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In Today’s Issue

Jason’s Industry Insights, The Podcast

Episode #2 - Discussing Space, with Carlos Placido

In this episode, I speak with Carlos Placido, a well-known and respected independent consultant in satellite communications, about the evolving landscape of space-based communications.

We discuss the significance of tools like NCAT (Non Geo Constellation Analysis ToolKit) for analyzing satellite constellations, the opportunities presented by direct-to-device communication, and the role of IoT in enhancing connectivity.

Carlos discusses the importance of multi-orbit broadband solutions, the future of satellite constellations, the impact of AI on the space sector, the need for standards in satellite communications and the key players to watch in the industry, including Amazon and SpaceX.

We wrap it up with predictions for the future of the space sector in 2025.

Check it out on Apple, Spotify, or find us and follow on whatever player app you use.

What’s Happening On Earth?

BEAD Needs All Technologies to Succeed - The administration should reform the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program to stop favoring overly expensive fiber when LEO satellites could do the same job for less. Taking a technology-neutral approach to broadband deployment would save money that could be better spent on other causes of the digital divide.

My Take: “While LEO satellites may have lacked the capability and scale to provide comprehensive coverage when BEAD was first established, the ecosystem has rapidly advanced in recent years.”

Insofar as I’m a big fan of satellite-based broadband, however, “LEO satellites could do the same job for less” is a shortsighted comment based on a moment in time and today’s FCC service objective. Spend the money once, where possible, and fill in the gaps with LEO-based solutions for fixed applications.

Last-Minute FCC Cybersecurity Ruling - The order would have widespread implications, and the FCC estimated it would impact 69,575 communications providers. This wouldn’t just cover ISPs and telcos, but would apply to cellular companies, satellite companies and earth stations, radio stations, television stations, VoIP providers, commercial radio operators, MVNOs, and 911 providers.

My Take: Well, it’s important that they all have a plan in place, and if someone needs to force the issue, maybe that’ not such a bad thing.

SpaceX Asks to Shield Starlink from New York’s $15 Broadband Law - Starlink parent SpaceX has filed for an exemption from New York’s law requiring Internet Service Providers to provide $15 per month internet plans for low-income households.

My Take: The act applied to providers with more than 20,000 subscribers. I guess SpaceX figures they have less than 20,000 subscribers in the affected areas. Everything is geo-located, so it would be easy to substantiate.

Texas Opens Funding for Starlink, LEO Rivals - The Texas Broadband Development Office announced Friday that it is preparing to use $30 million from the state’s $1.5 billion Broadband Infrastructure Fund to support the deployment of LEO broadband in underserved areas of Texas.

My Take: As they should. Seems a bit of a trend that makes perfect sense.

What is MTF? - MTF is a novel communication system, created by renowned Professor Dr. Michel Fattouche, and capable of offering substantial improvements in channel capacity compared to existing communication systems, without having to modify their spectral footprint. Watch the video below for more technical details.

My Take: Time and Frequency-based encoding to enhance wireless. Who knows. Maybe it’s a thing.

Selector’s Digital Twin: The DVR of Networking - Introducing Selector’s Network Digital Twin (NDT), a digital representation of your network created from real time data. This service enables efficient decision-making and experimentation without interfering with the real network, reducing risks to your infrastructure.

My Take: A great digital twin applications. Many have virtual representations of hardware, but not their own data to plan and model with.

Listen to Episode 1 of The Jason’s Industry Insights Podcast to learn more about Selector.AI

🇨🇦 Advocacy group says CRTC’s move to improve internet service in the North ‘long overdue’ - A public interest group and a northern Indigenous broadband provider say Canada’s telecommunications regulator’s efforts to improve internet services in the North are a step in the right direction.

My Take: The north of anywhere in Canada is a challenge, so this is welcomed news, of course. There are differing opinions on the pricing aspect and if there is enough support around reconciliation.

🇨🇦 CNOC warns of threat to regional ISPs from Big Three operators - The Competitive Network Operators of Canada (CNOC) association has launched a new advertising and digital campaign to warn internet customers that they are facing less choice, more expensive and less connected services unless regulators take action.

My Take: TPIA was put in place to help build a competitive provider market, not allows Tier 1 to expand beyond their infrastructure borders… says me.

Zayo Announces Construction of 5,000+ New Fiber Route Miles - As the only digital infrastructure company to build long-haul networks at scale in the last decade, Zayo’s investment will be critical to averting a potential bandwidth gap in the U.S. as AI-driven data center capacity is expected to grow 2-6X over the next five years.

My Take: Everyone is jumping on the data centre train. It will be fast and hot for the next number of years… and then we’ll have a lot of massive Costcto stores ;)

Smart Home Opportunities - Consumer Survey - This analysis dives deep into the growing interest in smart home services, particularly smart home security and home automation.

