.
LEO Satellites: Orbiting at altitudes between approximately 160 to 2,000 kilometers, LEO satellites are much closer to Earth. This proximity results in lower latency communications, typically ranging from 20 to 40 milliseconds. Such low latency is advantageous for real-time applications, including voice communications and interactive data services. The reduced latency and improved data transmission rates make satellite IoT more viable and efficient.
They are also less capital intensive, which has fostered new startups and tech giants, such as Amazon and T-Mobile, to invest in space. One last thing to note is the blending of terrestrial and LEOs to create hybrid networks for both public and private use.
In my humble opinion, the most compelling side of the equation is the economics of the end devices. You see, while the cellular industry has been retooling with 5G devices, they are experiencing their typical development cost recovery cycle, so chips are costly now. Meanwhile, the adoption of Bluetooth, LoRaWAN and Mioty do not require retooling of the chips, leading to faster adaption and adoption.
I find an interesting push-pull experience here, as the vision of 5G includes the ability to support managing these other networks and Wi-Fi, while most of these implementations are avoiding the complicated issues associated with Cellular OSS systems. Having watched all the recent innovations in eSIM management, I believe there will be even more innovation when not trying to conform to cellular standards.
Also, many of the new IoT applications are going to be designed to not be specifically cellular, but over the top solutions by a single application. Solutions like eWatches and T-Mobile’s Starlink solution are cases in point.
The combination of lower deployment cost and more control of implementation opens up opportunities for consumer solutions, like health and well-being applications and other mass deployments.
One other aspect is that it changes the competitive landscape for the “Cheap and Cheerful” side of cellular. If they have one set of solutions that is concerned with minimizing data transmissions, and one that is familiar to internal networks, why try to fit into the restrictions? I think this will be an interesting trend to watch if LEOs can keep the costs down.
Edited by
Erik Linask
