Certainly, LEO is the new frontier in at least global broadband connectivity. All of us who have been providing satellite services for years have realized that we just can't do it effectively enough way up in geostationary orbit. We need to get our satellites closer to the ground so we can provide lower latency, higher capacity services.
Of the key players in this area, you have two of them on this committee today: Telesat and SpaceX. Amazon has its own plans to do this. The Chinese and the Russians have their own plans. There's a company called OneWeb that was backed by SoftBank and is now backed by the U.K. government. There's a mobile network operator called SparkVue, which is one of the largest mobile network operators in India. They are providing services in other parts of the developing world.
We all face somewhat different challenges. Our biggest challenge at Telesat right now is raising the rest of the capital we need to build our system. We have over $1 billion on our balance sheet. We're investing every nickel we have into this, but we need to raise some more funding. I hope this ISED spectrum proceeding will be one source of that.
Amazon's problem isn't capital. They have plenty of that. Their problem, frankly, is they are brand new at this. They are behind the ball. They are not moving as quickly as SpaceX. They are not moving as quickly as Telesat. They don't have good spectrum rights.
Ms. Cooper and I both talked about the need for these satellites. You have to make sure they don't bump into each other, but you also need to make sure you have rights to use the spectrum you need to deliver the service. Amazon is in bad shape from that perspective.
OneWeb got out early. They launched their service. They had two problems. One was raising enough capital. Two was they clearly didn't have the depth of technical expertise they needed to have to design and implement a really capable system. Telesat has that in spades. SpaceX is a leading space technology innovator. OneWeb had two strikes there.
I'm concerned about China and Russia. Capital is not going to be the problem. They are strong on space technology. They are going to be formidable competitors in this area. It really underscores why one needs to move quickly to carve out their niche in this market and start delivering services to the customers out there.
I hope that was helpful.