My Take: I think I’ve seen numbers like this.. for years… with low adoption rates to date. I don’t have the study but would be interested in understanding what constitutes “smart home services”. I like to be able to talk to my home. It’s easier. Yea, I know it’s listening.

What’s Happening In Space?

What’s in Space This Week?

Confirmed by Starlink – this is the new Internet plan they are offering for only $9 – many are opting for it - SpaceX is making waves in the satellite internet market with an affordable new Starlink plan designed to attract customers who may have avoided the service due to its higher costs.

My Take: For like 5Gb of data and then $3 for every Gb thereafter. Great for backup connectivity in the absence of 5G type services, or for some ad-hoc remote bandwidth. Perhaps if you just want to check email, your portfolio and some low-res movies, it’s OK for the cost conscious.

Quilty Space Issues Estimate on SpaceX’s Starlink 2024 Revenue Growth - Quilty Space estimates that Starlink’s total revenue in 2024 was $7.8 billion, compared to an estimated $2.9 billion in 2023. This revenue estimate includes Starlink service, hardware, and Starlink government contracts. 

My Take: It’s on the same trajectory as a Falcon 9 rocket into space. How much of a bite will Amazon and others take out their revenue?

Stunning ‘Planet Parade’ Visible In Night Sky This Week — How To See It - A very rare planetary alignment on Tuesday, Jan. 21 and Saturday, Jan. 25 is being promoted online. It’s not specific to those dates, but six planets are now in the night sky, four of them visible to the naked eye.

My Take: Uranus joke removed. Or maybe not. This will be cool to see, however with my luck, it’ll be cloudy..

Turks and Caicos officials say SpaceX debris littered islands but no injuries reported - Government officials in Turks and Caicos said Friday that debris from a SpaceX rocket test that went awry fell over the Caribbean islands but that there have been no reported injuries so far and only minimal damages to property.

My Take: It was a spectacular rapid unscheduled disassembly, or however SpaceX says that something blew up. Blew up real good.

If you know, you know.

SpaceX’s Dramatic 7th Starship Test Triggers FAA Investigation  - SpaceX launched the seventh flight test for its massive Starship rocket on Jan. 16, testing extensive upgrades to the vehicle for the first time. After a successful liftoff, stage separation, and recapturing the booster on land, SpaceX lost communication with the ship, which broke apart over the Caribbean. 

My Take: Oops.

Is the OTT juice worth Starlink’s squeeze? Not really - Strand Consult predicted Starlink will morph into an over-the-top (OTT) service in the coming years, much like how other ISPs now bundle broadband with value-added features. If Starlink follows their lead, it would “[create] another risk for broadband incumbents,” the firm said.

My Take: Yea, and they also could have been a huge TPIA ISP in Canada, and they chose not to. Perhaps it’s a threat in areas serviced with DSL or really lousy FWA, but FTTH subscribers aren’t going to jump ship for a potentially more expensive service.

Quick poll question below for your thoughts.

SpaceX’s Starlink Satellites Take a ‘Low Road’ to Clear Up the Night Sky - To achieve their objective, both organisations analysed whether decreasing the orbit of Starlink satellites would prove effective. To test their theory, SpaceX decreased the altitude of 300 generation-2 Starlink satellites to 350 km. In contrast, their original altitude was 550 km. According to Goldman, success was yielded, resulting in a “60% reduction in Vera Rubin Observatory images containing an illuminated satellite”. 

My Take: I think they call it a compromise.

Next-Gen Globalstar: CEO Paul Jacobs Talks Growth in D2D, IoT, and Satellite/Cellular Convergence - Globalstar CEO Paul Jacobs spoke with Via Satellite after the company’s investor day in December as he wrapped up his first full calendar year leading the company. Jacobs digs into how Globalstar’s financial turnaround is fueling the next generation of the company, and where the company is looking to grow beyond its wholesale agreement with Apple, in areas like commercial IoT, government, and blending terrestrial and satellite technologies together.

My Take: D2D and IoT are hot applications garnering a lot of attention. 2025 should be an interesting year.

Momentum for Satellite Direct-to-Device Hits Critical Mass Heading into 2025 - Momentum for direct-to-device technology and services hit a critical mass in 2024. Of course, not everyone has it on their phone today, but public consciousness reached a new level last year with new phones adopting the service, and the high-profile, real-life use cases during the U.S. hurricane season in the fall.

My Take: Still lots if work and user expectation setting to be done. You also need to have the right device.

ABS rethinks business models to navigate shifting satellite market - This reality has driven ABS to explore new approaches, such as a condosat model, where multiple customers share a single satellite to lower costs and investment risks.

My Take: Condosat model. Interesting. Likely fraught with many regulatory concerns.

