07.13.10
Posted in Globalstar, Handheld, Inmarsat, Iridium, Operators, Services, TerreStar, Thuraya at 2:37 pm by timfarrar
Inmarsat has now launched its ISatPhone Pro, which I was lucky enough to try out the other week. Although the phone itself is not particularly attractive, the call performance was better than I expected – voice quality was good (with the other party easily recognizable), and the ability to ‘walk and talk’ was far superior to my experience with the TerreStar Genus phone. Latency was also somewhat better than on the Genus phone. The main limitation was that the phone only registers on the Inmarsat satellite when the antenna is extended and pointed in the direction of the satellite, which means there is a delay of 1-2 minutes before a call can be made, and calls will rarely, if ever, be received on the phone (assuming the user doesn’t want to carry it around with the antenna extended).
Though Inmarsat’s phone is not expected to perform well at high latitudes (particularly in Alaska), it should generally be a good alternative for those MSS voice users who aren’t worried about carrying such a large device. The phone itself has been priced very aggressively, with pricing currently around $599 and in some cases close to $500.
However, the most surprising development is the airtime pricing that Inmarsat has set. Postpaid wholesale pricing has been set very low, leading to retail offers of $150 per year with 60 free minutes of calls. Even more extraordinary is the prepaid pricing, where a user can buy a 25 minute card, valid for 2 years, for only $20.
In my view the fact that Inmarsat has selected a uniform 2 year expiry date on its prepaid cards is a huge mistake, which I can only assume is due to the limitations of Inmarsat’s prepaid billing system (note also that prepaid service is currently not available in the US, due to patent litigation over the prepaid platform that Inmarsat uses). Iridium has previously indicated that about half of handheld MSS users are “glovebox”-type customers, who only use the phone for emergencies (and rarely use any minutes). To date such users have been paying at least $30 per month for satellite phone service (apart from occasional dual mode roamers on Thuraya), but now they will be able to get service for less than $1 per month. Inmarsat has thus completely undermined the economics of a significant part of the handheld MSS market, making it impossible for its service providers to justify targeting these customers (especially as SPs are busy competing away the margins which Inmarsat expected would be available on its handsets). In addition to leaving large amounts of money on the table, this action may also create added costs for Inmarsat, as these users are the least likely to be familiar with the limitations of satellite communications and thus may well end up consuming disproportionate levels of customer support resources.
Inmarsat may well have had a reason to act in such a destructive manner a few months ago, when it thought it might have the opportunity to prevent Iridium gaining funding in the public markets to pay for its NEXT contract. However, now that Iridium can rely on more money than expected from COFACE, such a calculation looks less sensible.
Despite having an attractive proposition for low end users, Inmarsat may still prove less successful than it hopes amongst higher volume users. In particular, these users will gain less of an advantage from the low occasional use tariffs, and may be somewhat reluctant to churn after making a substantial investment in buying an Iridium or Globalstar handset in recent years. Inmarsat has stated that it believes the average lifetime of a satellite handset is around three years, but in reality Iridium and Globalstar handsets are used for up to 8 years (and there is a thriving market for secondhand phones). As a result, churn in the handheld MSS market is much lower than Inmarsat apparently expects (even for Globalstar users, who have had to cope with a lack of two-way service in recent years), which will make it difficult to persuade large numbers of existing users to switch over rapidly to Inmarsat’s new service. On the other hand, competition from Inmarsat will potentially force Globalstar to offer rather more aggressive pricing as it tries to rebuild its subscriber base in 2011 and 2012.
In the end therefore, Inmarsat may end up being able to trumpet a fairly large number of handheld subscribers (potentially up to 150K by 2014), but many of these will be less desirable customers and ARPUs may be rather lower than expected. Thus the overall impact for the handheld MSS market of Inmarsat’s new service (even when combined with Globalstar’s two-way relaunch in 2011) may remain subdued, and at best we expect wholesale revenue growth of no more than 10% p.a. in the next five years. Indeed a more pessimistic view, assuming significant erosion of ARPUs at the low end of the handheld market could put wholesale revenue growth at less than 5% p.a. over this period.
