Physics / mechanism
LEO mega-constellations deploy hundreds to thousands of satellites in orbital shells typically between 340–1,200 km altitude, achieving round-trip latencies of 20–40 ms versus 600 ms for GEO. Starlink Gen2 operates ~5,000 active satellites; OneWeb runs ~630; Amazon Kuiper is licensing 3,236. Each satellite requires phased-array antennas, inter-satellite optical links (ISLs), radiation-hardened SoCs, and precision attitude control. ISLs now use 1,550 nm free-space optical links at 100+ Gbps per link. Ground terminals use electronically steered arrays (ESAs) with GaAs or GaN RFIC beamforming chipsets. Launch cost per kg to LEO has dropped to ~$1,500–3,000, making constellation economics viable at scale.
Competitive landscape
Starlink dominates on scale and vertical integration. OneWeb/Eutelsat targets enterprise/government. Kuiper is pre-revenue. GEO HTS (SES O3b mPOWER, Viasat-3) competes on coverage economics for thin-route markets with higher latency tolerance. HAPs (Airbus Zephyr, SoftBank HAPSMobile) offer pseudo-geostationary coverage at 20 km altitude, lower capex, sub-50 ms latency but limited throughput. 5G/fiber remain the terrestrial substitutes for fixed broadband.
Companies using
Connected ideas
Sources
Frontier (open questions)
- To be added.