02.24.10
Posted in Financials, Globalstar, ICO, Inmarsat, MSV, Operators, Regulatory, Spectrum, TerreStar at 11:32 am by timfarrar
So the cat is out of the bag. As we noted last December, the FCC has been looking hard at how to make sure MSS spectrum is put to productive uses, and now in a speech by Chairman Genachowski, he has stated that the Plan will propose a Mobile Future Auction “permitting existing spectrum licensees, such as television broadcasters in spectrum-starved markets, to voluntarily relinquish spectrum in exchange for a share of auction proceeds, and allow spectrum sharing and other spectrum efficiency measures”. Specifically:
“The Plan proposes resolving longstanding debates about how to maximize the value of spectrum in bands such as the Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) or Wireless Communications Service (WCS) by giving licensees the option of new flexibility to put the spectrum toward mobile broadband use-or the option of voluntarily transferring the license to someone else, who will.”
It is going to be very interesting to see whether this “new flexibility” involves further liberalizing the regulations governing ATC, over what would undoubtedly be the heated objections of existing wireless carriers (who have always had a problem with potential “windfalls” for MSS spectrum holders). For example, would the FCC contemplate removing the requirement that all terminals must include satellite capability and offer a dual mode service (similar to the European S-band licenses which do not include any such restrictions)? Presumably any such carrot might come with a corresponding “use it or lose it” stick, although if an operator chose to stay with MSS-only services, it is hard to imagine that any third party could use the spectrum for terrestrial services at the same time.
However, MSS operators will certainly now be faced with a choice: do they continue to bet that (what conceivably might be more liberalized) ATC is the best way forward, and hope they can either partner with a leading wireless operator or attract investors to a new entrant wireless business plan, or do they agree to return their spectrum to the FCC in exchange for a share of the proceeds in the proposed Mobile Future Auction? The rest of this year will certainly be filled with many twists and turns in the MSS sector as we see which way operators will jump.
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02.18.10
Posted in Financials, Handheld, Inmarsat, MSV, Operators, Regulatory, Services, Spectrum, TerreStar at 8:05 pm by timfarrar
The FT’s Alphaville blog has highlighted various documents filed by SkyTerra with the SEC as part of its going private transaction with Harbinger, and suggested that Harbinger is still focused on the acquisition of Inmarsat that it originally proposed back in July 2008.
However, in our view these documents actually indicate the opposite, that although Harbinger is actively attempting to put together a consortium to fund an ATC network deployment, this is unlikely to include a bid for Inmarsat. The UBS analysis for Harbinger in July 2009, suggests three possible strategic options after the privatization of SkyTerra (Sol), namely:
(a) Acquire Inmarsat (Ignis)
(b) Pursue the Inmarsat (Ignis) Coordination Agreement
(c) Lease TerreStar (Taurus) Spectrum.
Over the last several months, it is clear that Harbinger has in fact pursued options (b) and (c) rather than option (a) (although admittedly it would not be able to launch a bid for Inmarsat prior to the SkyTerra takeover):
- SkyTerra declared the Inmarsat Coordination Agreement effective in December 2009 (prior to the two year deadline for this action); and
- TerreStar announced in January 2010 that it had entered a 90 day exclusive negotiation period to lease its satellite spectrum to Harbinger in exchange for an advance of $30M against its prior terrestrial (1.4GHz) spectrum lease to Harbinger.
While the Inmarsat coordination agreement (including its payment of $250M to Inmarsat to fit filters to existing Inmarsat terminals) is a necessity to make use of SkyTerra’s spectrum in any ATC network, in our view the potential Harbinger-TerreStar satellite spectrum lease is a direct alternative to pursuing a takeover of Inmarsat (albeit one which may not give access to European S-band spectrum, unless TerreStar is successful in its challenge to the European S-band process, or either Inmarsat or Solaris give up their licenses for this spectrum).
Similarly, while we understand that Harbinger is attempting to raise money from a consortium of investors over the next month or two, using this new funding to acquire Inmarsat would mean that it could not be used to fund a near term buildout of an ATC network. In fact, given the rise in Inmarsat’s stock price over the last year, it appears plausible that Harbinger might even decide to sell off some of its Inmarsat shares in order to provide funding for an ATC deployment, especially if Inmarsat decides to go down the route of spending its cashflows on a new I5 constellation with Ka-band capabilities.
