FCC lifts looming deadline for Amazon Leo satellite broadband constellation

The waiver "serves the public interest by promoting a second large satellite broadband constellation."

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[SportivoA]

Any rumors about offering (beta?) service to consumers? Seems like 300+ satellites is enough to start getting the bugs out.

Time-to-first-customer will be interesting. Still, time-to-general-availability will be a bigger challenge and one that the FCC really wants to see out of the constellation.

I can’t believe there wasn’t more, or actually any, detail about SpaceX going full-court press on the FCC to punish Amazon for failing to meet the milestone.

What the play would be to bid on spectrum without impacting their already-datacenter-addled cashflow would be interesting. Because gaining a monopoly on D2D orbital spectrum would presumably be the goal.

 

[SportivoA]

Stop trying to make the Kessler Effect a thing. It was not a thing, it will never be a thing. Have you read how long it is supposed to take to occur? Think decades.

Eh, if the Chinese build two constellations in high-LEO to MEO and keep leaving the rocket bodies up there with the comms birds, then they might end up giving it a try. 100-1000+ year debris lifetimes (as they descend) is at least the opening salvo for such a disaster. If Amazon and SpaceX keep theirs in the active-stationkeeping-required portion of the upper atmosphere, they probably won't start the fire, as it were.