Skylo Technologies Promises Ubiquitous NB-IoT Connectivity

Founded in 2017, Skylo Technologies, a Palo Alto, California-based satellite company that recently announced that it raised US$103 million in Series B funding following US$13 million in Series A funding, amounting to a total of US$116 million overall. Skylo Technologies offers affordable and ubiquitous Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity using Low-Earth Orbiting (LEO) satellites to connect sensors and devices. Using Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) connectivity, Skylo plans to offer IoT connectivity to the remotest of regions, primarily targeting applications such as vehicle and equipment monitoring and maritime, agricultural, and disaster management. Skylo Technologies has developed a portable satellite transceiver and IoT hub that communicates via NB-IoT directly over satellite and can be remotely managed using its data platform.  

IoT applications are currently addressed by a wide spectrum of wired and wireless connectivity technologies, including Local Area Networks (LAN), Personal Area Networks (PAN), and Wide Area Networks (WAN). However, less than 20% of the earth is covered by any kind of terrestrial connectivity network. No single connectivity technology will be able to address all IoT applications’ connectivity requirements. With the decreasing cost of silicon chipsets, connectivity, compute, and storage are driving the adoption of connected objects with IoT, enabling 20.5 billion connections by the end of 2026 and driven by the enormous opportunities in both enterprise and consumer IoT markets. As the market evolves, new technologies will emerge and connectivity requirements will change. However, the fundamental requirement for IoT is that devices are connected irrespective of their location. In the consumer and niche enterprise segments, the use of Device-to-Satellite (DtS) connectivity is used when there aren’t any energy constraints. However, connectivity is still offered at much higher price points in the market. The most commonly used application is location tracking in fitness and asset trackers.

Satellite connectivity is also a vital connectivity technology for delivering connectivity in remote regions where there is little or no terrestrial network coverage. However, the challenge with conventional Geosynchronous Equatorial Orbit (GEO) satellites used for bi-directional communication networks is reaching the necessary price points and form factor of the end terminals. Skylo Technologies claims to challenge the existing status quo in satellite connectivity by using cellular Low-Power Wide Area (LPWA) network technology and NB-IoT and has already deployed its connectivity technology. Having completed several successful tests of its technology with commercial partners, Skylo Technologies plans to offer its satellite connectivity commercially at US$1/end device with its hardware, the Skylo Hub, which is an 8-inch by 8-inch satellite terminal and will cost US$100/unit.

As IoT applications are being implemented in complex and challenging environments, the use of hybrid connectivity technologies using a combination of wired and wireless and public and private network infrastructure is becoming commonplace and increasingly used to mitigate connectivity coverage issues. In regions or environments where terrestrial networks are unavailable, using satellite connectivity to backhaul local, LAN, PAN, or Neighborhood Area Networks (NAN) has technical and commercial benefits. Another emerging use case is using gateways to aggregate data from sensor networks, which is then backhauled to GEO or LEO satellite connectivity. Typically, these networks are heterogenous terrestrial-satellite networks where the sensor devices use Short-Range Wireless (SRW), cellular, proprietary Radio Frequency (RF), or even wired connectivity and the data is aggregated using a satellite terminal, which backhauls the data using satellite connectivity.

However, IoT applications leveraging hybrid networks need careful planning and their implementation involves capital investment in deploying gateways or small cells to provide the necessary access connectivity network based on the application requirement. Furthermore, such hybrid networks are most suitable when monitoring fixed assets, whereas, in the case of mobile devices, this imposes several limitations due to the access network’s coverage limitation. The cost of location services offered by satellite communication companies on uni-directional low-data throughput tracking solutions depends on the frequency of data transmission and can cost between US$2 and US$20/month to connect an asset, with additional capital investment to build the fixed wired or wireless access network to connect end devices.

Another drawback of satellite connectivity is that it works best with a clear Line-of-Sight (LoS) to the satellite. The aforementioned challenges make satellite connectivity the least favorable connectivity technology of choice when considering IoT implementations in-building or in dense urban environments and it is often used in niche applications or for connecting assets in remote regions.

LEO satellites typically orbit at an altitude of under 2,000 km and can take as little as 90 minutes to complete an orbit around earth. LEO satellites’ short distance from the earth’s surface means they also requires less power to transmit data, have low latency, and can offer better link budgets compared to GEO satellite orbits. LEO satellites operate much closer to earth compared to GEO satellites and, due to this proximity, end terminals require less power, with multiple satellites providing a more distributed and resilient connectivity network. Compared to GEO satellites, LEO satellites also benefit from low-latency connectivity.

Innovative new business models are starting to emerge and threaten to disrupt the existing status quo of incumbent satellite operators’ IoT connectivity services. LEO satellites’ connectivity services are still in the early stages, currently building or expanding network capacity with the promise of offering low-cost global IoT connectivity services for massive IoT applications that can compete with terrestrial LPWA network services.

With the growing need for ubiquitous IoT connectivity, LEO satellites are uniquely positioned to benefit from growing vertical IoT markets. S2S or DtS connectivity is the holy grail of satellite connectivity if the solution can deliver low-cost end devices with multi-year battery autonomy. Today it is possible to develop smaller, cheaper satellites that can be launched into LEO for US$5,000/Kg. S2S connectivity would enable IoT solution designers to develop solutions without the inherent connectivity coverage constraints seen in terrestrial networks.