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06.02.10
Posted in Aeronautical, Broadband, Financials, Globalstar, Handheld, Inmarsat, Iridium, Maritime, Operators, Services, VSAT at 2:57 pm by timfarrar
So Iridium has finally announced the contract to build its NEXT satellites, which was won by Thales Alenia Space (TAS) with the support of a stunning $1.8B loan package which will be 95% guaranteed by COFACE, the French Export Credit Agency (ECA). By the sound of it, Lockheed had been confident of winning the contract, but the US Ex-Im Bank simply couldn’t match the level of support offered by COFACE.
Even Iridium appears surprised by the $1.8B Promise of Guarantee, given the suggestions in their March 2010 results call that the company would need to raise additional unsecured or subordinated debt in the public market. We had expected Iridium might need to raise $300M or more in backstop financing, based on Iridium’s April 2010 investor presentation which stated that the company was “seeking support for a[n ECA] facility of approximately $1.5B”. COFACE’s additional support therefore clearly appears to have tipped the balance in favor of TAS, because it removes the risk that Iridium would have faced in trying to tap the public markets at this point in time.
We now expect Globalstar to point out that Iridium has received an even more favorable financing package than Globalstar did last year (when Thermo was required to provide additional backstop funding as a condition of the $586M COFACE-backed facility) and potentially to seek a $200M+ extension of its current facility. This would provide funding so Globalstar could exercise its option to purchase the last 24 second generation satellites, allowing them to add more satellites to their constellation before NEXT becomes operational (and before radiation problems are expected to start impacting their 8 first generation spares in about 2015). Such a facility could also give Globalstar more firepower to market its new second generation services in 2011 and 2012, without the risk of eating into the contingent equity and debt service reserve accounts previously established by Thermo.
The next stage in this war of the Export Credit Agencies may then come in the shape of Inmarsat’s upcoming Ka-band constellation, which we expect to involve 3 or 4 dedicated Ka-band satellites (costing at least $200M each including launch and insurance), providing oceanic coverage to complement and extend its existing FleetBroadband and SwiftBroadband services. With Inmarsat’s new satellites expected to be deployed between 2013 and 2015, an order could well come as soon as this summer, when Inmarsat announces its investor guidance for the next five years. More details of Inmarsat’s plans and our expectations for their future Ka-band revenues were given in the March 2010 report, available to subscribers to our MSS information service.
The competition to build Inmarsat’s new satellites appears once again to be shaping up as a US vs European battle with TAS, SS/L and Astrium all bidding for the contract. Will ECA financing once again prove to be a key factor in the decision, even though Inmarsat has much less need for a guarantee than Iridium and Globalstar? Certainly Inmarsat has not been reluctant to seek cheap government-backed funding when it is available, as seen in its recent European Investment Bank loan to fund the Alphasat project.
In summary, its clear that ECA financing is now going to play a very substantial role in supporting the MSS industry. As a result, the prospects for a long awaited consolidation of the sector appear to be diminishing. That is certainly good news for end users of MSS, as well as service providers and distributors, who will be able to take advantage of an increasing range of competitive alternatives. This is particularly true in the maritime and aeronautical markets, where Iridium is really the only potential MSS competitor for Inmarsat. Indeed Iridium’s ability to serve these markets gives it a much more sustainable long term position than some other systems, because most maritime and aeronautical opportunities are much less likely to be undermined by the buildout of terrestrial wireless systems.
Nevertheless, it also seems hard to justify the $8B+ of capital investment that has been committed by Iridium, Globalstar and all of the other players (Iridium NEXT, Globalstar 2, Inmarsat 4, Orbcomm, ICO/DBSD, SkyTerra and TerreStar) in an industry sector which only generated $1.1B in wholesale service revenues in 2009, and though growing healthily, doesn’t appear poised to breakout from the 8% annual growth rate seen in recent years. Unless new sources of value appear (spectrum monetization being the obvious option for several players) it appears unlikely that all of the MSS operators will be as successful as they and their investors hope.
