OrbitShare: The policy imperative for satellite internet mega-constellation sharing

What the paper says

Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite broadband mega-constellations are emerging as a core component of global communications infrastructure, promising expanded connectivity but also generating significant policy challenges. Rapid, uncoordinated deployment by vertically integrated operators is intensifying orbital congestion, duplicating infrastructure, and increasing both lifecycle costs and environmental externalities. Despite these systemic risks, market incentives favor proprietary expansion and first-mover advantages, leaving limited scope for voluntary cooperation. This paper examines infrastructure sharing among LEO broadband operators as a policy intervention to improve economic efficiency, environmental sustainability, and network performance. We develop an integrated Techno-Economic and Environmental Assessment (TEEA) framework that unifies life-cycle cost analysis, ISO-compliant lifecycle environmental assessment, and system-level network utility modeling, incorporating transaction costs and governance frictions. Using large-scale simulations incorporating orbital dynamics, traffic demand, and ground-segment constraints, we evaluate the impacts of cross-operator sharing of satellites, inter-satellite links (ISLs), ground stations, and launch capacity under both symmetric and asymmetric market structures, estimating operator-specific utility gain parameters that determine whether collaboration is privately rational. The results reveal a fundamental collaboration dilemma: full cooperation is globally optimal but privately unattractive to dominant incumbents, while partial cooperation among smaller operators alone is insufficient as their utility gains fall below the symmetric cooperation threshold. Transaction costs further widen this incentive gap, disproportionately burdening smaller operators. These findings highlight a clear policy gap between socially optimal and privately optimal outcomes that voluntary cooperation is unlikely to bridge under current market conditions. We conclude by proposing regulatory mechanisms grounded in existing institutional frameworks, including tiered sharing obligations through ITU coordination and national licensing, environmental pricing, and the establishment of a neutral LEO network exchange, and identify five core design parameters any implementable sharing regime must resolve. We acknowledge that terrestrial telecommunications precedents require careful adaptation to the orbital context and that geopolitical fragmentation poses significant constraints on international coordination. • Develops a techno-economic and environmental assessment framework for LEO sharing. • Cross-operator sharing yields asymmetric benefits across firms. • Full cooperation is optimal but unattractive to dominant operators. • Voluntary sharing is unlikely without targeted regulatory intervention. • Proposes policy tools and five design parameters for sharing regimes.