Client Terminals

For the user, a “satellite network” does not start from orbit, but from a box on the roof or an antenna near the house. It is the client terminal that determines how easy it is to connect, what speed can actually be obtained, and how much it all costs.

OneWeb has focused on the corporate and government segments. Terminals here are heavier, more expensive, and mostly professional. At the same time, the company has effectively handed over the terminal market to partners – various equipment manufacturers and distributors. This creates a field for technical and market competition, which will sooner or later benefit consumers. But the reality is harsh: the powerful start of Starlink, and now the entry of Kuiper with a certain price dumping, have seriously limited the maneuver space for OneWeb’s partners.

Starlink chose the opposite strategy – to make the antenna as consumer-friendly as possible and at the same time aggressively subsidize its price. It is known that the first generations of terminals were sold significantly below cost, but this allowed SpaceX to quickly “bite off” a lion’s share of the global B2C market. This tactic could have cost no less than classic advertising and distribution development, but it turned out to be much more effective: the company immediately created a de facto monopoly in the mass segment. For the user, this meant – “here’s a box, connect and work,” without long negotiations and tenders. And although it was painful for finances at the start, scaled production quickly reduced the cost, and now the terminals are probably already approaching the “green zone.”

Kuiper is only at the start, but Amazon has already presented its terminals: a compact one for the home user, a more powerful one for small businesses, and a high-performance one for corporate and government clients. All of them are built on Amazon’s own chips, optimized for working with the Ka-band. But there is a strategic nuance: Kuiper is forced to enter the market in a situation where Starlink has already created the status quo. This means that Amazon will most likely also be forced to sell terminals below cost for some time – at least until the scale of production allows it to reach a financially stable “green zone.” At the same time, integration with AWS opens up additional value for corporate clients that Starlink does not offer.

Both SpaceX and Amazon have made significant efforts to achieve engineering results in the development of terminals with AESA. They have managed to achieve previously unseen miniaturization and adaptation of production technologies, but no real scientific breakthroughs have occurred here. This is more of an engineering and design work using existing solutions. The most difficult part is heat dissipation: the compact placement of AESA antennas along with powerful computing electronics leads to a very low efficiency level – only 3–7%. This means that most of the energy goes into heat, and the task of effective cooling remains one of the most difficult challenges for the entire industry.

The client terminal is not just an antenna, but also an interface to the network world. OneWeb is still playing in the “heavyweight” for corporations. Starlink bet on the mass segment and dominated thanks to dumping and scaling. Kuiper is entering later but immediately combines its own chips and cloud integration, even if it requires financial sacrifices at the start. And the engineering compromises in the field of AESA show: the real competition here is still ahead.

Scaling and Generation Integration

A LEO network is not a static structure. Satellites work for only a few years, after which they need to be replaced. So any project is doomed to constant renewal from the very beginning. And this is where it turns out how difficult it is to stitch different generations into one working system.

Starlink feels this challenge the most. Today, the fleet has several “families” of satellites: from Gen1 without optical links, through intermediate models, to the new V2 Mini Optimized with a full set of ISLs and an expanded spectrum. On the horizon, even heavier V3 satellites and a separate “constellation within a constellation” for Direct-to-Cell are already looming – more than 14 thousand declared satellites. This is a real zoo where different generations with different capabilities work simultaneously. The advantage is that SpaceX can scale the network almost continuously. The disadvantage is the growing complexity of management and potential failures at the interfaces of generations.

The intensive evolution of Starlink has another dark side: global failures. They do not happen every day, but they are not rare either – several times a year, users around the world experience significant service interruptions. The reasons are different – from software updates to a transition to new generations of satellites, but the result is the same: a mass service for tens of millions of users becomes vulnerable even to small management errors. This is a kind of “price of speed” that SpaceX pays.

OneWeb is still living with Gen1, but also faces the challenge of scaling. Gen2 is planned with ISLs and an expanded spectrum, and the company will have to integrate it so that the user does not feel a “quality drop.” Here there is the advantage of a “clean slate” – you can immediately make more modern satellites without the baggage of old generations. But there is also a risk: as long as only Gen1 is in the sky, the network looks outdated against the backdrop of competitors.

Kuiper has the simplest situation – because it starts later. They are immediately launching the first generation with ISLs, modern antennas, and a well-thought-out architecture. This allows them to avoid a “zoo” and build the system more evenly. However, Amazon will have to go through the same stages in the future: satellites are not eternal, and in 5-7 years, replacement will begin.

Scaling is not just about quantity. It is also a matter of integration: how to make old and new satellites work together, how to minimize failures, how not to get confused in different sets of functions. In Starlink, this is already visible: some satellites carry traffic via ISL, some – only through gateways. For OneWeb and Kuiper, this challenge is still ahead, but it cannot be avoided. And this is where it becomes clear that domination in quantity does not yet guarantee domination in quality.

Strategy and Ecosystem

A LEO constellation is not just about satellites and antennas. It is always part of a broader strategy: who controls the market, what services are offered, how the ecosystem is built. And here, the approaches of the three players differ dramatically.

OneWeb from the beginning was a project with a branched network of partners. The company not only delegated the production of terminals to various suppliers but also effectively handed over regional sales to resellers. This made OneWeb more dependent on the partner ecosystem, but at the same time created a classic competitive environment for equipment and services. In the long run, the consumer can benefit from such a model, but in practice, the powerful start of Starlink and the arrival of Kuiper have significantly reduced OneWeb’s chances of “skimming the cream” in the mass market.

Starlink chose the diametrically opposite path – maximum control. Satellites, their launch rockets, terminals, and even the software architecture – everything is under the SpaceX roof. This allowed the company to act aggressively: subsidize terminals, increase the number of satellites at a frantic pace, and offer the consumer simple and direct access to the service. Starlink became a de facto B2C monopolist in satellite internet. The aggressive market entry had a global effect: in the last four years alone, the prices for satellite internet worldwide have dropped by an order of magnitude, and now even traditional operators are forced to rebuild their business models. But there is another nuance here: SpaceX thinks broader. They have positioned Starlink from the very beginning as “space infrastructure” that can also be sold to other players. An example is the use of inter-satellite laser links not only for their own traffic but also potentially as a service for other satellites. Add to this native IPv6 support, and we see that Starlink is being designed as a global platform, not just an “internet provider.”

Kuiper is taking a third path – a combination of complete control and reliance on the existing Amazon business ecosystem. Satellites, terminals, gateways – all are proprietary. But the main thing is integration with AWS. This means that a corporate client will not just get a “channel in space,” but a channel that is “out of the box” built into their cloud infrastructure. And here Amazon has a trump card that no one else has: the company is already rooted in dozens of countries around the world with its branched network of warehouses, data centers, services, and logistics. Where SpaceX has to invest in everything – from representation to sales tools and local infrastructure, Amazon just needs to add a thin layer of “satellite superstructure” to its existing business. This sharply reduces the barriers to market entry and makes Kuiper a global project from day one. And although the main competition for Kuiper will obviously take place in the B2B and B2G segments, the company’s ambitions indicate that Amazon is ready to fight for a significant share of the B2C market, using its experience in retail and a colossal client base.

So, we have three different strategies. OneWeb – a network of partners and resellers. Starlink – a vertically integrated machine with ambitions of global infrastructure. Kuiper – a space segment that is immediately “stitched” with the most powerful cloud on the planet, reinforced by Amazon’s real global presence and supported by the readiness to enter the B2C market. And this is where it becomes clear that the fight is not only for the user with an antenna on the roof but also for control over what the global internet ecosystem will look like in the coming decades.