“On October 1st, This Weird Rooftop Pod Will Deliver the Death Blow to ‘The Big 3’ Cable Companies… With One Clean Shot”
That’s the opener of the latest ad for Ray Blanco’s Technology Profits Confidential, which is selling subscriptions with the promise that you can get rich and shut down America’s most hated companies at the same time. So what’s he talking about with this tale that you can “turn a single paycheck into $110,661 when America’s most hated monopoly finally goes six feet under?”
He doesn’t mention what kind of paycheck we’re talking about, of course, whether it’s $1,000 or $40,000 that turns into $110,000… but he does in several places talk up what “could” be a 5,349% windfall.
And yes, you’l note that up there it says “October 1st” — that’s what the promised date was for the start of flowing riches the first time Ray Blanco teased this investment idea. October 1, 2017. Lately he has re-circulated it with the “December 7” pitch, then “March 31st” as the year turned to 2018, and now ,though the ad is still signed “September, 2017,” the due date teased in the headlines is now September 22, 2018 for this “death blow.”
The argument, essentially, is that this secret company will be going public soon and you have to get in now if you want a piece of the riches — first to buy someone who has invested in that company, second to actually buy the stock at the IPO whenever it comes.
The rest of this article is old, I’m afraid — I haven’t changed much of what follows, it’s still what we told you back when he was teasing this same idea back in October of 2017 (the ad hasn’t changed much, either, to be fair, they’ve mostly just updated the dates). I’ve added a few little updated notes throughout, but most of what you’ll read below was first published on October 2, 2017.
So where are these riches coming from? The short answer is “satellite internet,” which for many years has been the province of billionaires who are sick of having too much money.
But let’s get into the long answer so we can see if it’s clear which stock he’s teasing. Then, heck, maybe you’ll decide you’d like to risk a subscription… that’s your call. But start out with some knowledge first — if you don’t feel like you’re buying a “secret” stock tip and you can go into any newsletter subscription with a little healthy skepticism and the ability to think for yourself, then you’re much less likely to do something stupid risky once you get that “secret tip.”
The big idea is that several large companies are backing a low-earth orbit constellation of satellites that could deliver broadband-speed internet to areas of the world that aren’t currently connected by fiber-optic cables. Here’s a bit more from the ad:
“… companies like…
* Virgin Group
* Airbus
* Qualcomm
* And even Coca-Cola“…have poured nearly two billion into launching the specific technology I’m going to tell you about today.
“Even Fortune recently reported that following these companies’ lead is a way for main street investors to ‘win big’ right now.
“Because not only could this new breakthrough deliver faster, cheaper, reliable internet directly to your home…
“It’s also going to give you a perfectly solid connection in your car driving through the mountains… on your boat out at sea… at your cabin in the deep woods…”
Sounds good, right? I know my kids really, really, really want to have broadband internet in our car, taking away that one part of the day where they have nothing to do but read a book or listen to their parents (if they start putting wifi in all modern cars, as seems the trend, we may have to go back to driving our 1966 Oldsmobile full time… even the AM radio doesn’t work, they’ll have no choice but to absorb our parental wisdom).
So what is it that Blanco is pitching here? A solution to that “last mile” or rural customer is a big part of it — he brings up several examples of folks who can’t get broadband access because they’re out in the country, or just don’t have the right fiber optic cables in their neighborhood. More from the ad:
“Customers now using internet from the heavens have called it a game changer – clocking in at 12 times faster, yet 10 times cheaper than what they were forced to use before.
“Here’s the best part…
“Until now, the precursor to this extraordinary technology has only been rolled out to 15 countries around the world.
“But soon, it could replace dial-up, cable, DSL and even fiber in every city and town in America.
“Making the lives of virtually every American more affordable and far less stressful.”
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The bad news? Ray Blanco keeps mentioning this October 1 December 7 February 7 March 31 September 22nd deadline — apparently that’s the date by which you have to “position yourself” to take your share of the $251 billion internet market. So how is it that we’re supposed to position ourselves, assuming we believe that this arbitrary date is anything other than a “please get your credit card number out quick, don’t delay” deadline? (It isn’t, sorry.) Let’s get a few more clues from the pitch:
“A stunning breakthrough in something called ‘L.E.O. transmission’ is about to snap up most – if not all – of that hugely profitable market and make technological history.
“And at the center of it all sits a tiny, privately-held company that holds the exclusive legal rights to use their technology to connect every human on the planet – with the virtual flip of the switch.
“Not only will this company change the whole world’s perception of what an internet provider is, it is also poised to make investors very, very rich.
“Once they launch their breakthrough L.E.O. transmission project, they are poised to tap into an additional $35 billion of profit every single year – just in the US alone.”
That “Halo-Fi” refers to a network of low earth orbit (that’s the L.E.O. bit) satellites which travel far closer to the earth than most satellites and therefore get rid of the latency problem that has been a serious limiter for the speed of satellite-based internet — Blanco refers to them as “micro-routers” that circle the earth about 750 miles over our heads…
“It Takes Just Three Halo-Fi “Micro-Routers” to Cover an Area the Size of India.
“And to blanket the entire earth in high-speed internet?
“As this company is about to prove, it could take as few as 648 micro-routers.
“Then, once the switch is flipped on, receiving internet in your home is simple.
“No spotty modems. No outdated copper. No fiber.
“You don’t even need to buy an antenna.
“You’d simply need to be near a school, public building or municipal building that has a receiver on its roof and your phones and computers will automatically log on.
“Now, if you prefer, you can buy your own receiver for a one-time payment of about $200.”