Indeed the main story of the next decade is likely to be the competition between Iridium and Globalstar, as they both strive to be the second biggest player in an MSS market that will continue to be dominated by Inmarsat, while other providers may fall by the wayside. If Iridium can grow from its current 19% share of wholesale service revenues to about a 25% market share, or Globalstar can grow from its current 5% share to 15% or more (based on its lower cost satellite system), then that should be sufficient to achieve an attractive return on capital for either company. However, with Inmarsat holding a more than 60% market share today, it appears unlikely that both Iridium and Globalstar could achieve this level of success simultaneously.
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01.25.10
Posted in Financials, Iridium, Operators, Spectrum, TerreStar at 3:11 pm by timfarrar
Last week I attended the Iridium Partner Conference held in (a rather wet) Phoenix, AZ at the Hyatt Regency Scottsdale. Ironically that was the very same hotel where the first demonstrations of the Iridium phone were made back in May 1998. 2010 is certainly shaping up to be just as significant for the MSS industry as was 1998, with the launch of the new TerreStar Genus phone just a few months away. We will then find out whether the new entrants are going to be able to mount a credible challenge to existing MSS operators, or whether they will experience an underwhelming customer response as Iridium and Globalstar did a decade ago. Our new profile of TerreStar has just been released, and discusses all these issues, including five year subscriber and revenue forecasts, along with an assessment of the value that might be realizable for ATC spectrum in the next few years.
At the conference itself, Iridium clarified that they intend to contract for the new NEXT constellation in mid-2010, and to ensure that they are fully funded at the same time. That would presumably involve a combination of bank loans guaranteed by export credit agencies and additional capital markets funding, totaling something between $1B and $1.2B – we would guess that they might need to raise of order $200M to $300M in high yield debt or convertible bonds in addition to the guaranteed bank loans. Interestingly, Iridium now regards advance funding from hosted payloads as “icing on the cake”, rather than as an essential component of its NEXT funding, allowing it more flexibility to consider projects which would provide an ongoing stream of revenues as opposed to just an upfront data purchase. Clearly the expectation is that by taking a “big bang” approach to its funding, Iridium will not only be able to persuade their distribution partners and customers that they will be around for the foreseeable future, but also that Iridium will close some of the EBITDA multiple discount on which their shares are trading compared to Inmarsat.
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11.16.09
Posted in Globalstar, Inmarsat, Iridium, LDR, LightSquared, Operators, Orbcomm, Services at 12:37 pm by timfarrar
Inmarsat revealed in its 2009Q3 results that it is in negotiations to acquire a satellite services provider that generated more than $50 million in revenue in 2008, is currently profitable and will have no material indebtedness at closing, in a purchase that would cost less than $150M. There are very few companies in the MSS space that fit the profile given by Inmarsat, but one that does is SkyBitz, which Inmarsat noted in its June 2009 investor day presentation was one of the “key competitors” in the satellite Low Data Rate (LDR) market. Inmarsat also noted that one of its objectives in investing in SkyWave was to “stimulate consolidation in the [satellite LDR] market”.
Indeed, back in July we speculated that a possible resolution to the fight between Inmarsat and SkyBitz over what SkyBitz characterized as “restrictive trade covenants included by Inmarsat” in its SkyWave investment would be for Inmarsat to facilitate a buyout of SkyBitz. An Inmarsat acquisition of SkyBitz would have the added benefit (for Inmarsat) of taking out another of SkyTerra’s key LDR customers, in addition to the 50K GlobalWave customers who were moved from SkyTerra’s satellites to Inmarsat’s I4 satellite network in October 2009.