There would be two ways in which an ATC network deployment could happen: if the buildout was funded by an existing wireless operator as a way to add capacity to its existing network, or as a (self-funded) standalone 4G new entrant to the US wireless market. We believe that Harbinger is pursuing the second of these alternatives at present, because the (less expensive and risky) first option is simply not open to it for the foreseeable future. As SkyTerra notes in its preliminary proxy statement:
“The Company had been actively pursuing a major strategic partner for a considerable period of time. In addition, during early to mid 2009 the Company had pursued and encouraged such parties to submit indications of interest to make an investment in and/or acquire the Company. No such partnering efforts were successful and no bona fide offers were received. In the judgment of Morgan Stanley, it was unclear that there was a short-or-medium term need for additional spectrum by ATC companies who were potential strategic partners. In addition, potential strategic partners had sources of spectrum other than through a partnership with SkyTerra, including via spectrum auctions by the FCC, and sales from SpectrumCo, Clearwire or from other entities in the satellite sector.”
Thus the pressing question is whether Harbinger will now be able to convince prospective partners/investors that a new entrant wireless business plan (presumably similar to that of Clearwire but based on LTE) would make sense. Though some funding might be available from (for example) an equipment vendor who would like to demonstrate its 4G technology (as has happened with Clearwire), it is less obvious who might be interested in providing distribution. Most importantly, with doubts persisting about whether Clearwire (with significant backing from wireless and cable operators) will be able to develop a sustainable 4G business, Harbinger will need to demonstrate a compelling reason why customers should choose its service over those of more established wireless providers. The only credible differentiator for such a wireless network lies in the satellite roaming capabilities that will be available (and mandated) in an ATC network deployment (and which Mr Falcone suggested to the Wall St Journal back in April 2009 would attract “vast global demand”). Thus potential partners’ attention will need to be focused on the TerreStar Genus phone (which now looks like it will come to market sometime in the second quarter of this year, after the deadline for Harbinger to complete its potential satellite spectrum lease with TerreStar), and whether they believe it can provide a compelling demonstration of competitive differentiation and market demand, based on this satellite roaming capability.
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01.05.10
Posted in Financials, Handheld, Operators, Regulatory, Spectrum, TerreStar at 4:39 pm by timfarrar
There’s a lot happening with TerreStar at the moment, as the company tries to complete the exchange offer to extend the maturity of its preferred shares. The deadline has now been pushed back until early February, while in a separate development, Echostar’s representatives have resigned from TerreStar’s board, effective December 31, 2009.
In the meantime, all eyes will be on the FCC, which needs to approve TerreStar’s ATC application (made back in the summer of 2007) before January 20, 2010 to prevent TerreStar defaulting on its loan agreement for the second satellite, which TerreStar’s deputy GC described in an October 2009 submission to the FCC as an event that “would likely be catastrophic to the company”. TerreStar will certainly be hoping that the FCC’s indications that it is taking another look at MSS allocations as one of the options to free up more spectrum for wireless broadband will not cause them to delay approval of TerreStar’s ATC application beyond this deadline.
Jan 13 update: TerreStar has just received its ATC license, and can look forward to launching commercial service in the “first or second quarter” of 2010 (per its recent statement to Satellite News) once the current testing phase is complete and the company has completed its Preferred Stock Exchange Offer and raised additional funding.
We’re planning to publish our new profile of TerreStar later this month, including forecasts of the market opportunity for both MSS and ATC services, and are also looking forward to trying out the TerreStar Genus phone when its demonstrated at the SATELLITE 2010 show in Washington DC in March. Its going to be fascinating to see whether TerreStar can succeed where others have failed in creating mass market demand for two-way MSS.
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12.07.09
Posted in ICO, MSV, Operators, Regulatory, Services, Spectrum, TerreStar at 10:41 am by timfarrar
On Friday Dec 4 we attended an FCC discussion of the National Broadband Plan here in Menlo Park, at which Carlos Kirjner and Blair Levin presented on various issues being addressed in development of the National Broadband Plan. The most interesting part of the presentation was the assertion that “at least 150MHz” of TV spectrum could be freed up by relocating over the air TV broadcasters to a smaller portion of the UHF band “while keeping all major channels on the air”.
