AetherLink
6G Satellite Internet
Overview:
AetherLink is the consumer and commercial satellite internet service component of SDI's Project AetherNet, a next-generation satellite constellation comprising over 3,300 spacecraft operating in Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) at just 200 kilometers altitude. By orbiting nearly 180 times closer to the ground than traditional geostationary satellites, and two-and-a-half times closer than other LEO satellite competitors, AetherNet delivers a fundamental physics advantage: 45 decibels less signal path loss, sub-five-millisecond round-trip latency, and sufficient link margin to drive small, flat-panel antennas at fiber-optic equivalent data rates. AetherLink terminals translate that advantage into a family of eight products spanning every conceivable use case, from a 185-gram pocket hotspot to a 42-kilogram carrier-grade telecom gateway, all sharing a single architecture and a single global network.
Technology:
Every AetherLink terminal contains a V-band (42–48 GHz) flat-panel phased-array antenna built from a common building block: the Tile-16 module, a 25-millimetre-square chip housing 16 gallium-nitride transmit/receive elements. Terminals are scaled simply by tiling more modules, the pocket-sized Mini uses a single tile (16 elements), while the Backhaul gateway uses 256 tiles (4,096 elements). Because the array steers its beam electronically at up to 10,000 updates per second, there is no mechanical dish, no motor, and no alignment procedure: the user powers the terminal on, and an on-board artificial-intelligence processor acquires the nearest AetherNet satellite, locks the beam, and begins passing data within three seconds. At 200 km altitude each satellite crosses the sky in roughly 90 seconds, so the AI must hand off the connection to the next satellite every three to five seconds. This handoff is entirely invisible to the user: the processor predicts each satellite’s trajectory, pre-computes the beam weights for the next link, and executes a “make-before-break” transition with less than half a millisecond of data gap, far below the threshold perceptible to any application, including real-time voice and video. On larger terminals (the AetherLink Home and above), the array is partitioned into independent sub-arrays that lock onto two or more satellites simultaneously, multiplying throughput and providing instant failover if any single satellite link degrades. Data travels from the terminal up to the satellite in a single 200 km hop, is routed across the constellation’s optical-laser inter-satellite backbone at the speed of light in vacuum, and exits through a ground gateway co-located with a major internet exchange or cloud data centre. For most connections the entire path—terminal to satellite to gateway to internet—completes in under five milliseconds round-trip, making AetherLink the first satellite service capable of supporting latency-sensitive applications such as competitive online gaming, real-time video conferencing, cloud-rendered virtual reality, and financial trading.
Product Family:
The eight AetherLink products serve the full spectrum of civilian connectivity. AetherLink Mini ($299) is a pocket hotspot delivering 100 Mbps to eight devices with a six-hour battery, designed for hikers, travellers, and emergency kits. AetherLink Home ($499) is a self-install residential terminal providing 1 Gbps download with an integrated Wi-Fi 7 mesh router, Thread/Matter smart-home gateway, and no data caps—replacing cable, DSL, or fixed-wireless for any home on Earth. AetherLink Business ($999) delivers 2.5 Gbps symmetrical with an enterprise firewall, static IP addressing, dual-WAN failover, and a 99.95 per cent uptime SLA for offices, clinics, schools, and retail locations. AetherLink Roam ($599) is a 25-millimetre-tall roof-mounted puck that sustains 1 Gbps at highway speeds for RVs, overlanders, and fleet vehicles, with an IP69K pressure-wash rating and a fleet-management portal. AetherLink Marine ($1,499) is a gyro-stabilized dome delivering 5 Gbps through Sea State 5, with NMEA 2000 integration and salt-fog-rated construction for yachts, commercial vessels, and offshore platforms. AetherLink Air ($45,000) is a 14-millimetre conformal fuselage antenna providing 10 Gbps aggregate (150+ Mbps per passenger) gate-to-gate for business jets and airlines, with TSO/DO-160G certification and an ARINC 600 avionics LRU. AetherLink Enterprise ($7,500) provides 10 Gbps with a 100 GbE uplink, BGP/SD-WAN integration, REST API automation, and a 99.99 per cent SLA for corporate campuses, mining camps, and remote industrial operations. AetherLink Backhaul ($18,500) is the carrier-grade gateway: 25 Gbps with 3GPP-native interfaces, SyncE/PTP base-station timing, MEF 3.0 Carrier Ethernet, and a five-nines SLA, enabling mobile operators and ISPs to deploy rural 5G coverage without burying a single meter of fiber.
Despite spanning three orders of magnitude in size, throughput, and price, every AetherLink terminal shares a set of foundational design characteristics. All use the same V-band OFDMA waveform with adaptive modulation from QPSK to 1024-QAM, automatically selecting the highest data rate the atmospheric conditions permit and falling back gracefully in rain rather than dropping the connection entirely. All employ AI-managed electronic beam steering with zero moving parts, meaning there are no gimbals to wear out, no motors to fail, and no maintenance schedule beyond wiping off the occasional bird dropping. All encrypt user traffic with AES-256 from terminal to gateway and secure the local Wi-Fi network with WPA3. All operate on a single global service plan with no roaming charges, no country-specific surcharges, and no coverage gaps, the same terminal and the same subscription. All AetherLink terminals are activated in minutes through the AetherLink smartphone app or web portal, with no technician visit, no dish alignment tool, and no call to customer service required.
Product Comparison:
Product Download Upload Latency Elements Mass Hardware Service AetherLink Mini 100 Mbps 20 Mbps <5 ms 16 185 g $299 NSD From $50/mo AetherLink Home 1 Gbps 250 Mbps <5 ms 256 1.1 kg $499 NSD From $75/mo AetherLink Business 2.5 Gbps 2.5 Gbps <5 ms 576 2.8 kg $999 NSD From $199/mo AetherLink Roam 1 Gbps 250 Mbps <5 ms 256 680 g $599 NSD From $99/mo AetherLinkt Marine 5 Gbps 1.5 Gbps <5 ms 576 3.2 kg $1,499 NSD From $199/mo AetherLink Air 10 Gbps 3 Gbps <5 ms 768 7.5 kg $45,000 NSD From $2,500/mo AetherLink Enterprise 10 Gbps 5 Gbps <5 ms 2,304 14 kg $7,500 NSD From $999/mo AetherLink Backhaul 25 Gbps 10 Gbps <5 ms 4,096 42 kg $18,500 NSD From $4,999/mo