08.31.25
Posted in AT&T, Echostar, Financials, Operators, Regulatory, SpaceX, Spectrum, T-Mobile, Verizon at 9:15 am by timfarrar
Last week, EchoStar and AT&T announced a landmark spectrum deal, under which EchoStar will sell all of its 3.45GHz and 600MHz spectrum holdings to AT&T for $22.65B. But many analysts think “this is just the first step and the process is not yet complete“, not least because EchoStar CEO Akhavan commented that “We continue to evaluate strategic opportunities for our remaining spectrum portfolio in partnership with the U.S. government and wireless industry participants”.
The big prize now is EchoStar’s collection of midband assets in the AWS-3, H-block and AWS-4 bands, which could collectively be valued at as much as $30B. Semafor suggested that a three-way deal between AT&T, T-Mobile and EchoStar had been discussed under which AT&T and T-Mobile “would have swapped some of their own spectrum holdings”, but later indicated that “T-Mobile’s ultimate owners, Deutsche Telekom, tapped the brakes”.
This has caused speculation to focus on Starlink and even Kuiper as potential buyers of these assets, but what many articles are getting wrong is the suggestion that this is because (as Semafor put it) Starlink “wants its own network to provide cell coverage, something that would disrupt the stranglehold that AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile have on the US market”.
That’s a complete misunderstanding of the Direct-to-Device (D2D) business, which (despite the nonsense promulgated by some AST SpaceMobile investors) is limited to much slower speeds and far less capacity than terrestrial networks. It’s a simple matter of physics that communicating from your smartphone to a satellite hundreds of miles up in space will be less efficient than communicating with a cell tower a mile or two away and that means D2D is not a true substitute for terrestrial cellular service.
The consequence of this lower throughput and capacity is that D2D can’t generate the same revenue from each MHz of spectrum in space as a terrestrial operator on the ground, and so D2D operators can’t afford to pay as much to acquire spectrum. That’s why we’ve seen increased interest in cheaper MSS spectrum, both from Apple investing in Globalstar and more recently AST SpaceMobile bidding for Ligado’s spectrum.
But EchoStar’s mooted $30B price tag is only achievable by buying this spectrum for use in a terrestrial network, which is why Starlink has been trying to persuade the FCC to award it some of EchoStar’s spectrum for free. If that doesn’t work out then Starlink needs T-Mobile to pay the vast majority (if not all) of the $30B that EchoStar is demanding. So if T-Mobile steps back and we see FCC Chairman Carr accepting EchoStar’s offer to sell spectrum (and canceling the idea of a 2GHz MSS NPRM that might open up the band for sharing with Starlink), there’s no realistic prospect of Starlink and EchoStar agreeing on price.
We’d guess that Deutsche Telekom might want to wait for more evidence of the success or otherwise of T-Mobile’s D2D collaboration with Starlink before paying tens of billions for spectrum that they don’t really need, mainly so Starlink can improve the capacity of its D2D network. But if T-Mobile did in the end decide to bid, then either Starlink could buy the H-block (which cost EchoStar only $1.5B) and extend its existing G-block SCS network from 5x5MHz to 10x10MHz, or T-Mobile could offer Starlink access to some of the AWS-4 spectrum in rural areas for D2D.
However, there’s also an alternative path for T-Mobile and AT&T to just swap the 600MHz holdings that AT&T has now agreed to buy from EchoStar, for T-Mobile’s C-band spectrum assets, and not do any further deal with EchoStar.
If T-Mobile did buy all of EchoStar’s midband spectrum, then of course EchoStar’s planned D2D constellation would be abandoned. But there’s no reason to treat that as the default outcome. If instead Verizon puts in a bid for EchoStar’s midband holdings, then it isn’t allied with Starlink and wouldn’t want to risk the possibility that the FCC grants Starlink access to the 2GHz MSS band for D2D and impairs Verizon’s terrestrial usage plans.
So the best way forward would be for EchoStar to go ahead with its own proposed D2D constellation in order to keep exclusive access to the 2GHz MSS band in the US. Then Verizon could buy EchoStar’s AWS-3 and H-block holdings and lease AWS-4 from EchoStar in urban areas, while EchoStar coordinates D2D usage in rural and remote areas outside the reach of Verizon’s towers.