So what they’re talking about is a company called OneWeb, which used to be called WorldVu. It was founded by Greg Wyler, who has long been a scrappy internet provider entrepreneur (driven by both profit and social missions, apparently — one of his biggest projects was wiring Rwanda for broadband), and his company now features some huge backers on its Board of Directors, including Richard Branson, Suni Bharti Mittal, and Paul Jacobs of Qualcomm, who all participated in OneWeb’s $500 million Series A funding round…. and it also received a massive $1.2 billion investment from Masayoshi Son’s Softbank (SFTBY), and, with Softbank’s help, nearly merged with Intelsat (I) earlier this year before that merger was squashed by Intelsat’s debtholders.
But OneWeb is, as Ray Blanco notes, private. That means it’s not publicly traded or listed on a stock exchange, and you and I can’t invest in it (at least not directly or easily). So what’s the story with this investment tease? More from the ad:
“Launching this company’s entire constellation of micro-routers – including a network of receivers on Earth you can automatically log on to – is expected to cost just $3.5 billion.
“So not only are we talking about the most reliable internet the world has ever seen…
“We’re also talking about possibly the least expensive way EVER to launch it.
“Which, by my cost analysis, will then translate into a monthly charge of no more than $7 a month for users just like you.
“Which means we’re really talking about…
“A fundamental shift in the history of the internet itself.
“And my intelligence points to October 1st as the day this private Halo-Fi company begins the process of going public on the stock market.”
OK, so that’s part of it, there’s some plan to begin the process of going public, and for some reason Blanco’s intelligence points to October 1 December 7 as the day that process begins. But he’s not just talking about buying this stock if and when it goes public…
“But here’s the catch…if you want to claim those gains for yourself, you have to take action BEFORE
October 1st… I mean December 7thFebruary 7. “Because I’ve developed a ‘one-two’ profit punch” strategy to capitalize on this world-changing technology before AND after it makes its way onto the public markets.
“It’s a simple strategy…one that could make you a cool six-figures before the year is out.”
What else might be causing this “rush” for a company that already has a $1+ billion investment from Softbank for a project that in its entirety, according to Blanco, will only cost $3.5 billion? Apparently there’s a deadline:
“… in 2012, the CEO of this company successfully secured the global rights to operate his Halo-Fi technology exclusively within the ‘microsatellite band’ of space.
“Under the first-come, first-serve ITU rules that govern the deal, if this company can get their microsatellites operating any time before the end of 2019, they have the sole rights to operate inside this band.”
That’s not necessarily the full story, Wyler did get hold of the previously failed Teledesic’s spectrum rights, which were first granted well over a decade ago (Teledesic was a previous low-orbit internet satellite constellation company that failed, despite big backing from Bill Gate, Craig McCaw and the Saudis, and stopped work in 2002), so these projects didn’t begin just in 2012… though Greg Wyler did indeed file first with the ITU, and that is indeed a “first-come, first serve” license that requires OneWeb to get their satellites up by 2019 to claim that spectrum and license and force everyone else (if anyone else proceeds with actually building a constellation) to work around their spectrum or cooperate with them.
That “first place” position has helped Wyler get all this funding — it was after that license that they got their big Series A funding back in 2012, and since then other big partners have reportedly been sniffing around, including a possible deal with Google that didn’t materialize and, more recently, the big Softbank investment. It also almost led, reportedly, to a possible partnership with Elon Musk’s SpaceX — though SpaceX seems now to be more of a competitor than a collaborator, and OneWeb is planning to use Branson’s Virgin Galactic and the New Glenn rocket from Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to launch its satellites (instead of SpaceX).
There are other not-very-well-known projects who have registered with the ITU beyond SpaceX, too, all of them essentially getting in line to stake their claim on spectrum and satellite slots in case OneWeb misses its deadline (or with the assumption that they’ll be able to coordinate with OneWeb’s spectrum claims) — most of those projects began their filings a little under two years ago, right after Google and SpaceX got a lot of press coverage for their satellite ambitions. Back in 2016 we even saw a teaser pitch for an Aussie company that was pitched as “critical” to SpaceX’s satellite internet plans, so this story is out there in the investing world. (That pitch was about space junk and the risk it poses to satellites, incidentally — and the stock has done pretty well, though the connection to SpaceX is obviously quite tenuous.)
But still, the fact remains, OneWeb is private. How does one invest in it?
Assuming you want to, of course.
Well, if you want to invest in it before the “maybe someday” IPO, the only way to do that is by buying shares of one of OneWeb’s publicly-traded backers that participated in one of their venture funding rounds. That would mean Qualcomm (QCOM), Airbus (EADSY), Coca Cola (KO), Hughes Network Systems (Echostar), or Intelsat (I)… or, of course, Softbank (SFTBY) itself, though Softbank’s investment in OneWeb, large though it is at well over a billion dollars, represents only about 1% of Softbank’s market cap (Softbank may be a fine buy if you like Masayoshi Son’s decisions, but its prospects depend far more on major investments in Sprint, ARM Holdings, Uber, Alibaba, Didi Chuxing, NVIDIA and others than they do on OneWeb’s success or failure).
Either that, or you could participate in the idea of OneWeb’s mission by buying one of the other possible partners for OneWeb now that the Intelsat deal has failed (it was scrapped in June, mostly because bondholders wouldn’t accept the massive writedown offered by Softbank, but most people seem to think that OneWeb would do better if it collaborated with an existing satellite company) — those other suitors would presumably be the other major commercial satellite fleet operators like Telesat (half owned by Loral Space (LORL)), Gilat (GILT), Iridium (IRDM), Viasat (VSAT), Orbcomm (ORBC) and Echostar (SATS).