***We’ve now been reliably informed that Inmarsat’s current acquisition target isn’t SkyBitz. We understand it is most likely a system integrator focused on government business. We don’t have a name at this point, but one company in this area that would fit the disclosed parameters is Segovia. There are likely several other similar possibilities as well.***
We’ve lamented previously that no-one ever seems to leave the MSS industry, but if Inmarsat does eventually follow through on its stated ambitions to stimulate consolidation in the LDR market, then perhaps that sector could be one place where much needed MSS industry consolidation finally begins.
In that context, with Orbcomm having yet another disappointing quarter, we wonder if now is the time for a competitor to make a bid for Orbcomm. After all, the company expects to settle the $50M insurance claim for the failure of all of its QuickLaunch satellites “imminently”, at which point Orbcomm will not have spent too much on its second generation constellation and will still have a reasonable amount of cash on its balance sheet. That might be particularly attractive to Globalstar or Iridium, either of which would benefit greatly from moving Orbcomm’s subscribers over to their own networks (albeit with significant costs for terminal upgrades), and could allay investor concerns about whether Orbcomm can fund the rest of its second generation satellite constellation (which would be exacerbated if the company fails to receive something close to $50M from its insurance claim in the near future). With its partners postponing some new service offerings until messaging delays are resolved, Orbcomm will need these new satellites sooner rather than later if it to build a sustainable business and generate the rapid growth that has been promised ever since the company’s IPO in 2006, but to date has failed to materialize.
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11.13.09
Posted in Globalstar, Iridium, Operators at 9:56 am by timfarrar
It seems a lot of noise is being made about the potential impact of Globalstar filing the license application for its second generation constellation with the French regulatory agency ANFR instead of the FCC. Indeed this was even raised as a concern on Iridium’s 3Q2009 results call yesterday. In our view this is basically a storm in a teacup: both Iridium and Globalstar are licensed to use particular parts of the Big LEO L-band frequency allocation (1610-1626.5MHz), and in the US the FCC decided (in Nov 2007) to share this spectrum equally between the two companies (Globalstar has the bottom 7.775MHz, Iridium the top 7.775MHz and the middle 0.95MHz is shared). However, in certain other countries (e.g. Russia), some of this band is reserved for Radioastronomy and Microwave Landing Systems and so Globalstar is unable to use much (in some cases any) of the lower 8MHz of the band. Thus Globalstar wants to keep operating up to 1621.35MHz as it was allowed to in the US before the FCC’s November 2007 ruling.
In theory, the FCC’s November 2007 ruling applied to the global operations of both systems, although in reality, Iridium would still need to seek a license from individual country regulators to operate below its originally authorized 1621.35-1626.5MHz frequency band, which may or may not have been granted. Iridium still has the opportunity to make this argument, even when Globalstar is licensed by ANFR, but it will not be able to seek sanctions against Globalstar by the FCC if it is unsuccessful and Globalstar remains authorized to operate some of its gateways up to 1621.35MHz. Instead, the licensing of the two systems will depend on the decisions of individual regulators.
Some observers have seen this as a potential problem for Iridium, but that’s not really the case. Iridium will certainly need to build the capability into its next generation system to adjust frequency allocations on a country by country basis, but that’s far from an insurmountable (software) challenge. The places where Iridium will need additional frequencies for broadband and/or voice services include the oceans (for evolutions of OpenPort), where there is unlikely to be an issue as there is relatively little Globalstar coverage, and a few key countries (e.g. Afghanistan) where support from the DoD may count in Iridium’s favor in securing additional spectrum. Thus we believe Iridium is unlikely to face any meaningful incremental capacity constraints as a result of this decision. Globalstar will benefit by avoiding potential regulatory sanctions that Iridium might have pushed the FCC to impose, but there are much bigger issues for both companies: in particular, whether sufficient growth potential remains in the handheld MSS market for all of the MSS operators to be successful.
