03.02.26
Starlink’s German alignment
It was fascinating to see today’s announcement at MWC, that Starlink is partnering with Deutsche Telekom to “support over 140M subscribers across 10 European countries“. Most remarkable is that DT is explicitly confirming that “the service will operate only in Starlink’s MSS (Mobile Satellite Service) spectrum”, effectively treating renewal of EchoStar’s existing 2GHz MSS license in Europe as a fait accompli.
That’s perhaps not surprising, because I’m told that an announcement from the EU on the process for reallocating the 2GHz licenses after they expire in spring 2027 remains stalled, and may take several more months to emerge. As a result, the expectation is that the current licenses (held by Viasat and EchoStar) will be extended, probably by two years, to allow time for that process (with appeals and a need for subsequent actions by national regulators) to conclude.
But there is a wider context here to the alignment between Starlink and Deutsche Telekom here, which is seemingly happening with the implicit backing of the German government (and makes me wonder what will happen to Tesla’s factory in Germany this week).
Back in January, news broke that Starlink had struck a fleetwide deal to equip Lufthansa’s aircraft with connectivity. After the prior loss of IAG to Starlink in November 2025, Lufthansa was the last remaining anchor customer for Viasat’s European Aviation Network (EAN).
Lufthansa’s defection fatally undermined the case to retain EAN in its current form and therefore has called into question the need for Viasat to retain 2x15MHz for its 2GHz MSS license. In supporting Viasat’s application for renewal, Lufthansa had even gone as far as to claim that “The EAN is a critical building block in continuing our journey to offer an industry-leading connectivity solution to our passengers.” Of course, it will take some time to replace the EAN terminals on both Lufthansa and IAG, but that just reinforces the rationale for a two-year extension to the current European 2GHz licenses, before any changes take place.
Those changes could potentially reduce both Viasat and EchoStar to paired 10MHz blocks and free up a third license for a European provider (prompting a fight between the AST/Vodafone partnership and the SES/Lynk/Omnispace grouping). But now I wonder if DT might switch its position and suggest cutting Viasat to 2x10MHz, in order to free up 2x5MHz for IoT, while leaving EchoStar/Starlink with the full 2x15MHz. Though whether that would fly with EU regulators is far from clear.
What is interesting is that Lufthansa’s decision to defect to Starlink was apparently very sudden, in fact I’m told that Lufthansa had been negotiating a major deal with another IFC provider for the last couple of years, which was close to being confirmed publicly, and rumors suggest that the German government had a hand in the switch.
Now we have a similar major deal between Deutsche Telekom and Starlink that comes after DT reportedly vetoed T-Mobile US’s plan to buy EchoStar’s spectrum last summer to enhance the partnership between TMUS and Starlink. And last June, DT had been just as unenthusiastic about any changes to the 2GHz band, stating that “Deutsche Telekom AG plans to continue operating the European Aviation Network (EAN) using the MSS 2GHz spectrum beyond 2027…preserving the current spectrum allocation is crucial for the continued operation and economic viability of the EAN.”
So the natural question is “what changed”? I’m told that even after vetoing the TMUS-EchoStar spectrum deal (and then replacing the TMUS CEO while privately characterizing TMUS as “going rogue”), DT continued investigating D2D options and was one of three companies that looked at Globalstar when that asset was put up for sale last fall (the other two being SpaceX and Apple).
But nothing happened there, and now DT has decided instead to strike a major partnership with Starlink, preferring to rely on the 2GHz MSS band over Globalstar’s Big LEO spectrum. And there’s even a DT panelist (Jaroslav Holis) scheduled to speak at the Equatys event on Wednesday which raises the question of what DT might have been exploring there. So I’m left wondering whether there are wider German political factors behind the decisions of both Lufthansa and Deutsche Telekom to reverse themselves in short order.