If those are the choices you give me, I’d be most inclined to take Viasat (VSAT) or Echostar (SATS) seriously, though Qualcomm (QCOM) is certainly the one that has the most reasonable valuation and is clearly a fine buy as long as the Apple dispute doesn’t completely destroy their royalty revenue in the future (that’s not at all guaranteed, unfortunately). VSAT has been one of the largest holdings of Seth Klarmann’s Baupost, which is a pretty strong vote of confidence, and SATS has both an ownership stake in OneWeb and a compatible consumer-facing business that’s profitable and growing earnings (and it’s also a supplier to OneWeb), though it certainly ain’t cheap. Intelsat has been the biggest winner in the group since Blanco’s pitch began, but that’s not because of LEO or OneWeb, it’s partly because their financials improve a little and, story-wise, because they became a market darling this Spring following some talk of regulatory adjustments by the FCC, mostly because Intelsat uses some of the frequency bands (C-band) that might be used for 5G.
I have no insight into who Softbank might pursue in Masa’s plan to consolidate OneWeb with an existing operator, or if they’ve given up on that now and will go public instead someday… but those are decent companies that are worth a look and are small enough (VSAT and SATS, at least) to see a significant economic impact from this planned satellite constellation. Airbus seems most economically involved in OneWeb’s actual operations, since they’re OneWeb’s partner on their satellite-building factory in Florida, but Airbus is one of the largest space companies in the world in addition to being the second largest aircraft manufacturer, and OneWeb’s little project won’t make much of a dent on their income statement.
As to whether OneWeb itself will be worth an investment once it becomes available in an IPO, that depends, of course, on what the valuation is. (And it doesn’t necessarily have to happen — there’s likely abundant private capital out there for a tech company like OneWeb that’s run by a charismatic founder and has a gold-star board and a sexy space-related mission. The Intelsat merger would have effectively brought them public without an IPO, and that could also happen with some other partner.)
There’s no rush on that front, though, not unless you’re hurrying to fill up the subscriber rolls for your newsletter like Ray Blanco seems to be — OneWeb (or WorldVu, if they keep using that name with the SEC) has not filed an S-1 or otherwise given any indication that they’re on the verge of an IPO. And they shouldn’t be in dire need of capital, they don’t have the full $3.5 billion that they say they’ll need to be up and running with their satellite constellation, but they should have roughly half that amount, which presumably is plenty to get a launch or two and some “proof of concept” in place and meet that 2019 deadline. Though that deadline is getting a little tighter now that their first launch has been pushed back (it was supposed to come in March 2018, now it’s targeted for somewhere between December 2018 and February 2019).
Satellite internet is an appealing idea, though the notion that it can replace fiber optic connections or next-generation wireless with comparable speed and cost remains pretty untested — and satellite networks are, even in this age of billionaire-funded private space companies, awfully expensive to build, deploy and maintain. To add to the challenge, the problem they can most feasibly solve in the first wave, as OneWeb is attempting, is delivering internet access to rural areas — and those are not areas that are typically flush with wealth, so without government incentive, frankly, that’s not necessarily a very lucrative problem to be solving (rural = not so many customers… so, assuming such a service ever actually launches, they’ll be losing money unless they’re charging a heckuva lot more than $7 a month).
There’s a reason why so many satellite companies have had balance sheet problems (like Intelsat), and why the pursuit of private space flight requires billionaires to open their own wallets — space is difficult and expensive. The mission of OneWeb is much more about reaching the currently unreachable with broadband internet, it won’t likely disrupt current broadband customers or offer them a cheaper option, but it might be able to bring broadband to rural areas… like rural Alaska, which is the target Greg Wyler has spoken of recently. Bringing viable competition to areas that are already served by broadband, (or even by 5G wireless, which will probably develop much more quickly than satellite internet), is much less feasible in the short term (next five years).
The December 7 February 7 March 31 September 22 stuff in the ads, though, is extremely unlikely to be significant. This will not be a moneymaking enterprise anytime soon, and it will require a lot more capital over time to build out that constellation and their ground facilities (though they’ve raised more than $1.5 billion privately already, so they’ve got a good start).
They might go public at any time, of course, but they haven’t filed and I would assume that there’s no reason to panic about “getting in early” — an investment in Softbank or Intelsat or Echostar here won’t give you a whole lot of exposure to OneWeb, and with a company that has a business mission and a massive capital investment ahead but no clear economic trajectory to profitability, there’s every chance that they’ll go public to raise some money at some point in the next year or two to raise money but not actually shoot higher post-IPO. This is a capital intensive business and probably won’t show meaningful financials for years, if ever.
So keep an eye out for the IPO if you’re interested, consider one of those other investments if you think the satellite business in general is compelling (or you like Qualcomm or Softbank or Intelsat for other reasons), but I don’t see any reason to buy any of those stocks primarily because of OneWeb. They won’t have their first rocket in the air for months, and even with their ambitious launch schedule (a new launch of satellites every three weeks for two years to fill out their “constellations”), they won’t have any customers to speak of until at least 2020, and they probably won’t be making money and generating investor enthusiasm for a long time after that (if ever)… unless regular investors start thinking of Wyler as a visionary with a world-dominating plan and just want to throw money at him, like they do with Elon Musk sometimes. If you can’t tell, I’m skeptical — despite the coolness (and possible future value) of the OneWeb business.