On another topic, we’ve just released the latest report in our MSS information service, with extensive discussion of the outlook for ATC, the growth prospects for in-flight connectivity and the competition between Inmarsat and maritime VSAT. In the last few months we’ve also produced detailed profiles of Iridium and Thuraya, and will be releasing profiles and forecasts for Inmarsat and TerreStar in the near future. Subscribers to the research service include the majority of leading MSS operators, distributors, equipment suppliers and satellite manufacturers, as well as a number of investors in the MSS sector. As one MSS operator recently told us: “your reports are the only ones on the MSS sector that actually provide valuable insight for someone working in the industry”. According to another provider: “I base my business targets on your forecasts; they are the only projections that you can rely on to be realistic”.
If you are interested in finding out more about our research, then contact us for more details.
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10.16.09
Posted in Globalstar, Handheld, Iridium, Services, TerreStar at 12:07 pm by timfarrar
At the SATCON conference in New York this week, TerreStar was showing its Elektrobit Genus phone. The company had conducted live demos of calls over the satellite at the IACP conference in Denver the previous week (with reportedly very good results in terms of call quality), but unfortunately a similar opportunity wasn’t available in New York. Nevertheless a few interesting facts emerged about the phone.
Firstly you have to switch manually into satellite mode (via a menu selection) in order to use either voice or data over the satellite. This was not necessary from a technical perspective (the phone could have roamed automatically since the satellite is basically treated like an international GSM network), but was insisted on by AT&T so that users know they will incur roaming charges, and that they will not be able to get the same quality of service that they would expect from a terrestrial network (i.e. they will have to stand outside, and not be inside a building or a car).
Secondly, as shown in the picture below, there is an external antenna port, enabling a cradle-type device with an external antenna to be connected, so that adequate link margin is available in Northern Canada and Alaska. The external antenna is a quad helix antenna about 0.3 inches in diameter (about the size of the Thuraya antenna) and 3 inches in length which swings up from the back of the cradle in the same manner as the rotating antenna on the old Iridium 9505 phone. These cradles will be sold separately (pricing is unclear but we’d guess in the $100-$200 range) and will increase the handset volume by about 60%.
In the lower 48 states and southern Canada (i.e. below the red line in the map above) the Genus phone uses an internal patch antenna located at the right upper corner of the phone in the picture above. It will be particularly interesting to see how sensitive the call quality is to the orientation of the phone when it is being used in practice – users are instructed to hold the phone so that their fingers do not obstruct the link (per the sticker on the back of the phone), but if you are moving around, then inevitably your head will come between the phone and the satellite some of the time. TerreStar’s very large (i.e. very sensitive) satellite antenna will certainly help to close the link, but given how many arguments there have been on conference panels we’ve chaired in the past between proponents of getting the antenna clear of the head (i.e. Globalstar, Inmarsat and Iridium) and those who don’t believe an external antenna is needed (i.e. TerreStar and SkyTerra), this will be one of the first things to examine when the phones become available for testing.
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09.09.09
Posted in Globalstar, Handheld, Inmarsat, Iridium, Operators, Services, TerreStar, Thuraya at 12:43 pm by timfarrar
Unfortunately its not new services, but the prices of current and future satellite phones and airtime that seem to be headed upwards. The last year has seen Iridium introduce its new, improved 9555 handset at a higher price than the 9505A that it replaced, with phones now selling for about $1500, while Thuraya has “simplified” (i.e. increased) its airtime pricing and introduced the more expensive ruggedized XT phone. Inmarsat admitted in June that its new GSPS handset may sell for up to $750 at launch in 2010, compared to the $500 retail price point it suggested previously. Even TerreStar has now indicated that its new handset may cost up to $800, with airtime pricing at “less than $1 per minute”.
We’ve commented before on how satellite phone revenues have been falling since 2005, and competition has certainly diminished as Globalstar has experienced problems with its two-way services over the last couple of years. However, it seems the consensus amongst current participants in the handheld MSS market is that there is little if any growth potential still left in satellite phones, and the actions of Iridium and Thuraya appear to indicate that their remaining customers are relatively price insensitive.
