FCC Approves Deployment of Logos Space's 4,178 LEO Satellite Deployment

Logos Space is a new LEO satellite provider that plans to put over four thousand LEO birds into seven orbital shells in the 870 to 920 kilometer span above the Earth. Logos is taking an unusual approach. Its target market includes businesses and governments, but excludes households. Instead of Internet, Logos offers highly secure Layer 2 MPLS Ethernet services. These are the core products, not transit. To improve security over traditional satellite services, it is operating in the high frequency V and E spectrum bands along with the lower frequency K band. This enables the use of narrow beams to connect the customer premise equipment to a satellite. These narrow beams are much more difficult to intercept for eavesdropping or jamming. 

Most LEO constellations provide exclusively Layer 3 services. Satellite frequency spectrum is a finite, strictly limited resource. So overbooked or oversubscribed transit has been the only service that traditionally made economic sense. Narrow beams apparently make point-to-point services economic. However, I've not revised the assumptions behind this assertion. If true, it would be a game changer for Tier 2 ISPs in countries or regions desiring to connect to Internet exchange points, but lacking affordable long haul fibre links. An African ISP in Sierra Leone could take a multi-gigabit uplink to FR2 in Frankfurt. It would not be cheap, but latency would be very low and it might serve as a resiliency complement to long haul terrestrial or subsea circuits. Particularly in countries where there is only a single cable landing like Sierra Leone. 

Screenshot of Logos Space Landing Page




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