Which doesn’t mean that OneWeb won’t work out as a great advancement for mankind, or even a great investment some day, but, if you’re researching this idea, I’d keep your expectations a little closer to the horizon. If you’ve looked into private satellite businesses, or OneWeb, or have any similar favorite ideas to share, please shout ’em out with a comment below (and we’ve kept all the original comments from the earlier versions of this article attached, so you can see what folks were thinking about these ideas over the past six months or so).
P.S. In case you’re wondering whether those previous iterations of the ad were prescient about the importance of getting in by whatever the made-up date was with your investment in Intelsat, Softbank, Echostar or whatever other partner Blanco might have liked, that’s still open for debate — but we can look at the actual stocks that might have been Blanco’s picks, particularly Softbank, which he is much more clearly teasing in the most recent ads. Here’s an updated sample of the charts of those likely candidates… that blue line is Intelsat, which has has a huge surge recently. For most of the past year Softbank has underperformed, but it recently caught up to and passed the S&P 500, and Qualcomm has done pretty well recently, too, though Echostar has been notably ugly.
I Total Return Price data by YCharts
Intelsat has done incredibly well in its recent stock price recovery, but remains the poster child for what a scary balance sheet can look like in the satellite business, with $14 billion in debt sitting on top of a market cap that once dipped down to $160 million (though it has recovered to about $3 billion in the past few months), so that one will probably always have a volatile stock price and, for more conservative investors, will probably forever feel like it’s a bad launch away from bankruptcy.
Personally, I’d still stick with Qualcomm out of this group — they own a little piece of OneWeb, and it almost certainly won’t mean anything to their results in the next ten years, but they also have a strong toehold in 5G wireless and a great balance sheet that’s fueling big buybacks, a nice dividend, and, thanks to the Apple royalty dispute and the tariff wars with China, a fair dose of risk that has probably kept the stock from rising to what would otherwise be a “fair” level. Sadly, those risks could genuinely have a huge impact, which is why my Qualcomm position is small… but that’s still my favorite if you make me choose among that bunch.
Disclosure: I own shares of Amazon and Alphabet and Qualcomm, briefly alluded to above. I do not own any of the other stocks mentioned, and will not trade in any covered stock for at least three days per Stock Gumshoe’s trading rules.
Beats me what to do. Seems like there is some money to be made but there are so many degrees of freedom(is that the right phrase?) of what could happen that I have no confidence in my ability to actually make the right call.
Buffet says, even though he is a Democrat(sigh), don’t invest in what you don’t understand. Okay. Benjamin Graham said rule number one was to NOT LOSE MONEY. Okay. So much is going on here that I am not in a position to understand that I would say my odds of losing money are WAY higher than the odds of making money…but that is a personal evaluation. Others may feel differently, of course.
Hell of a good read on what is going in in the satellite Internet area, though. Good to know I will be able to afford broadband when I finally get my lake house in the woods.
I lost my butt several years back when I invested in Iridium satellites and held onto the stock as it became worthless… but those stinking satellites kept on orbiting and I assume that some Fed agencies continue to use them. No thinks, it seemed to make sense way back then… I still feel the pain. Learned that lesson.
Iridium Communications Inc
NASDAQ: $IRDM – Oct 13, 4:41 PM EDT
Far from worthless Keelfoot. #Best2YOU
Many yrs ago I lost $10k on Globalstar when it went chapter 11.
Me too. Hard lesson
Me too, 50k down the tube. And I worked for Loral then.
Yo Keelfoot – having paid for a premium ticket to the satellite circus theater you might want to obtain a well written book on the Iridium adventure called “Eccentric Orbits ” by John Bloom . In it you will find the who, when , where and what went wrong and how it finally became a success at your and many others great expense. for other members trying to get their head around the satellite internet industry that book will provide invaluable history and background.
yup. share still show up in my account as a reminder….
You held the stock for too long, all stock drop off. If you want to set your stocks year after year you need to invest in a fund, like the Vanguard fund.
Warren Buffet said rule #2 is DON’T FORGET RULE #1.
AMEN !
Follow the money!
Don’t invest. Buy a box.. if enough people buy the “sattlelite
Both these companies kymeta and oneweb are at door step of high tech of flat antennas, standalone wireless routers, and shoebox size satellites to contect all the world to the internet. They are green applications. I have read a great deal on these two and they have a lot more that they working on. I think time to invest is now.
Judging by the bounce today (not to mention after-hours), I’d humbly submit IRDM as a candidate partner for OneNet in this context. Iridium has had its problems, but it certainly seems to be a survivor in the L.E.O telecoms business spaces . . .
Just a random Monday thought,
Gordon
Oops — I meant One Web . . .
My bad,
Gordon
I see a few things that don’t quite add up here. Firstly, Ray Blanco is pushing it, therefore I suggest that this is somewhere right around 99% pure B.S.
I am already a satellite internet customer here in the western part of Canada. The cost isn’t anywhere near as low as Blanco claims, nor is it 12 times faster. Here’s the facts. Our local land based ISP cost us $56 a month, including taxes and ran at 6.7 Mbps during normal daytime traffic. It also goes out every time the wind blows and knocks a tree on to the power lines. Even if we have generator power, the internet is still down if the power is out. And no, you don’t get credit for any down time.
The satellite ISP costs just over $100 a month and tested at 33.4 Mbps when the installer set it up. So yes it is faster, but definitely not cheaper.
Now it seems to me that Blanco’s claim of some $35 billion profit annually is somewhat out to lunch. Let’s say there are 350 million people in the U.S. and every last man, woman and child signed up for the service…which of course would never happen. That would mean that every single person would have to pay sufficient to give the supplier a $100 profit per annum. I don’t see that happening either.