Even more surprising is that so far, at least, the new entrants do not seem to be particularly keen on shaking up the existing “premium price” paradigm for satellite phones. In the case of TerreStar this is rather worrying, given that their objective is to greatly expand the satellite phone market, and bring satellite-cellular roaming to a mass market, which seems very unlikely to happen with an $800 phone. Is TerreStar simply trying not to give too much away about its future pricing plans, while it focuses on developing all the other elements needed for a commercial service, such as distribution channels, billing systems, etc.? Will TerreStar actually be able to convince a cellular operator to subsidize its phone (which would require a significantly greater commitment from a partner than its current roaming agreement with AT&T)? We should find out soon, as TerreStar intends to launch commercial services at the end of 2009.
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07.01.09
Posted in Financials, Globalstar, Handheld, ICO/DBSD, Inmarsat, Iridium, LightSquared, Operators, Services, Spectrum, TerreStar at 10:25 am by timfarrar
With apologies to the Eagles…its a lovely place, for MSS consumers at least. However, for MSS operators it seems to be somewhere you can check out [or go bankrupt] anytime you like, but you can never leave.
Today we’ve seen confirmation that Globalstar is now fully funded to complete the construction and launch of its first 24 second generation satellites by the end of 2010, while TerreStar has launched its new S-band satellite from Kourou, French Guiana and intends to initiate commercial services at the end of this year. Iridium also looks increasingly likely to complete its deal with GHL, since GHL’s shares and warrants are now trading well above the $10 value that would be refunded to investors if they voted down the deal. While there has been much speculation about potential mergers in the last two years, these now look less, rather than more, likely to occur in the near future (with the sole exception of SkyTerra’s Harbinger-backed bid for Inmarsat, which should be decided one way or another later this year).
Thus by early 2011, it looks like we will have at least four and more likely six voice and data MSS systems providing service in North America (Inmarsat, Iridium, Globalstar and TerreStar plus ICO and SkyTerra) and four systems (Inmarsat, Iridium, Globalstar and Thuraya) providing service in most of the rest of the world. With new advanced satellites, consumers will benefit from improved data capabilities and smaller, cheaper handheld satellite phones.
However, the development of at least three new systems (ICO, TerreStar and SkyTerra) and to some extent Globalstar as well (based on financial analysts’ comments at the time of its IPO in November 2006) has been justified largely by the value of MSS spectrum, due to the FCC’s rules enabling deployment of Ancillary Terrestrial Components (ATC), rather than by the intrinsic potential of the market for mobile satellite services itself. Thus, unless and until demand for MSS spectrum and ATC materializes, we run the risk of overcapacity for land-based MSS services, particularly in North America. This will certainly benefit end users, and price reductions (especially in conjunction with cheaper, more attractive terminals) may help to stimulate significant market growth, but it remains to be seen whether this will enable all the MSS operators to deliver a return for their investors or whether we’ll see more of them “checking out” with a bankruptcy filing as ICO North America did in May this year.
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06.15.09
Posted in Financials, Globalstar, Handheld, Inmarsat, Iridium, Operators, Services at 11:53 am by timfarrar
As Inmarsat moves towards commercial launch of its new Global Satellite Phone Service (GSPS) some time in 2010, expectations have been building in the analyst community about the potential of GSPS to gain 10%+ of the $500M satellite phone business. In reality, the $500M market estimate (given by Inmarsat in 2006 when it acquired ACeS) represents retail service revenues and is an overestimate given the significant revenue declines experienced by Globalstar and Thuraya, two of the three principal handheld satellite phone providers, in 2007 and 2008. By our estimate, Globalstar, Thuraya and Iridium generated only about $270M in wholesale service revenues from handheld satellite phones in 2008, including a significant amount from Iridium’s US government contract.
