The big news in telecommunications this week is a deal struck between Optus and SpaceX’s Starlink. Using Starlink’s network of orbiting satellites, Optus will initially offer SMS, and eventually voice and data to its customers across all of Australia. While this is good news for its customers, will future generations pay to real cost?
As reported at ITwire and many other places, Optus plans to use Starlink to deliver SMS services in late 2024 with voice and data anticipated in late 2025. At this stage, that data connection will be at 4G and not 5G or better speeds.
Will unregulated networks that put tens or hundreds of thousands of small satellites into the sky lead a future generation to ask the same questions we ask today about carbon in the atmosphere or plastics in the ocean?
There are many companies putting hardware into orbit and there is no mechanism to hold them to account or to question whether the ends justifies the means. Just because the law is silent or limited should not mean it is ok to do something little oversight or limited regulation.
As it stands, Starlink has about 3300 satellites in orbit with a possible later extension to 42,000. SpaceX’s partner company SpaceX Services Inc. has filed a request with the USA’s Federal Communications Commission for a license to operate of up to a million fixed satellite Earth stations to communicate with its non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite Starlink system.
Is the cost of all these satellites in orbit next generation’s carbon emissions or ocean plastics problem to solve? Humanity’s relentless progress has resulted in widespread pollution from the skies to the oceans and massive habitat and environmental destruction on the Earth’s surface. While this is good news for Optus and its customers I wonder if the cost is something we will pay in years to come.
Anthony is the founder of Australian Apple News. He is a long-time Apple user and former editor of Australian Macworld. He has contributed to many technology magazines and newspapers as well as appearing regularly on radio and occasionally on TV.