So Blanco, who is – or was – an expert on marijuana, and crypto’s (allegedly) is now an expert on satellite internet? What next I wonder? Flying pink pigs?
Thank you but no thank you Mr. Blanco.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_auction
Wellll…..I have had Agora’s service for the past 12 plus years, and MOST of the recommendations I have received have made me a lot of money. It’s softbank (SFTBY). That said, I bought (I), and (S), because they are both in bed with OneWeb…dig a bit farther into both and you will find that info out. I also bought (SFTBY), based on their overall portfolio, and investing strategy, as well as their financials. They seem to be big at supporting startup techs, and emerging techs, and bringing those companies to market. Do your own due diligence, of course.
JDV, How have they performed thus far, post purchase?
Since I bought in on the 4th…Intelsat is up $1.40/sh,,, Softbank up 18 cents/sh (I don’t expect that will climb as fast),,,and Sprint is fluctuating up 0.20/sh yesterday, but dropped off today. Sprint is in play as a “buyout/merger” with T-Mobile, and Softbank owns over 3 Billion with a B, shares of Sprint.
I think T will buy Sprint if the TW merger is blocked. But if it goes ahead I think a lot of the Sprint price is on that takeover hope so could see a dip. As a T holder I am neutral as to them taking TW but if they don’t I’d bet my house (sorry my ex-wife’s house) that Sprint will be on their immediate shopping list. Or as the investment hacks would say, “There’s a 735% uplift in sight for tthis telecoms pioneer”.
I do not think Blanco has any edge on which company may benefit most ahead of time, pre IPO if ever occurring; if he said SFTBY, that is safe – if SFTBY unlikely to double once system gets launched; Blanco justifies double by his numbers / he could rely on them, as scalable to actual business results, if stock fell short of double. I think more likely Web One would want to merge with existing public company if: 1) partner was small enough to give WO the financial benefits/control to WO existing investors WO seeks, and 2) partner is functional enough to more efficiently implement service/products to end users than if WO internally does from scratch. The catch 22 is (Intelsat merger having failed), WO must plan for 100% internal capability to execute marketing and sales at some point if cannot pull off merger soon … or do as joint venture with one of the merger candidates – but that would tend to give too much business/money advantage to candidate.
So what’s the scoop on the symbol for halow?
I honestly doubt you’re doing well at all with 12 years of Agora reds if they are like this. Seriously, Softbank and Sprint? The who’s Who of bad investment prospect for any material gains.
I had DirecTV satellite in both Michigan and here in Iowa. The signal was lost EVERY TIME it rained more than a few drops or snowed more than a few flakes!!! Will this new service do the same thing?
That was the point of LEO (low earth orbit) was that it is only 750 miles up instead of 33,000 miles (geo synchronous orbit)… so it sounds like NO the weather will not KILL the signal… plus with 2648 of them up there you can be sure the signal strength is ten times that of satellite comm.
The big point of LEO is the much smaller latency problem — the delay for transmitting from satellites is not acceptable for high-speed internet, but presumably the lower satellites can cut that delay dramatically. Whether it actually competes with fiber, or is just much better than existing satellite internet, I don’t know.
Compared to traditional says a whole fleet in LEO can be economically launched. So you just need a facilator.
My guess would Direct Sat – if its still around – ex investor.
The proximity to the earth has very little to do with what we call rain fade. The proximity to the earth can improve signal latency. Radio waves travel at approximately 300,000 kilometers/second, so by default, the closer the satellite to earth, the less latency from radio wave propagation delay. Most likely only online gamers and real-time traders care about the latency differences we’re talking about here. There are many other factors that come into play with latency though, so be careful. Now, for rain fade, that is an element of the frequency the radio waves are transmitted at. The carrier frequency, not the data rate. Lower frequencies penetrate better. Unfortunately, most satellite broadband providers are in the upper frequency ranges. Look at Direct TV. They are in the Ku and Ka band….very bad for rain and snow. As a comparison, in the Amazon region, C band gets used very successfully. Just some random morning thoughts from an engineer.
the difference is the new internet would be low orbiting satellites instead of being farther out
There are many unavoidable issues. This is microwave – extremely susceptible to rain. This can only function like CDMA (carrier division multiple access) or a similar system, where satellites poll users “round-robin” i.e., going to each user’s data transceiver for a data request. Not all that different from how retail gas stations with two-way dishes on the roof operate for approving credit card purchases. The more users there are, the slower the system can run as time is divided up for each user.
COC: That is now, he said after inception, your bill will reduce from the $56 to about $7. Could you jump all over that? LOL
Of all the advisors at Agora, Steve Sjuggerud and Ray Blanco have been the best for my investments. You can talk Ray down all you want, but I am taking his advice to the bank 😉
True, current internet satellite access is not in any way the same as is being discussed in this article. It is all about distance, and the current internet satellites are in orbit hundreds of miles higher than this proposed satellite technology, big difference. The future as I see it is in deploying router repeaters in commercial airlines which there are thousands in the air all over the world every minute of the day. Same technology, so who needs satellites to achieve same results, lower cost internet. I wouldn’t invest in any satellite based internet access hype, been hearing it for decades. My partner developed the first satellite transceiver back in the 70’s, so having stayed on top of this technology has been a life long quest. The hype I have read over the years says it all, it is all hype, satellite companies is not the answer to low cost internet.
commercial airlines do not have the same number of planes in the air at all times … the number of flights late night/early morning isn’t the same as, say afternoon, flights … no that might not matter in the overall big picture, but there are those that wouldn’t accept loss/limited internet @ 3am … so repeaters in planes can only be a proportion of the system … the good news is that there are a lot of planes in the air when internet demand is higher … & i’m curious about how flight paths not having even geographical coverage … of course all of my ranting is conjecture as i don’t have any real data to back up my comments … ymmv
henry
I don’t contradict your skepticism. It is a new venture and a Million things could go wrong. But, it is World wide. So the 350,000,000 is tiny since the ring of satellites covers almost every major country. Their potential customers include, every school, office building, and rural area, in-flight air planes, moving trains, automobiles, buses, trucks, and manufacturing plants. I am sure I left out hundreds of other uses. Then on the con side, there are three or four other satellite schemes in direct competition.