Executive order calls for cybersecurity review of civil space systems - One portion of the order calls for a review of ground systems used by civilian government agencies. It calls on the National Cyber Director to review those ground systems and provide recommendations to “improve the cyber defenses and oversight” of them. That report is due to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 120 days after the order went into effect.

My Take: Government and DoD engagement will only drive a better end product.

India Docks Two Satellites In Orbit - India successfully docked two satellites in LEO last week, becoming just the fourth country to pull off the difficult tech feat. The mission is a significant step towards India’s pursuit of its aggressive space goals, including servicing satellites, transferring Moon samples between spacecraft for return to Earth, and assembling its space station in orbit.

My Take: Not much to say on this. Seems like quite the accomplishment.

China explores using orbiting lasers to power spacecraft on the moon - Researchers have assessed the viability of using laser wireless power transmission (LWPT) from lunar orbiters to supply spacecraft left in the dark during the long, dark nighttimes on the surface of the moon. LWPT uses laser beams to transmit power wirelessly from orbiting satellites to surface receivers, converting light into electricity. The researchers recommend the development of key technologies, followed by on-orbit testing.

My Take: As long as they don’t accidentally point it at a Starlink satellite.

A Word From Our Partner

What’s Happening SubSea?

Microsoft Planning Its First Irish Sea Cables - The SOBR2 Project - Microsoft has applied for several maritime usage licenses to do ship geophysical surveys of proposed routes for new subsea cables connecting Ireland to the UK. Its SOBR2 cable will connect Ireland to Wales as opposed to the usual Cornwall landings.

Microsoft's Second Irish Sea Cable: Tuskar - Microsoft has filed an application to do a geophysical survey for a new subsea fibre optic cable connecting Ireland to the UK. The Irish Maritime authority has blessed the application. Tuskar is the name of an Irish lighthouse located on a rock in the Irish Sea. It was the first Irish facility to be powered by electricity. The cable's tentative design is to land at Kilmore Quay on the Irish side with the British landing at Newgale in Wales

My Take: More data centre related infrastructure?

Network Outage Affecting North Slope and Northwest Alaska Communities - Our team immediately began assessing the situation and have determined via initial testing that there was a subsea fiber cut in the Beaufort Sea. Winter conditions – including sea ice and darkness – have made it impossible to pinpoint an exact location of the cut and the extent of the cable damage. Unfortunately, the outage will be prolonged, and sea ice will prevent a repair crew and vessel from entering the area and completing a subsea repair until late summer.

My Take: This is a pretty significant outage. I can’t find the reference article, however, I believe the number of affected subscribers was close to 1,800.

Enabling AI

Will AI and automation lead to telco job cuts? - When in 2023 BT Group announced its long-term headcount plans, it noted that of the job cuts it expects to make by the end of this decade, 10,000 roles will be affected by “digitisation, automation… using technology to do things much more efficiently”.

My Take: That 25% undecided vote could swing the numbers either way, although the 44% who suggest AI (etc) will affect headcount is very significant, over some period of time.

Tech giants are putting $500bn into 'Stargate' to build up AI in US - The creator of ChatGPT, OpenAI, is teaming up with another US tech giant, a Japanese investment firm and an Emirati sovereign wealth fund to build $500bn (£405bn) of artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure in the United States.

My Take: Well, now that EVs are off the table, they’ll have more power available for this thing. How many data centres do we need? Telcos have unused real estate all over North America. Can’t that be monetized in some distributes way?

Oh, Poor Tesla Robot.

uncle_dijon

View more on Instagram

My Take: “You did this to me, Elon”.

'ELIZA,' the world's 1st chatbot, was just resurrected from 60-year-old computer code - Using dusty printouts from MIT archives, these "software archaeologists" discovered defunct code that had been lost for 60 years and brought it back to life.

My Take: The OG of AI. I remember ELIZA, but less than 60 years ago, of course..

The three AI scaling laws and what they mean for AI infrastructure - Model size, dataset size and compute all depend on the availability of necessary AI infrastructure

My Take: I guess size does matter.

Paradigm-Shifting Technologies - Charting Disruption - The widespread integration of artificial intelligence (AI) is set to transform nearly every industry. But AI development and infrastructure are emerging as massive industries themselves. Globally, AI-specific digital infrastructure could be a $1 trillion business by 2032. We explore the growth of AI infrastructure as well as AI’s application across industries, including robotics and defense.

My Take: Download the report. All sorts of data and charts.

Join Meetings With Your Body Double - Whether you’re not camera-ready, or are on the go, or just need a moment to stretch, Pickle has you covered. Let your body-double step in and keep you present in the meeting.

My Take: I have to try this. The days of recording loops and adding them as backgrounds are behind us! I can only imagine how entertaining the glitches in this would be.