And finally if neither T-Mobile nor Verizon show up with an acceptable bid, then EchoStar will still want to preserve its MSS spectrum rights (and the associated terrestrial spectrum value in the US) by going ahead with the planned D2D constellation. Thus there are four possible scenarios and only in the first of them would EchoStar’s D2D constellation be abandoned:
1) T-Mobile buys all of EchoStar’s midband spectrum (and shares some with Starlink)
2) T-Mobile just does a swap with AT&T (600MHz for C-band)
3) Verizon buys EchoStar’s AWS-3 spectrum and leases AWS-4 in urban areas
4) No one shows up with $30B to meet EchoStar’s asking price.
On balance, assuming FCC Chairman Carr accepts the current EchoStar-AT&T deal, it therefore seems more likely than not that at least the first stage of EchoStar’s constellation will be built. And analysts who assume it won’t be and that Charlie Ergen is simply planning to sell up and retire might instead find themselves watching this show for many more years to come.
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08.14.25
Posted in AST SpaceMobile, Financials, Inmarsat, Operators, Regulatory, Spectrum, ViaSat at 9:02 pm by timfarrar
The famous saying from George Santayana is one that often comes to mind in the MSS industry, where companies repeatedly make the same mistakes as their predecessors a decade or two ago. And this blog has plenty of posts from 2009-14 about the mistakes made by MSV/LightSquared and Phil Falcone (who incidentally was so irritated by my posts that he was moved to comment on one of them from his Harbinger Capital computer – which is why my X/Twitter bio says that “I enjoy annoying billionaires”).
So it’s now particularly ironic to see that ancient history once again take center stage in the industry as the dispute between Viasat and Ligado/AST heats up. While Phil Falcone has other things on his mind nowadays, some of us remember those days only too well, including Jennifer Manner, who worked at MSV/SkyTerra from 2005-2009. Back then, Inmarsat and MSV signed a 100 year long Cooperation Agreement which was hugely advantageous to Inmarsat and has been a millstone around Ligado’s neck ever since. It has also been the source of endless disputes over the years as Ligado ran short of money, and Inmarsat tried to make sure it collected as much as possible.
The agreement was great for Inmarsat (which received ~$1.7B in spectrum lease payments, while its new owner, Viasat, stands to receive billions more between now and 2107) and Rupert Pearce, then General Counsel of Inmarsat, who negotiated the agreement and subsequently moved on to become CEO of Inmarsat. MSV’s then CEO Alex Good signed the agreement because Falcone had told him that an agreement was needed before Harbinger would provide a sorely needed $500M cash infusion (and Falcone had no understanding of what it actually said). Of course Falcone had many regrets later on, when LightSquared was forced into bankruptcy by GPS interference concerns, and once it became clear that Ligado was not going to deliver a windfall from its spectrum holdings, he unsuccessfully sued MSV’s executives and owners.
That brings us to today, when the dispute flared up once again, and both Viasat and Ligado filed competing motions with the bankruptcy court, detailing a dispute over the agreement to assume the Cooperation Agreement and sublease the spectrum to AST. There was a contentious mediation which had appeared to be settled back in June.
Now Ligado alleges that the Cooperation Agreement does not prohibit either Ligado or AST from seeking access to more L-band spectrum outside the US in the future, while Viasat alleges that the Cooperation Agreement has always prevented Ligado from operating outside the US, and AST should also be bound by these terms.
Ligado cites the drafting of the Mediation Agreement to support its argument that the only limitation is on AST’s initial application for its LEO constellation and nothing stops it from making modification requests in the future. It also includes a curious declaration from CEO Doug Smith, which sets out Ligado’s attempts to do a satellite lease deal with Avanti in 2016, at a time when there was lots of intrigue around Avanti’s future.
On the other hand Viasat argues that the Cooperation Agreement contains multiple references to Inmarsat’s exclusivity outside the US, and that the company would never have agreed to a deal that left Ligado or AST with the potential to interfere with its operations elsewhere in the world. Of course, Viasat has its own ambitions to build a LEO D2D constellation in partnership with Space42, operating in the L-band around the world, plus the 2GHz MSS band in Europe.
It remains unclear what the outcome of this dispute will be, especially as US bankruptcy courts often tend to favor the debtor in disagreements with creditors, but this could hold up the proceedings for quite a while. That may be one of Viasat’s objectives, as it looks towards an EU decision on 2GHz by the end of the year, and tries to cement its own LEO funding plans. Ligado’s submission even states explicitly that “Inmarsat’s position poses an existential threat both to the viability of the AST Transaction and the feasibility of the [Bankruptcy Reorganization] Plan”.