It’s safe look up (http://) stands for. Check out this link Ray Blanko should be his name broadband
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_auction
Hmmm great idea one web has. Big name backers, lots of money and the ability to pull thru. Airborn wireless seems like a better bet to me then this halo of low orbit satellites. Put the technology into every airplane built and criss cross the globe with relays poof accomplish the same thing cheeper and easier. However airborn wireless stock has suffered lately for some reason. Maybe the talk of this halo has people thinking of other solutions for connecting the plantet on one internet thus taking the spot light off certain companies and turning it into a strobe light. Like the story says, i guess, its really just gunna come down to who gets it done first. Abwn worth a look? Inclusion to the watch list?
Link on space junk in orbit- http://www.wired.com/story/story/the-space
https://www.wired.Author: Lisa GrossmanLisa Grossman science The growing cloud of space junk surrounding the Earth is a hazard to spaceflight, and will only get worse as large pieces of debris collide and fragment. NASA space scientists have hit on a new way to manage the mess: Use mid-powered lasers to nudge space junk off collision courses.The U.S. military currently tracks about 20,000 pieces of junk in low-Earth orbit, most of which are discarded bits of spacecraft or debris from collisions in orbit. The atmosphere naturally drags a portion of this refuse down to Earth every year. But in 1978, NASA astronomer Don Kessler predicted a doomsday scenario: As collisions drive up the debris, we’ll hit a point where the amount of trash is growing faster than it can fall out of the sky. The Earth will end up with a permanent junk belt that could make space too dangerous to fly in, a situation now called “Kessler syndrome.”Low-Earth orbit has already seen some scary smashes and near-misses, including the collision of two communications satellites in 2009. Fragments from that collision nearly hit the International Space Station a few months later. Some models found that the runaway Kessler syndrome is probably already underway at certain orbit elevations.”There’s not a lot of argument that this is going to screw us if we don’t do something,” said NASA engineer Creon Levit. “Right now it’s at the tipping point … and it just keeps getting worse.”In a paper submitted to Advances in Space Research and posted to the preprint server arXiv.org, a team led by NASA space scientist James Mason suggests a novel way to cope: Instead of dragging space junk down to Earth, just make sure the collisions stop.”If you stop that cascade, the beauty of that is that natural atmospheric drag can take its natural course and start taking things down,” said William Marshall, a space scientist at NASA and coauthor of the new study. “It gives the environment an opportunity to clean itself up.”Simply keeping new fragments from forming can make a big difference for orbital safety, Levit said. Because objects with more surface area feel more drag, the atmosphere pulls down the lightest, flattest fragments of space junk first. When big pieces of debris break up into smaller ones, the pieces become harder and harder to remove.Worse, the pieces left behind are often the most dangerous: small, dense things like bolts.”If one collides with a satellite or another piece of debris at the not-unreasonable relative velocity of, say 5 miles per second, it will blow it to smithereens,” Levit said.In the new study, the researchers suggest focusing a mid-powered laser through a telescope to shine on pieces of orbital debris that look like they’re on a collision course. Each photon of laser light carries a tiny amount of momentum. Together, all the photons in the beam can nudge an object in space and slow it down by about .04 inches per second.Shining the laser on bits of space litter for an hour or two a day should be enough to move the whole object by about 650 feet per day, the researchers show. That might not be enough to pull the object out of orbit altogether, but preliminary simulations suggest it could be enough to avoid more than half of all debris collisions.amount of momentum. Together, all the photons in the beam can nudge an object in space and slow it down by about .04 inches per second.Shining the laser on bits of space litter for an hour or two a day should be enough to move the whole object by about 650 feet per day, the researchers show. That might not be enough to pull the object out of orbit altogether, but preliminary simulations suggest it could be enough to avoid more than half of all debris collisions.between a few and a few tens of millions of dollars, depending on whether the researchers build it from scratch or modify an existing telescope, perhaps a telescope at the Air Force Maui Optical Station in Hawaii or at Mt. Stromlo in Australia.”This system solves technological problems, makes them cheaper, and makes it less of a threat that these will be used for nefarious things,” said space security expert Brian Weeden, a technical adviser for the Secure World Foundation who was not involved in the new study. “It’s certainly very interesting.”However, “I don’t think this is a long-term solution,” Weeden said. “It might be useful to buy some time. But I don’t think it would replace the need to remove debris, or stop creating new junk.” Don Kessler, from whom the Kessler syndrome takes its name, agrees, and points out that laser light isn’t forceful enough to divert the biggest pieces of junk.”The only complete solution to is to prevent collisions involving the most massive objects in Earth orbit,” he said. Image: ESA CitationAuthor: Lisa GrossmanLisa Grossman
beermademeL8 why arnt these satalites equiped with a form of propulsion upon inception and design that after the equipment is worked to death fires off propelant or battery of electrons or series of magnetic ballons pushing or pulling the mass out of gravitation earth toward g sun to burn to zero problem or lanch lawers and dems to thwart advancing tech debri and challange constitional format
Travis-You should be the new Fool. What a great report. Why not start your own financial advisory service. I will join.