8 AI and machine learning trends to watch in 2025 - AI agents, multimodal models, an emphasis on real-world results -- learn about the top AI and machine learning trends and what they mean for businesses in 2025.

My Take: AI Agents. That’s all you need to know.

Learn About

There’s enough in here already this week. I need to Learn About less content ;)

This and That!

Has the TikTok Ban Already Backfired on US Cybersecurity? - Now that the US Supreme Court has upheld a ban on the wildly popular video social media platform we know as TikTok, its most influential users have decided to retaliate by moving their game over to REDnote, a competing Chinese social media company, thus creating an entirely new, and arguably worse, situation for the nation's cybersecurity.

My Take: REDnote is apparently more of a concern. If you take one toy away, people will move to another toy, and it may not be a good toy. President Trump gave TikTok a reprieve, of course, but for that one day, TikTok was like Cuban all-inclusive; no Americans.

A meteorite strike was captured on video by a Canadian home's doorbell camera - A doorbell camera on a Canadian home captured rare video and sound of a meteorite striking Earth as it crashed into a couple’s walkway

My Take: Quite the once-in-a-lifetime catch! See, video surveillance can be used for all sorts of good things!

NASA wants a 'Super-Hubble' space telescope to search for life on alien worlds - Called the Habitable Worlds Observatory, the telescope is so massive it may even need to ride a next-gen megarocket like SpaceX's Starship to reach space; it will also require new technological innovations to hunt for Earth's twin across the light-years.

My Take: Maybe they should point it at Earth to search for alien life.

Giant reserves of 'gold' hydrogen may be lurking beneath at least 30 US states, 1st-of-its-kind map reveals - USGS researchers have unveiled the first map of prospective locations for hydrogen gas in the contiguous United States — and there's a lot more than they previously thought.

My Take: “Drill, baby, Drill!” Isn’t that what he said?

Trump Fires Cyber Safety Board Investigating Salt Typhoon Hackerss- In its first full day, the Trump administration axed all advisory committee members within the Department of Homeland Security, including the people that make up the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's (CISA) Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB). The CSRB was actively working on investigating Salt Typhoon, the Chinese state-sponsored hacking group responsible for breaches of at least nine telecommunications networks in the past several months.

My Take: What happened to being worried about “Cyber?”, or was that last term?

Cottage Q&A: Does cold air have a smell? - The smell of cold is actually more like the absence of smell. Why? Odour molecules travel faster and farther in warm air than they do in cold air. “But also, in humid air, we smell smells better,” says Phillips; the higher moisture in warm air improves our olfactory sense.

My Take: Well, here’s something I never thought I needed to know, but now I know. Y’know?

Infographic Of The Week

My Take: The US:Canada 10:1 ratio continues. A metric showing the number of public employees drawing n the defined benefit plans could add some additional context.

Podcast Recommendation

This week on The Moth Radio Hour: stories of beef! Petty grievances to full blown rivalries. At work, over the phone, and, of course, online. This episode is hosted by Moth Director Chloe Salmon. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media.

• Lori Tucker-Sullivan finds herself on the receiving end of strange and unpleasant phone calls.

• 18 year old Morgan Balavage is betrayed by a friend/coworker. 

• Matthew Trenda gets into a war of words with an internet stranger.

• Diego Aguirre adopts a dog and begins to see the world more differently than he could have imagined.

Find The Moth on your Podcast player of choice!

Movie/Streaming Recommendation

The Movie Man

IMDb: 7.7/10

JMDb: 8/10 (I’m biased. Read below)

"The Movie Man" is a captivating documentary that celebrates the magic of cinema through the eyes of Keith Stata, the eccentric owner of Highlands Cinemas in Kinmount, Ontario (a mere 20 minutes from our place in the Kawartha Lakes). Director Matt Finlin crafts a heartwarming portrait of Stata's dedication to preserving the theatrical experience in an era of streaming and multiplexes.

The film beautifully captures the unique charm of this five-screen theatre nestled in the woods, complete with a movie memorabilia museum and a colony of 45 cats. Stata's curmudgeonly yet endearing personality shines as he faces challenges from digital projection to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Finlin's intimate approach allows viewers to feel the passion that drives Stata's labour of love. The documentary serves as both a time capsule of a bygone era and a testament to the enduring power of communal moviegoing.

"The Movie Man" is a must-see for cinephiles, offering a poignant reminder of why we fall in love with the big screen experience.

The theatre is quite the experience. And yes, the popcorn is better than what you get from the big guys.

Until Next Time

Comments here are my own and do not represent the opinions, views or thoughts of any person, company or organization that I may be associated with.

Feedback, comments and ideas are welcomed. Message me on LinkedIn or contact me at [email protected]