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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[r0twhylr]

Amazon did it to themselves by not including SpaceX in the initial big order. It took an investor lawsuit to uncover the detail that Amazon's board had spent less than a hour debating the launch contracts and had never even considered using Falcon 9. Thanks to the lawsuit, as well as delays with the other rockets, the company was forced to use Falcon, grudgingly.

True, but they also screwed themselves by not having satellites ready in bulk early enough. By the time their first prototypes flew, they were already running way behind the 8 ball for this FCC deployment milestone. And then after that, it took a long time to ramp up production to the point they have satellites to deploy. They had Atlas rockets sitting in storage for years waiting for satellites. Having Falcons standing by at that point wouldn't have made much difference if any.

The problems with Vulcan and NG are certainly affecting their ability to deploy their constellation, but even if they were flying, Amazon would need this FCC ruling.

 

[r0twhylr]

Anywhere power lines can go, so can fiber.

Anything else is admitting we can't match the work of a hundred years ago and the rural electrification efforts.

Fiber is also cheaper than roads and we have those a lot of places fiber doesn't go.

Just because fiber can go somewhere doesn't make it the best choice.

I work with companies who rely on different WAN connections and SD-WAN for reliabililty. If they have 2 x fiber connections taken out by a backhoe, they're screwed. Some kind of wireless - satellite, microwave, or 5G - is really best practice.

 

[r0twhylr]

That's what Iridium is for

It was always rare and expensive. Direct to cell coverage is orders of magnitude better.