He has, Bud! This is a subscription-based website Travis is running. And here’s the real kicker: since he just uses other folks’ research and marketing, he gets all his juice without having to dirty up his hands on the squeeze. Pretty smart, eh?
What is the name of the newsletter?
Simply sign up to become an irregular. It’s well worth the modest price and definitely much better than paying big bucks to the newsletters.
Amen, Brother DialTone,PhD+;-)
I will join in to.
GSAT would be my guess
thanks trav
GlTA
TBC
I must say one thing about Blanco…he IS new to Agora, and therefore has yet to have a proven positive track record. He has the smarts, but seems to recommend stocks that nosedive shortly after recommendation. If his newsletter on this topic had not been backed by a senior adviser, that I have trusted over the years…I NEVER would have given it a look. But THAT adviser made me a killing in (TTPH) a few yrs back, and in (SRPT) recently. By the way…I am up in all 3 positions I took after the rec.
Blanco has been at Agora for years, he worked with Patrick Cox before Cox left (at Breakthrough Technology Alert and Technology Profits Confidential) and has been helming biotech and tech advisories for Agora Financial with his own byline since at least 2013 or 2014.
Thanks for that bit of info Travis…I guess they had us all fooled, when, they said he was new to the service back in Nov. 2016. Christian DeHaemer, Zach Scheidt, and Lou Basenese, are the three guys I have the most confidence in. Unfortunately DeHaemer left. It was Tapan Publishing when I joined.
It was a lifetime membership, and was guaranteed all publications, even new ones as they came out. But now that Agora took them over, I am somehow relegated to whatever they see fit to “include”. there are new pub’s. added all the time, but I rarely get one “tossed” my way. you on the other hand are a light at the far end of a dark tunnel. THANK YOU
JDV1956, my experience with Agora and Blanco in particular has been little short of criminal. These people don’t care one whit about you or I. Give us your money and leave us alone, we’re busy trying to fleece the next sucker. Newsletters lately are all adopting the “no refund” tactic and they are outrageously expensive to boot. With Blanco, it’s garbage in, garbage out.
Anyone hear anything on Rays, Alzheimers play?
Sorry if I sound stupid, but do I understand correct that your only option for internet in the USA is currently via cable ? It cannot be !
I also cannot really figure out if this Halo-Fi is to provide TV signals or internet.
I live in the third world – South Africa. Above all, I live on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Since I started using internet about 14 years ago, I got it via cellular towers. First it was quite slow, but as technology improved, it got faster. I get 3G speed and it’s fast enough. Converted to US$, it cost me about $14 for 5GB per month. Sattelite internet is available, but cost more and is slower than what I have. Since 20 years ago, my TV signal is from sattelite.
So, I cannot understand what’s the big deal about this Halo-Fi.
African countries are usually “behind” – well, that’s what I thought.
[I am new to this website and see I can get valuable info here. I sold a great part of my farm and plan to move a large part of the funds to the USA into a trading account. I think about opening an account with Ameritrade very soon – any comments on them ?]
As a U.S. wireless industry expert, I can confirm that cell site based, fixed wireless internet is already here and will be expanding dramatically in rural markets. Speeds are in the 100s of GBs.
Satellite just can’t compete – especially on upload speeds.
Hi Robbie! Thank you for sharing your South African Experience(s).
Regarding Brokerages you may consider InteractiveBrokers.com which offers discount trades in nearly every Global market. Integrated Financial Management with Lower Costs and Higher Returns* One World, One Account… Very satisfied with their service since 2015.
Long Gr8Gummunity! Best2YOUalwayz
>>>–BenJammin’—————->
Agree on Interactive Brokers, their toolset/user interface has more learning curve than most brokers, but IB’s prices and fills are great and you can trade anything, anywhere. I love IB but also have three other accounts. However, there is no, repeat NO IB phone order support other than closing positions for a hefty commission. I think that ordering option is mainly to help survivors of a dead trader get off the train.
Robinhood, soon to be on web, already on android smartphone as an app, offers commission FREE trading via smartphone. One can use things like TeleTrader or ThinkorSwim (from TD Ameritrade) as well. When used for market scanning, they are free – then use Robinhood for actual trading where it is commission free. Never invest more $$ than you can afford to lose – it is a crap table !! One does have to be savvy about investing to win. As amateur investor I built a portfolio up to nearly $100,000.00 USD once in my life, only to lose it all due to stupid mistakes on my part that failed to protect me in market crash. Good luck !!!
Hi Robbie..Halo-Fi is for internet signal only..I can’t speak on trading because I’m not a trader. If Halo-Fi goes public, I will buy a few shares Like I bought a few cyrpto coins, to see what it does and where it goes!
I just signed up as a premium member (or elite or whatever the lifetime membership is called) and I’m already enjoying the hell out of every search result I read here!
Thanks for the work you do!
Try subscribing to each thread by email. You will be able to read the comments via your email client as they come in. Changed the way I view this board ensuring I see all the activity. There is an older thread with most the activity and that gets moved to a newer thread every so often.
Be careful signing up for every article, Because your inbox will over flow. I did that with a couple and started getting emails every minute.
Just surf is the best way. And just sign up for daily news letter. You’ll find articles (threads) that you want to follow. Check out top row very good tool of any page.
HELLO. This has to be a joke. Why would anyone want every person that comments force an email to be sent to your account.