Its been widely discussed how the broadcasters might be incentivized to move, perhaps by offering them a share of the future auction proceeds, so at the end of the presentation I asked if a similar arrangement would be available for other spectrum bands, such as MSS. Blair Levin confirmed that other bands, including MSS-ATC spectrum, were also under review and that historic band allocations may no longer be optimal to meet future wireless spectrum demand. As part of the FCC’s review of Harbinger’s proposed purchase of SkyTerra, the FCC has also asked some very detailed questions about SkyTerra’s progress towards an ATC deal, and the discussions that they have had with different parties.
Will the National Broadband Plan provide an alternative way for MSS operators such as SkyTerra, ICO/DBSD and TerreStar to monetize their spectrum, as it does not look like any of these operators are going to move forward with ATC deployment in the near future? Globalstar’s ATC lease agreement with Open Range is seeing more progress, but is limited to a few million rural consumers (and the Open Range terrestrial rollout is being supported by USDA loan guarantees).
Certainly in the 2GHz band (unlike the L-band) there are no existing satellite services which would prevent operators returning their spectrum to the FCC for re-auction. The National Broadband Plan is due to be published in February 2010, so we will soon see whether the FCC is going to come up with a plan to make sure that MSS spectrum is put to use in terrestrial networks in a more timely manner.
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07.03.09
Posted in Inmarsat, LDR, MSV, Operators, Regulatory, Services at 9:12 am by timfarrar
In April 2009, Inmarsat announced that it would be taking a 19% stake in SkyWave, facilitating SkyWave’s acquisition of Transcore’s satellite communications assets. However, SkyBitz, Wireless Matrix, XATA and Comtech Mobile Datacom [the Commenters] jointly objected to SkyWave’s FCC application for the transfer of these assets, citing “numerous and substantial negative impacts on MSS Providers and other end-users using L-band capacity”. Although the submission is heavily redacted, it appears that one of their primary concerns relates to the “restrictive trade covenants included by Inmarsat” in the Transaction and they demand an explanation of how Inmarsat “will ensure non-discriminatory treatment of all MSS Providers and other end-users with respect to capacity, availability and contractual terms and conditions”. The Commenters “believe in fact that the Transaction will (i) actually eliminate competition for end-users (as a result of the Covenant), (ii) delay deployment of advanced satellite services to end-users other than SkyWave’s customers, (iii) result in higher pricing to end-users at the expense of higher margins for SkyWave and Inmarsat, and (iv) ultimately reduce the affordability of MSS services for end-users.”
While it remains unclear exactly what is contained in the “Covenant” referred to in these comments, Inmarsat noted at its recent investor conference that one of its motivations for investing in SkyWave was to promote consolidation in the Low Data Rate (LDR) industry, and that more than half of the investment comes in the form of future airtime credits. The Transaction also “provides for a fully funded development programme for new products and services” and will drive “traffic growth on Inmarsat satellite network”, we assume at least partly as a result of SkyWave and Transcore committing to use Inmarsat’s capacity exclusively (Transcore currently uses SkyTerra’s L-band capacity in North America). The airtime credits and development program certainly give SkyWave an advantage over other providers using leased L-band capacity, and this financial and commercial advantage is presumably what would induce the “consolidation” that Inmarsat seeks.
What is particularly interesting is that on June 29, SkyWave withdrew its FCC application to undertake the Transaction and on June 23, Inmarsat (in conjunction with other MSS operators) sought an extension of time until July 14 to respond to the FCC’s consultation proceeding for its Third Annual Report to Congress on Status of Competition in the Provision of Satellite Services in which the only meaningful concern was also expressed by SkyBitz.
With SkyBitz (which currently uses leased SkyTerra capacity) cited by Inmarsat as one of the “key competitors” in the LDR market (and the only plausible one that could switch to Inmarsat capacity, since the other key competitors listed, namely Iridium, Qualcomm and Orbcomm, all use incompatible technologies), it will be very interesting to see what happens over the next few weeks: will Inmarsat restructure (or even abandon) the SkyWave Transaction to eliminate the “restrictive trade covenants” that SkyBitz is concerned about (presumably making it more difficult to promote the consolidation Inmarsat seeks), or will Inmarsat actually facilitate a deal between SkyBitz and SkyWave to fulfill its market consolidation objective and eliminate the most prominent source of objections?