It is also intriguing why AST is so keen to pursue L-band rights outside the US, especially as these will undoubtedly be very difficult to secure, given the longstanding presence of both Viasat/Inmarsat and Space42/Thuraya. However, an application by Viasat to shift spectrum from GEO to LEO could provide an opening and AST would certainly prefer it if Viasat didn’t build another competing LEO NTN/D2D constellation.
But I also suspect that AST realizes the weakness of its claim to 2GHz (where the company claimed to have “priority rights” from last week’s deal with Sky and Space Global, omitting to mention that these are low priority) and the not insignificant probability that it will lose the EU 2GHz competition to either SES/Lynk or EchoStar (most observers think Viasat is fairly certain to retain its rights and there is only expected to be one other wideband license up for grabs). This would mean AST has little option other than to pursue L-band rights on a global basis if it wants to build a new constellation operating in “midband” spectrum in a few years time.
Now we wait to see how this develops. But for the time being AST may no longer be able to claim a clear path to developing what it asserts will be “broadband” D2D through use of MSS spectrum. So while this dispute continues, the company will have to focus on its very limited terrestrial spectrum leases with AT&T and Verizon, which will at best be sufficient to offer a narrowband service that is similar to Starlink (and will need the FCC to approve AST’s non-compliant SCS application, which is not at all certain).
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08.12.25
Posted in AST SpaceMobile, Financials, Operators, Services, SpaceX at 9:36 am by timfarrar
AST SpaceMobile did their best on today’s call to obfuscate the delays in their launch schedule, which has already shifted by several months since the company’s last quarterly update in May. Back in May the company’s CEO stated that “we…are now able to announce our plans to support five scheduled orbital launches over the next six to nine months” (i.e. by Nov-Feb) but now the company merely claims that it is “anticipating at least five orbital launches by end of Q1 2026.”
And this demonstrates that the bizarre and contradictory FCC submission in late July saying the company anticipated launching “up to 20 satellites…through the end of this year” appears to have just been nonsense inserted by the management at the last moment, presumably to pump the stock further, as I guessed at the time.
In fact, the FCC certainly will be annoyed by the fact that AST merely expects FM1 will “be ready to ship in August 2025″, indicating that the satellite still isn’t ready for shipment as of today. Again the company obfuscated by adding a picture on slide 6 of the presentation of a “Block 2 Bluebird encapsulated” without indicating that this was actually FM1 (as in the picture above showing FM1 in the thermal vacuum chamber) instead of simply a ground test model. Of course if it was FM1, you can guarantee that AST would have wanted to point that out.
But what’s more significant is that today’s announcement only refers to AST being “on target to complete 40 satellites equivalent of microns by early 2026″ with no mention of how many satellites will be completed by that time. Previously AST had said they were “on track with satellite manufacturing of 40 Block 2 BlueBird satellites”. That’s hardly surprising, because a significant redesign is needed to cut the mass from 5850kg to 4200kg for FM3 and subsequent satellites, and ISRO has already pointed out that FM1 has been experiencing “developmental issues”.
However, by avoiding mentioning the number of satellites they plan to complete, AST clearly hoped to avoid highlighting how few are actually going to be launched on the first five launches through next March. Unfortunately, the presentation gave the game away, when it confirmed that the eight sets of BB2 microns built to date are enough for four launches. That confirms my expectations that after FM1, the FM2 launch will be standalone on F9 and then there will be three satellites on each of the next two Falcon 9 launches. In fact the chart on slide 7 clearly shows AST’s entire planned schedule of 13 launches through the end of 2026, although given the track record of continued delays, it is hard to have any confidence in this actually being met.
My update to this chart above adds actual launch dates to the satellite shipment dates, with launch 5 being at the end of Q1 2026 as the company hopes, and assuming one more month of slip in launches after that. And then adding in the fact that New Glenn is not expected to be available for other commercial launches, including AST, until flight 6 or later, in late summer 2026 at the earliest. Again being generous to the company, I’ve assumed they might get two New Glenn launches in before the end of 2026. And despite trying to correct himself to say “6-8 satellites” per launch, AST’s CEO effectively confirmed that there will most likely be only 6 satellites per New Glenn.