INSANE Who the hell wants to read this via email as well.
If you find a subject of a article you just sign up to get emails pertaining to responses to the article. You can recieve good information a month or two when articles gets older and pushed down the list with newer ones being placed above it. A lot of new people read older articles and respond. And every so often you get some diamonds (ideas). So that’s why. Every bit of a edge you gain in investing can lead to a multi banger or a nice gain or just a goals nugget of information.. FYI
| 🙂 #Muzingz4 #CyberMondary’17 :>>>
https://www.stockgumshoe.com/2017/11/friday-file-copper-growth-and-the-cool-comfort-of-certainty/comment-page-1/#comment-4961488
Ahhh, you’re catchin’ on! 🙂 Under the hood. is similar to the Prudential ROCK and VISA, leaving HOME without #IT commercials… Check IT out: https://www.stockgumshoe.com/2017/02/microblog-scandium-cobalt-and-water-purification-cleanteq-holdings/comment-page-13/#comment-4961382 Long #G8Gummune! 🙂 #Best2ALL! 🙂
Not having your expertise I have read your article, as I would dearly like to be rid of my cable company that is greedy, and as their prices raise, (it seems monthly) their service deteriorates it seems. If I am not mistaken, you are saying that VSAT and SATS are the best way of investing in the success of this Halo Fi, as it is “private” unless of course you pay for yet another newsletter that claims to be able to read the future. I am naturally skeptical that there are so many people that knew everything ahead of time, and yet need people to subscribe to a newsletter to make their fortune, while the subscribers are not gaining.
I am a small investor and would love to be on the winning end of something that I would like to see come to fruition that would bring a lot of joy to many people.
Am I correct in interpreting what you have said?
Those are two companies trying to build this kind of low-earth satellite system. I personally don’t have much faith that it will come to anything in the next few years, or that the companies that are currently investing in this idea will be the ultimate winners if it does — I expect it’s just as likely that improved terrestrial wireless transmission will get rid of the best business case for LEO satellites.
So no, I wouldn’t bet big on any of these ideas personally. I wouldn’t object to investing in QCOM or Softbank as general wireless plays, but those won’t be impacted dramatically by any satellite firm over the next five years, but satellite businesses are hugely capital intensive and always seem to be more challenging than anticipated.
The LEO environment is becoming congested with space debris due to the frequency of object launches. This has caused growing concern in recent years, since collisions at orbital velocities can easily be dangerous, and even deadly. Collisions can produce even more space debris in the process, creating a domino effect, something known as Kessler Syndrome. The Joint Space Operations Center, part of United States Strategic Command (formerly the United States Space Command), currently tracks more than 8,500 objects larger than 10 cm in LEO.[8] However, a limited Arecibo Observatory study suggested there could be approximately one million objects larger than 2 millimeters,[9] which are too small to be visible from Earth-based observatories.[10]
See also Edit
Van Allen radiation belt
List of orbits
Medium Earth orbit (MEO)
High Earth orbit (HEO)
Highly elliptical orbit (HEO)
Geostationary orbit (GEO)
Specific orbital energy examples
Suborbital spaceflight
Heavy lift launch vehicle
Medium-lift launch vehicle
Comparison of orbital launch systems
What about bandwidth? You cannot have millions of subscribers all trying to communicate with satellites at the same time even if there are hundreds of satellites. Forgetting uploads you have to communicate with the satellites every time you load a new page or switch to a different web site. The numbers just don’t add up.
Is it of concern that I just got through reading the same information, call to action, etc on this, but with the date Nov 8th?
No concern. Ray Blanco is from a different Agora run publisher than the new link for the same thing.
Talk about playing with customers and sharing the same data.
OOPS The NOV 8 is also Ray Blanco. I guess he found out he was wrong about Oct. OOPS sorry bout that
Travis’ sleuthing and analysis are why I (eagerly) became a lifetime member. There’s no doubt in my mind that in just the three weeks of my membership I have both made and saved money from his work.
Thanks, T!
As of October 29, the advertisement is to be ‘on-board’ by November 8. The only constant is CHANGE.
I believe in OneWeb in many perspectives from management team to its financial supporters. In the future, especial media streaming has huge upside there. I bought/sold IRDM, that stock chart shows the history of each its satellite launched. Quite funny.
What is/will be OneWeb stock ticker?
Thanks!
OneWeb has not filed to go public, so no idea what the ticker might be if they ever do go public — I suspect it would be more successful as a partner with another established satellite or telecom company than as a stand-alone that has to raise more money for this massive project, but you never know… if they can get enough of a visionary “story” out there and get Greg Wyler out there as a proselytizer that the public adores, like Elon Musk, then they might be able to get a Tesla-like investor following that doesn’t care about capital expenditures or losses.
I was wondering what is next for Masayoshi Son as he walked away from the deal on Sprint & T-Mobile merge. Now it makes sense to me that he might use OneWeb to host Sprint’s internet. Timing sounds right.
Your thoughts?
It’s hard for me to imagine near-earth satellites being a stronger option than the impending 5G wireless rollout (at least for populated areas, which is where all the money is)… but you never know.
Agree! OneWeb is on 3G now, that’s why I asked your thoughts here. I need to dig more tech stacks:-)
Thank you for sharing!
Any recommended stock for 5G wireless?
The only one I’m currently invested in is Skyworks Solutions, though Qualcomm is an obvious 5G choice, as are the tower companies. That’s just off the top of my head, I haven’t studied the framework of 5G or the stocks who are staking out patent or leadership positions.
if you put the words web one together and say it i think you’ll have your answer!!