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06.29.09
Posted in Financials, ICO, Operators, Regulatory, Spectrum, TerreStar at 9:23 am by timfarrar
In a recent Report and Order, released on June 12, 2009, the FCC addressed the issue of when ICO and TerreStar can offer commercial service in North America, which has been delayed by the need to clear their uplink band (2000-2020MHz) of existing Broadcast Auxiliary Service (BAS) users, who are being transitioned to frequencies above 2025MHz. In the Order, the FCC removed the requirement that ICO and TerreStar must wait until all of the top 30 broadcast markets have been transitioned before they can launch service. However, ICO and TerreStar will have to coordinate with BAS users if they are to operate in uncleared markets, and Sprint Nextel now has until February 8, 2010 to complete the transition. As a result, though TerreStar intends to begin offering service in late 2009, it looks likely that national service will not be available until several months later.
More importantly, as part of the order, the FCC initiated a Further Notice of Proposed Rule Making (FNPRM) related to the sharing of costs for the BAS transition (which Sprint Nextel has paid but is seeking to reclaim from other operators who will use the spectrum). The FCC “tentatively conclude[d] that MSS operators and future AWS licensees will have an obligation to share, on a pro rata basis, in the costs associated with the relocation of BAS incumbents if they “enter the band” prior to the BAS sunset date of December 9, 2013″ and “tentatively conclude[d] that an MSS operator “enters the band” and thus incurs an obligation to share in the costs associated with relocation of BAS incumbents when its satellite is found operational under its authorization milestone”. In April 2009, Sprint Nextel estimated these costs at $100M each for ICO and TerreStar. ICO and TerreStar have previously argued that they should not be liable for any of these transition costs, so if confirmed, the FCC’s tentative conclusions would be a significant additional cost for both companies. However, it is uncertain if the recent bankruptcy of ICO North America will affect Sprint Nextel’s claim, including whether the ICO Global parent company (which was not part of the bankruptcy filing) will avoid this liability.
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05.14.09
Posted in Financials, ICO, Inmarsat, Regulatory, Spectrum, TerreStar at 2:07 pm by timfarrar
The European Commission has announced the result of the S-band MSS selection process: as expected the two winners are Solaris Mobile and Inmarsat, with ICO and TerreStar’s applications rejected.
In response to the announcement, Inmarsat said it was “delighted to be the recipient” and “will look to pursue the commercial partnerships necessary to ensure that the returns from the required investment in our S-band programme will generate acceptable returns on capital without undue risks or uncertainties”.
However, it may not have much time to establish these partnerships, since the EC has stated that “within 30 working days of the publication of the list of selected applicants they shall inform the Commission in case they do not intend to use the radio frequencies”. If applicants decide to move forward (i.e. do not return the license) then they “will be bound by the commitments that they have undertaken, including commitments made concerning consumer and competitive benefits and geographic coverage” and all new systems must have “development and deployment completed” by May 2011 “at the latest”. A two year deadline for deployment is extremely tight, and Inmarsat would have to start spending serious money in the very near future (probably close to $100M in the next 12 months and $300M over the next two years) to complete and launch a satellite in this timeframe.
It will be very interesting to see if Inmarsat can find partners to come up with this amount of money (or enter into some alternative form of capacity purchase contracts) in the next 30 days. Given that Solaris already has a satellite in orbit (albeit with more limited coverage) and has not yet announced any meaningful capacity commitments, it would be quite a surprise if Inmarsat was successful, especially in the midst of an economic downturn.
It remains unclear what sanctions the EC can impose on operators who fail to live up to their “commitments” and ultimately do not complete an S-band satellite on the promised schedule. We would have thought it unlikely that fines or other monetary penalties would be imposed, but coming a day after Intel was fined more than 1 billion Euros by the EC’s Competition Directorate, this may not be a good time to get on the wrong side of the Commission.
