Nathan Kundtz's MTenna May Replace the Satellite Dish

The satellite dish has long been a symbol of space-age communications and a really good TV package, but the bulky antenna may be nearing its expiration date. For couch potatoes, it’s a difficult-to-install eyesore. The smaller antennas mounted on many trains, ships, and airplanes can hamper aerodynamics and drive up costs. “There’s a shared hatred for the dish,” says Nathan Kundtz, the co-founder and chief technology officer of Redmond (Wash.)-based startup Kymeta. He’s working to replace the satellite status quo with a flat-panel display as small as a laptop.

The first prototype of Kymeta’s flatscreen satellite device, the mTenna, is dotted with thousands of circuits. It aims a radio signal toward a distant satellite, providing a stable broadband link that’s three to four times faster than that of a traditional antenna, Kundtz says. The mTenna can maintain a signal even when it’s on a moving vehicle, and the device is small enough that Kymeta hopes to market it to war-zone reporters and disaster-relief workers. “It will be revolutionary in some areas of the industry,” says David Smith, an electrical and computer engineering professor at Duke University who was Kundtz’s doctoral adviser.