While Inmarsat will start to compete in this market during 2010, what appears to have been completely overlooked by analysts are the significant limitations of the GSPS handset. As with the current SPS phone (see p17 of the user guide), we believe that customers will be advised to use the handsfree earpierce and physically point the phone antenna at the Inmarsat satellite. Some level of user cooperation in using satellite phones is not unprecendented, since Thuraya advises customers to ensure the antenna is pointed at the satellite when operating at low elevation angles, such as in south east Australia. However, Thuraya has never achieved much success in areas where this level of user cooperation is required, and the feedback we’ve heard on the first generation SPS phone that’s in use today has been pretty negative.
Inmarsat will certainly be able to improve the performance of the GSPS service within the EMEA region, to a level comparable with Thuraya, once its more capable Alphasat satellite is launched in 2012. However, Inmarsat will be constrained in the size of the antenna that it can use on future satellites, due to the need to maintain its existing levels of maritime coverage, so Inmarsat is unlikely to be able to extend similar levels of handheld performance globally without very substantial incremental capital expense.
Thus it does not appear that GSPS will be a realistic challenger to Iridium as a global satellite phone, and it may not be easy for Inmarsat to reach its target of a 10% market share within two years of launching the product, especially if Globalstar completes its next generation system and re-enters the market as a low cost handheld provider by early 2011. More importantly, as Iridium seeks to fund its next generation system (a prospect of which Inmarsat has been openly scornful), it will be able to make a very strong argument to the US government that Iridium NEXT is a necessity to maintain support for global handheld satellite services, on which US soldiers are increasingly reliant.
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04.30.09
Posted in Globalstar, ICO/DBSD, Inmarsat, Iridium, LightSquared, Spectrum, TerreStar at 10:44 am by timfarrar
On Monday, the Wall St Journal revealed that Harbinger plans to push ahead with “a multibillion-dollar plan to build an international satellite-cellphone business” which would “complement existing cellular networks with satellite coverage, and…use new chips that could fit inside affordable, mainstream phones, keeping costs down for consumers”. This is quite different from the original plan of SkyTerra, TerreStar and ICO to build out Ancillary Terrestrial Components (ATCs) – basically a new terrestrial cellphone network using their satellite frequencies. Instead, subscribers will simply rely on their existing cellphone networks and only use the satellite services of these companies as a roaming partner when they are in uncovered areas. From that perspective, the new plan is much more similar to the business plans of Iridium and Globalstar in the late 1990s, that business travelers would rely on satellite networks to fill in the gaps in cellular coverage. For example, here’s a description from the Economist in June 1998:
“By far the largest number of subscribers is likely to come from the “cellular roaming” market. These are users of land-based cellular phones who want to be able to extend the range of their handsets when they are travelling through areas of poor or incompatible coverage. MSS subscribers will be equipped with a dual-standard phone that will switch to a satellite when a ground connection is unavailable (Iridium’s first offering is a soon-to-be-superseded $3,000 half-kilogram brick). Subscribers will pay a higher standing charge to their normal cellular operator and a premium on MSS calls. Numbering will not change and unified billing will be standard. This week Iridium said it had recruited 200 distribution partners among cellular companies.”
Of course there are many advantages that the new and very capable satellites being built by SkyTerra and TerreStar will offer over the 1990s technology of Iridium and Globalstar. Most obviously, the extra power and sensitivity of their satellites will allow the satellite service to be added to mainstream cellphones with little or no penalty in size and weight, as opposed to the ‘brick’-sized handsets produced by Iridium and Globalstar in 1998 and 1999. In addition, SkyTerra, TerreStar and ICO have signed agreements with Qualcomm to incorporate satellite technology into Qualcomm’s next generation cellular chipsets, which are likely to be used in a wide range of handsets.