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03.12.09
Posted in ICO, Inmarsat, Regulatory, Spectrum, TerreStar at 1:43 pm by timfarrar
Although the European S-band spectrum allocation process is well underway, its looking increasingly possible that there might never be more than one satellite system actually built to use this spectrum, namely the Solaris payload to be launched on Eutelsat W2A later this year. Amongst the other three entrants to the spectrum allocation process, ICO and TerreStar’s financial situation already makes it difficult to see them being able to fund construction and launch of new European satellites, although ICO maintains its legacy claim to the spectrum (by virtue of the MEO satellite launched in 2001), and has vigorously protested Ofcom’s planned cancellation of its registration in the ITU’s Master Frequency Register.
On Inmarsat’s results call today, the company was explicit about its intention not to “put its balance sheet at risk” to build its proposed EuropaSat S-band satellite, and when the CEO was asked about whether he would adopt a “build it and they will come” approach, he replied “absolutely not”. Inmarsat instead plans to seek external investors to fund the project, and ultimately to spin it off as a separate company. The contrast between Inmarsat’s description of its Alphasat project as bringing more capacity in the EMEA region, more spectrum and more redundancy to support future growth, and EuropaSat as a “non-core” project, was particularly striking.
While Inmarsat highlighted that EuropaSat could have interesting prospects in satellite radio as well as mobile TV, Ondas (which now looks to be the most likely vehicle for satellite radio development in Europe) has been growing closer to Solaris in recent months. This comes despite SES’s earlier skepticism about the prospects for satellite radio in Europe, and presumably reflects the very dim outlook for satellite-delivered mobile TV in Europe and elsewhere. Its therefore far from clear where Inmarsat might find the partners needed to fund EuropaSat, especially in such difficult economic times, and we believe it is now plausible (and perhaps even likely) that even if Inmarsat is awarded a license by the EU later this year, the EuropaSat satellite may never be built.
Ironically, the EU’s allocation rules don’t appear to envisage such an outcome, focusing instead on how to resolve a spectrum shortage and restricting any one operator to at most half of the 2×30MHz of spectrum available. In these circumstances it is quite possible that some of the spectrum might eventually end up being reallocated to terrestrial 3G networks instead of satellite services, as happened in North America back in 2003.
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01.21.09
Posted in Financials, Globalstar, ICO, MSV, Regulatory, Spectrum, TerreStar at 9:46 am by timfarrar
Last week, the FCC awarded ICO its ATC license, with no requirement to enter into a ground spare contract at this stage. Indeed ICO will only have to demonstrate 30 days before commencing ATC service that “firm arrangements are in place to meet the spare satellite requirement” within 1 year of service initiation. Of course, since a satellite would normally take around 2 years to construct, ICO would have to enter into a ground spare contract well before that 30 day notice period. However, ICO has gained considerably more flexibility to keep its expenditures to a minimum, while pursuing resolution of its litigation with Boeing and waiting for a more favorable economic climate in which to launch commercial service.
With this ruling, along with Globalstar’s ATC license grant last year, the FCC has shown a desire to be flexible in its interpretation of the ATC rules, so as to ensure that ATC deployments do eventually take place. Arguably, this flexibility has advantaged operators such as ICO and Globalstar, over TerreStar and Skyterra (formerly MSV), who have committed to considerably greater capital expenditure, based at least to some degree on a more cautious interpretation of the ATC requirements. Most notably, TerreStar is already well advanced with construction of its ground spare satellite, although we have heard rumors that work may have paused in anticipation of the ICO ruling, and (unless TerreStar gains a European license in the near future and decides to use the satellite there) we expect that construction will soon be formally suspended to save money, on the assumption that this will not impact TerreStar’s pending ATC application.
A future question for the FCC with regard to ATC “flexibility” may well relate to what level of satellite performance is needed to justify that an ATC service is truly “ancillary”. TerreStar and Skyterra have built very large and powerful (and expensive) satellites, in order to deliver voice and data connectivity to “standard” mobile devices without external antennas. ICO and Globalstar’s satellites are rather less capable (and cheaper), but if they are not required to deliver fully reliable handheld satellite voice services, then these satellites could also operate with “standard” mobile devices. For example, if the only test required is to complete a call from a handset on a tripod in an open field, with no head blockage or obstruction from trees etc, then a far less expensive satellite is required than if link margin is needed to overcome these obstructions and the call is made or received by a real person walking around with the phone.
Given that many hundreds of millions of dollars of satellite construction costs are at stake, it will be very interesting to see how the FCC ultimately decides this issue and therefore who has made the right call with their satellite design.
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