Bizarrely, AST’s CEO didn’t even mention the Falcon 9 launches, as he tied himself in knots, claiming that the company would build 6 satellites per month and then have a launch every 1-2 months. Of course, there’s no point in building 6 satellites per month (let alone 40 sets of microns by early 2026) if you can only launch 3 satellites per launch on the only rocket you have access to for the next year.
So now you can see that this is how AST plans to get to 45-60 satellites in orbit by the end of 2026, which in fact means ~41 BB2s plus the existing 5 BB1s. Of course that only happens if the company somehow avoids the delays that it has consistently reported every quarter and FM1 works as planned. And the supposed intermittent service at the end of 2025 will be utterly pointless, with at most two more satellites in orbit, and most likely one or both of those not even being operational.
EDIT (8/12): It seems likely that AST’s assertions in the headline of the business update that the company is “Preparing to deploy nationwide intermittent service in the United States by the end of 2025, followed by the United Kingdom, Japan, and Canada in Q1 2026″ actually represents the company’s hopes for when SCS approval might be received, not when any sort of service will actually be provided to the public. Or taken more literally, AST may claim this phrase means that “by the end of 2025″ the company will start “preparing to deploy…service” but that does not mean the company is currently preparing for a service to be deployed by the end of 2025.
There won’t be 25 satellites in orbit until July 2026 at the earliest, and it will be Sept-Oct 2026 before these are operational, and capable of generating revenues. Incidentally it was funny to hear the CFO (mistakenly?) claim that 25 satellites will generate positive operating cash flows, when the company’s 10-Q is careful not to include the word positive, simply asserting that “we believe the operation of a constellation of 25 BB satellites will enable us to potentially generate cash flows from operating activities to further support the buildup of the remaining constellation”.
And finally, there won’t actually be even the barest level of continuous (operational) coverage for a few parts of the northern US until the first quarter of 2027 at the earliest. I’m sure AT&T are desperate to forget their CEO’s claims back in October 2022 that they chose AST because it was 18 months ahead of Starlink and T-Mobile.
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08.08.25
Posted in AST SpaceMobile, Echostar, Financials, Globalstar, Operators, SpaceX at 3:38 pm by timfarrar
Although to date EchoStar has only signed a $1.3B contract with MDA for the first 100+ satellites, with the second half of the constellation (and $5B investment) likely to remain as an option for the next couple of years, EchoStar will have to secure its initial launch contracts soon (potentially before more details of the system are revealed in September in Paris), and launches could cost as much as $700M-$800M just for the first 100 satellites.
One key question is whether EchoStar is now willing to put its faith in SpaceX as the launch provider, when SpaceX is fighting hard against EchoStar’s plans and is seeking access to the 2GHz spectrum, which is sorely needed to provide added capacity for the Starlink D2D constellation. Even if Chairman Carr now decides to drop the idea of a 2GHz/AWS-4 NPRM (assuming President Trump prefers to back Ergen instead of Musk) and reject SpaceX’s attempts to access the band in the US, I’d expect the fight to continue on a country-by-country basis around the world.
We’ve already seen a report in the WSJ last fall about how SpaceX appears to have used the leverage of launch contracts to gain coordination advantages for Starlink vs OneWeb and Kepler. And now it looks like a recent delay in Globalstar’s first set of 8 replacement satellites, from what a year ago was supposed to be a launch in the first half of 2025 to now the fourth quarter of this year, has provided more benefits to Starlink as part of the renegotiation of the launch contract (which was also extended to include a second launch of the remaining 9 satellites).
Certainly there are plenty of recriminations flying around about the cause of this delay in completing the satellites: Apple blames MDA, which in turn blames RocketLab, the subcontractor responsible for building the buses. It’s well known that MDA wasn’t happy with RocketLab’s performance on the contract, because MDA decided to bring the bus in-house for the new C-3 constellation. And this quarter Globalstar has now felt moved to add to the “important factors that may cause our actual results to differ materially from those anticipated” within its 10-Q, the risk of the “delay of the completion or launch of new satellites”.
But why would Apple be particularly upset, when these satellites offer no additional functionality and simply provide more resiliency to the existing Globalstar constellation, which (despite one satellite failing in 2025Q1) has lasted better than might have been expected back in February 2022 when the original MDA contract was signed?
