Starlink launched its first batch of 60 satellites in 2019, and by late 2024 the constellation numbered nearly 7,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit. In 2022 Starlink introduced laser inter-satellite links, enabling data to hop between satellites and extending coverage to oceans, polar regions, and remote locales. By mid-2023 Starlink declared global coverage aside from regulatory…
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In 2024, the total global drone market was about $73 billion, with forecasts to reach roughly $163–165 billion by 2030 at around a 14% CAGR. Some analyses forecast growth from about $30 billion in 2022 to $260.5 billion by 2030, implying a 27–39% annual growth rate. By 2030 the market’s major segments are projected to…
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Iridium, a LEO network, started service in 1998 and operates 66 active cross-linked satellites, delivering near-global coverage, with the Iridium NEXT second-generation network launched in 2019. Globalstar uses 48 satellites (24 second-generation as of 2013), has no inter-satellite links and relies on ground gateways, and Apple’s Emergency SOS on iPhone 14 uses about 85% of…
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TKSat-1, launched in 2013 as a $300 million geostationary satellite with China’s help, enabled rural internet, backhaul for mobile towers, and community telecenters with latency around 600 ms. Plans for Túpac Katari 2 with substantially higher throughput were discussed, but a second satellite had not materialized by 2025. In August 2024 Bolivia banned unlicensed Starlink…
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Starlink uses a direct-to-consumer model with a Starlink kit (dish antenna + WiFi router) and monthly service, priced around $100–$120 per month, with the kit originally costing about $599 (some markets as low as $350). Speeds reach roughly 50–200 Mbps down and 10–20 Mbps up, with latency around 20–40 ms, far lower than geostationary satellites.…
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In 2024, the global space economy reached $415 billion in revenue, up 4% from 2023. Commercial satellite activities totaled about $293 billion in 2024, representing 71% of the global space economy. The number of operational satellites rose from roughly 3,371 in 2020 to 11,539 by the end of 2024, a more than threefold increase. SpaceX…
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By the end of 2022, 89.5% of Belarusians were online, with about 8.27 million internet users and 86.9% penetration recorded by early 2023. Beltelecom reported about 2.9 million GPON fiber subscribers by the end of 2022, a figure that reached roughly 3 million by mid-2024. Approximately 82.4% of small settlements with 50–100 inhabitants have access…
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By mid-2024, about 60% of Bahraini households had fiber-optic internet via the wholesale operator BNET, with roughly 171,000 fiber subscriptions in Q2 2024 and top plans up to 2 Gbps. Batelco, STC Bahrain, and Zain have launched 5G with over 98% population coverage, and the median mobile download speed was about 119 Mbps in early…
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As of January 2025, Angola has about 17.2 million internet users (44.8% penetration) with roughly 60% of the population still offline. There are three mobile operators—Unitel (launched 2001), Movicel, and Africell (entered in 2022)—with Unitel and Africell accounting for about 65.7% and 27.8% of mobile broadband subscriptions in 2023, and Movicel the remaining ~6–7%. 3G…
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As of early 2024, Algeria had about 33.5 million internet users, roughly 72.9% of the population. By January 2025, internet penetration rose to about 76.9% of the population. There were over 50 million mobile subscriptions in 2024, often exceeding the population due to multiple SIMs per user. By early 2023 Algeria had 5.12 million fixed…
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