LightSquared's mobile hopes to rise with satellite

IDG News Service - The path to a promised affordable mobile service that will span the farthest reaches of North America begins late Sunday night on the steppes of Kazakhstan.

That's when SkyTerra-1, one of the largest communications satellites ever built, will be launched into space on a Russian Proton Breeze M rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. If the launch is successful, the satellite will achieve orbit 22,000 miles above Earth and start receiving radio commands after about nine hours.

The craft is one of two that will provide the satellite portion of a mobile service coming in the second half of next year from startup LightSquared. The service, which will be sold wholesale to other carriers that can offer it to consumers, will combine satellite voice and data coverage with a fast LTE (Long-Term Evolution) network in select areas. Users will be able to use one device and switch from one network to the other depending on their location.

Satellite-based mobile services have had limited success in the mainstream market, thanks in part to large and expensive devices and fairly expensive rates. LightSquared says it has advantages that will interest more users. For one thing, devices that will carry both its satellite and its LTE services will be about the same size as other smartphones, with no external antenna. Size and cost will be driven down by the introduction of a single chip from Qualcomm, due on the market next year, that's equipped to connect with satellite and a broad range of other mobile networks.

But SkyTerra-1, and a twin that will be launched later as a backup, is also a key asset, according to LightSquared spokesman Tom Surface.

"It's got much more power, much more capacity and capability than satellites that have been launched up to this point," Surface said.

The satellite's reflector -- the dish antenna that will send and receive signals from users on Earth -- is among the biggest ever at 22 meters (72 feet) across. The six-ton craft, about the size of a small school bus, has 11,900 watts of power for those transmissions, compared with 9,000 watts for Inmarsat, a current-generation communications satellite, Surface said.

SkyTerra-1 also has the edge in terms of "spot beams," which can be moved around to cover different parts of a region. These can be used to quickly boost communications capacity in a given area, such as the site of a natural disaster, Surface said. SkyTerra-1 can have more than 500 spot beams working at the same time, compared with 200 for Inmarsat, the next most powerful communications satellite, he said.