It appears that the explanation lies in the fact that in May Apple ended up agreeing to support Starlink’s D2D service on the iPhone 13, a phone that isn’t compatible with Apple’s own Globalstar-based service and was left out of the original iOS update in January 2025. The timing of that decision appears to indicate that this was connected to SpaceX agreeing a last minute postponement of the Globalstar launch slot from Q2 to later in the year. Support for the iPhone 13 now gives Starlink a further advantage over Apple in the D2D race, at a point when Apple was already having an active debate within the company about whether it can (or should even attempt to) match Starlink’s pace of development.
Apple’s reluctance to create an even bigger source of tension with SpaceX also appears to have led Apple to sit out the current fight between EchoStar and Starlink over the 2GHz spectrum, and I believe there’s now no realistic chance that Apple will either invest in or become an anchor tenant for EchoStar’s planned D2D constellation at this point in time, contrary to earlier rumors.
In view of all this what will EchoStar decide about the launch contract(s)? Well one obvious possibility would be going to Blue Origin for New Glenn launches, since the timing of the EchoStar constellation with launches in 2028 is much better aligned with availability of the New Glenn rocket, compared to the contract that AST signed with Blue Origin back in November 2024. At the time, that was seen as an opportune satellite design for New Glenn to launch, as AST’s BlueBirds were supposed to be relatively light but very bulky, making them well suited for the huge New Glenn fairing (with an expectation that up to 8 could fit on a single rocket).
Of course that’s no longer the case, since AST’s first attempt at building a larger satellite has turned into a nearly 6 ton monstrosity. But conveniently for both sides, AST is hugely late in manufacturing its satellites, so there’s now no problem waiting to launch AST satellites (assuming AST can overcome its ongoing “developmental issues”) until New Glenn has space in its manifest in the second half of 2026.
It’s ironic that this mutually beneficial agreement to extend the dates in the AST-New Glenn launch contract has been taken out of context by AST investors and analysts covering the company, claiming that instead there was an agreement for Jeff Bezos to invest in AST. Because in reality, if Bezos wants to secure most of the EchoStar launch contract for Blue Origin, which is likely to be more competitive because there could be other launch options available in 2028, and he wants to continue his personal beef with Elon Musk, he’d be better advised to invest a modest amount in EchoStar’s D2D system instead.
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08.06.25
Posted in AST SpaceMobile, Echostar, Operators, Regulatory, Spectrum at 3:51 pm by timfarrar
AST is clearly frantic to talk about anything other than the “developmental delays” which are holding up shipment of the FM1 satellite to India and have caused the launch to be pushed back to late fall, despite some employees apparently taking the trouble to go public about the company’s satellite manufacturing tribulations.
So that helps to explain the bizarre announcement today that AST has an “Agreement to Acquire Global S-Band Spectrum Priority Rights Held under the International Telecommunication Union”. AST clearly didn’t want anyone to look to closely at this spectrum deal, because they simply refer to acquiring an unnamed “entity”, and the press release is disingenuously worded to convince the company’s clueless cult of investors that AST will have priority over “up to an additional 60 MHz of mid-band satellite spectrum”.
It doesn’t take much effort to identify the entity concerned, which is Sky and Space Global (SSG), as multiple people have confirmed to me today. SSG made a failed attempt to enter the MSS market almost a decade ago, after going public in Australia, hyping up its “unique expertise in space technology” that was “set to revolutionize the existing satellite communications industry with its price disruptive first mover technology” and “bring affordable coverage to billions of the world’s most unserved people”. AST’s original business plan (which involved a large number of nano-satellites and was intended to start with an equatorial constellation) could almost have been taken straight from the SSG pitch.
SSG only launched 3 satellites back in 2017, which de-orbited in spring 2023, though the filing was brought back into use by one of the satellites launched on the Jan 14 Falcon 9 Transporter-12 rideshare. But what AST’s language is trying to obscure is that SSG’s ITU filings have lower priority than both EchoStar and Omnispace, and also describe a system which is completely incompatible with AST’s recent application to the FCC.