However, there is a major difference between the principal sources of revenue for an ATC and a satellite roaming business plan. In the ATC case, a cellular operator would pay to lease the satellite spectrum to provide terrestrial services over a new terrestrial base station network, thereby enabling it to add capacity or new broadband services to its network. Satellite services, while available, would be a minor component of the overall revenue stream for the satellite operator. On the other hand, a satellite roaming business plan relies on the satellite services themselves to generate revenue, with perhaps some incremental benefit to the cellular partner through reduced churn, if the satellite service is sufficiently compelling to subscribers.
Even more importantly, the decision maker who will produce these revenue streams is very different: in the ATC case, it is simply a matter of convincing the cellular operator to lease the spectrum, whereas in the satellite roaming case, the end user must decide to buy the satellite service. Many people who were intimately involved in the launch of Iridium and Globalstar’s services remain convinced that it will be very difficult to explain the limitations of satellite service to a mass market: those services were sold as enabling coverage “anywhere”, and so there were numerous complaints about the inability of satellite service to work reliably in buildings, cars and urban areas. For most people, their experience of cellphone coverage limitations is in precisely these areas: in the Bay Area there are 375K riders of BART each WEEKDAY (where coverage in the underground parts of the transit system has only recently started to be deployed) compared to less than 200K visitors to Pinnacles National Monument each year (the location where we most recently spent an extended period of time outside cellular coverage). Remember also that even the new phones almost certainly won’t switch beween terrestrial and satellite modes in the middle of a call, so will likely drop an ongoing call if the user moves through a cellular (or satellite) deadzone. As the Wall St Journal explained in July 1999:
“At its core, Iridium is struggling with an incongruity between its design and its market ambitions. It was originally intended for millions of globe-trotting business travelers, and it was launched with a $180 million world advertising campaign last year aimed at that market. But when Motorola began operating the system on Nov. 1, the Iridium handsets weren’t powerful enough to work within buildings or urban areas. As a result, a vast network intended for a mass market was usable only by niche groups, such as mariners, oil-rig workers or the military. Iridium faces a tough struggle to cover its huge costs in such relatively small markets.”
Indeed there are about 150,000 Iridium and Globalstar satellite phone subscribers within these niche markets in North America at the moment, generating about $100M in retail service revenues per year (excluding international users like the DoD). New smaller, cheaper handsets from SkyTerra and TerreStar should increase the size of this “professional” MSS niche significantly (including amongst “police, fire and ambulance personnel”). In addition, a low cost “satellite backup” service might appeal to several million consumers, particularly in earthquake or hurricane-prone areas such as California or the Gulf Coast, if it is explained properly: as an emergency service for use outdoors in the event that other communications are unavailable. In order to achieve this level of take-up, cellular carriers will not only have to sign roaming deals with the satellite networks, but also ensure that satellite connectivity is included in the phones they sell and support large scale distribution of the phones themselves. Even then, it may be hard to explain properly: there were reports after Hurricane Katrina that first responders were unable to get their satellite phones to work, and it was later discovered that some were trying to use the phones in a basement conference room or inside the Superdome. Although gaining several million subscribers would be a great achievement for the MSS sector, in view of these challenges we remain skeptical that there will ever be “vast global demand for the network [Harbinger] envisions”.
In contrast, we are more positive about the long term potential of ATC: cellular operators will ultimately need more spectrum to cope with the surge in wireless broadband data demand and will use up the stockpiles of 700MHz and AWS spectrum which they have purchased in recent years. At that time ATC will be one of the most obvious sources of supplementary spectrum, and there is no technical reason why it can’t be made to work. Indeed many of the developments being put in place to enable satellite roaming (such as the Qualcomm chipset) are precisely those needed as a pre-requisite for ATC deployment. The only problem is how long it may take before major cellular operators feel a pressing need to use MSS spectrum for their terrestrial operations – it is likely to be several years off at a minimum. Indeed, if WiMAX struggles, then Clearwire’s spectrum may be sold off to other players, pushing out the timeframe in which ATC might be considered even further into the future.
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