AST is now planning 248 satellites of which 220 will be at 53 degrees inclination and the remaining 28 in sun synchronous orbit, having abandoned its original plan for an equatorial constellation. However, SSG (whose filing is named SSG-CSL in the ITU database) has filed for only 3 test satellites in sun synchronous orbit and the remaining 360 satellites in near equatorial orbits (0, 10 and 13 degrees inclination). So even if AST adjusted its orbit plan to conform with SSG’s filings, it would then be useless for serving high value markets in Central and North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
That’s why it isn’t surprising that SSG’s licenses are so cheap, compared with EchoStar and Omnispace, and why by choosing to acquire SSG rather than say Omnispace, it is clear that AST is more interesting in gaining favorable PR (from people who either don’t understand or would prefer to lie about how spectrum rights work) than actually providing service using this filing. Just don’t ask when (if ever) AST will actually launch a constellation.
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08.02.25
Posted in AST SpaceMobile, Echostar, Handheld, Lynk, Operators, Regulatory, Services, SES, SpaceX, Spectrum, ViaSat at 9:36 am by timfarrar
Yesterday EchoStar chose to announce its plans for a new $5B D2D constellation of 200 satellites, including an initial US$1.3B contract with MDA to build the first 100 satellites. Though the MDA contract was in line with my prediction back in March, EchoStar’s heavy emphasis on prospective wholesale partnerships with mobile operators during the results call suggests that Apple has declined to provide financial backing for the system. That’s perhaps unsurprising after the press revelations in May describing a lack of consensus within Apple about whether to continue investing in D2D.
As EchoStar CEO Akhavan noted in the results call, EchoStar had to make a decision now, because the EU is in the process of deciding what to do about the current European 2GHz licenses held by EchoStar and Viasat when they expire in spring 2027. Indeed I understand that EchoStar assured the EU of its plans to build this system in its confidential response to the EU’s consultation back on June 30. Now we face an all-out battle between at least four players (Viasat, EchoStar, AST/Vodafone and SES/Lynk) for only two licenses when they are awarded at the end of this year.
However, EchoStar’s announcement also came as an unwelcome surprise to many investors, who were hoping that reports earlier in the week of FCC Chairman Carr’s “Best and Final Offer” to sell AWS-4 spectrum signaled that EchoStar would scale back its ambitions and strike a deal to sell or lease this spectrum. Contrary to some analyst perceptions, the biggest threat from the FCC has always been a potential rulemaking on the 2GHz MSS band that would open it up to additional sharing by Starlink. However, it was also very unlikely that Elon Musk and Charlie Ergen would have a meeting of minds on the value of this spectrum in any commercial deal for Starlink to access the band.
So its now clear that Ergen has decided to defy Carr’s mandate and move forward on his own, without providing any evidence that a major new partner for the system has been secured. Hopefully clarity on financing and partnerships will be provided in September when EchoStar has promised to give more details of its plans. But in the meantime, Carr must decide whether to launch a 2GHz rulemaking or leave Starlink out in the cold without access to MSS spectrum that will soon be sorely needed to increase the capacity of its D2D system. Carr’s decision may well turn on whether Ergen has secured President Trump’s backing, after his recent falling out with Elon Musk, and that would certainly help to explain why EchoStar is highlighting a large headline investment of $5B in the planned D2D system.
Fortuitously for those who are trying to make sense of these developments, yesterday evening I also released my new 100+ page deep dive report on D2D, telling you everything you need to know about D2D technology, regulation and the progress of all the different satellite operators involved in this market, updated with the latest information on EchoStar, AST, Starlink, Apple/Globalstar and other planned systems. We’ve seen lots of ludicrous forecasts about the size of this market, which simply fail to understand the technological constraints on these services in terms of capacity, data rates and costs. Unlike these other forecasts, my analysis looks at realistic capacity, usage and pricing models to assess how many customers Starlink and AST’s systems can serve and what they will need to charge per Gbyte of capacity. That’s a familiar topic to who followed my blog posts on LightSquared back in 2011-12 when it became clear that there was no there there…
I also analyze regulatory constraints, feasible deployment schedules (especially in light of continuing delays for AST which make the company’s claimed launch plans totally implausible) and how much spectrum will be needed for these systems to operate. As I discussed in another report back in January, MSS spectrum (and the 2GHz band in particular) is likely to be critical to providing adequate capacity for D2D constellations. Starlink only has a paired 5MHz block of spectrum in the US, but has already decided that it needed to upgrade to a paired 15MHz block in New Zealand after only 6 months of operations. So EchoStar’s announcement, and how the FCC now decides to respond, will be critical in determining the future direction of this market.
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