09.28.10
Posted in Financials, LightSquared, Operators, Regulatory, Spectrum, TerreStar at 10:36 am by timfarrar
Back in August, it looked very much like TerreStar was poised to file for bankruptcy, using a large DIP facility of $200M+ to fund the company for the next several years while it attempted to build a satellite roaming business. Harbinger indicated at the time that it believed a bankrupt TerreStar’s spectrum was worth $1.5B to $2B. This suggests that (as we speculated) the plan may well have been to cram-up the ~$1B of first lien debt that is outstanding at TerreStar Networks. However, it appears that Blackstone was unsuccessful in finding takers for that financing, and so the question arises as to what is now their Plan B for TerreStar.
In TerreStar’s 2010Q2 10-Q, filed in early August, the company stated that “there is substantial doubt that the available cash balance, investments and available borrowing capacity as of June 30, 2010 will be sufficient to satisfy the projected funding needs for third quarter of 2010″ and yet we are now at the end of the third quarter and there has been no bankruptcy filing. AT&T also announced the commercial release of the Genus phone last week. Some have therefore suggested that this means TerreStar is likely to avoid bankruptcy, because AT&T would not have gone to market with the phone immediately prior to a bankruptcy filing.
Of course, if TerreStar had actually secured further investments, these would have to have been disclosed in an 8-K filing, but it is certainly clear the company has managed to make its cash resources last longer than it previously expected. One possibility is that AT&T paid upfront for the Genus phones it is selling, which would have provided some cash for TerreStar without the need for a public filing. It would also explain why AT&T is keen to move ahead with the commercial launch if it now owns several tens of thousands of Genus phones.
UPDATE: According to documents filed in the TerreStar bankruptcy proceeding, Echostar and Harbinger allowed TerreStar to draw a further $10M from the Purchase Money Credit Facility, and agreed to waive any claims of potential default. However, given that the bankruptcy documents show only a few hundred thousand dollars of expected receipts for TerreStar from phone sales by the end of the year, it still appears possible that either AT&T may have paid upfront for the phones it expects to sell, or (perhaps more likely) Elektrobit has been left holding the bag, given the substantial losses it expects to book on its TerreStar receivables.
However, TerreStar obviously also needs to raise further funds to cover its ongoing operating expenses. It has a window of time until August 2011 when no cash interest is due on TerreStar Networks’ first lien debt, and so it appears plausible that raising say $50M+ at TerreStar Corporation (presumably against the security of the 1.4GHz spectrum) would be (barely) sufficient to see the company through to next August, when the outcome of the FCC’s MSS NPRM/NOI should be clearer.
This might well still require a bankruptcy filing by TerreStar Corporation (depending on what happens with the outstanding $408M of Preferred Stock, since the company has certain obligations to redeem the Preferred Stock if it has more than $10M in available funds), but we assume that Blackstone might conceivably look to keep the TerreStar Networks subsidiary out of bankruptcy (assuming this is permitted by the cross-default provisions on the first lien debt) and thereby enable TerreStar Corporation to retain its shareholding in TerreStar Networks.
Then, if it turned out that the FCC’s NPRM allowed the 2GHz satellite spectrum to be monetized for more than the value of the outstanding first lien debt (something we regard as unlikely), the proceeds could potentially flow to the owners of TerreStar Corporation (although it is implausible that an auction could occur by August 2011 so there would certainly still be significant arguments about the value of this spectrum). In addition, this outcome would ensure that TerreStar’s 2GHz spectrum is not on the market as an alternative to LightSquared, while Harbinger seeks to secure partners for its LTE network buildout over the next 9 months.
UPDATE: From the TerreStar bankruptcy filings, it does not appear that the approach we speculated about would have been feasible, presumably at least in part because it was not possible to raise money against the security of the 1.4GHz spectrum, and in the last few weeks the alternative plan to accepting a deal with Echostar was to try and prime the first lien debt which Echostar controlled at TerreStar Networks. However, in the end TerreStar has had to take a $75M DIP from Echostar and agree to the restructuring plan which Echostar proposed.
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09.14.10
Posted in Financials, Globalstar, ICO/DBSD, LightSquared, Operators, Regulatory, Spectrum, TerreStar at 9:54 pm by timfarrar
The FCC today released its ruling denying Globalstar’s request for a postponement of the deadlines in its ATC license, which required launch of its second generation satellites by July 1, 2010 and provision of two-way service to its ATC terminals by July 1, 2011. The FCC has granted Open Range a temporary waiver, which basically gives it 60 days to make other spectrum arrangements or its network will be shut down.
This ruling comes as quite a shock to most observers, because it was assumed that the FCC was contemplating providing more flexibility to MSS-ATC licensees after release of its recent NPRM/NOI. However, as we argued at the time, the contents of the NPRM/NOI were actually something of a disappointment to those expecting such liberalization, because the emphasis was on reallocation of the 2GHz spectrum for terrestrial use, with incentive auctions or other mechanisms used to ensure that the government receives “appropriate compensation for the step up in value” that would occur if the existing ATC restrictions were removed in that band. In that context, as we suggested, it would be hard for the FCC to provide further flexibility to ATC licensees in other bands (i.e. LightSquared and Globalstar) with no offsetting “compensation”. Nevertheless, we had still expected that Globalstar might be granted its requested waivers, because LightSquared had achieved the ATC license modifications it desired back in March.
However, now that the FCC has taken a hard line with Globalstar, it raises the question not only of what Open Range will do next for spectrum, but whether any future inability to meet license conditions will place other ATC licenses (and the associated spectrum assets) at risk. Notably, observers will presumably begin to wonder what will result from the proceeding relating to the reimbursement claimed by Sprint from DBSD and TerreStar for clearing the 2GHz spectrum band (estimated by Sprint at $100M+ per operator), compliance with the outcome of which was a condition of TerreStar’s ATC license grant back in January. Though DBSD has sought to avoid these costs through its bankruptcy filing, it is less certain that TerreStar would be able to do likewise. TerreStar has also recently requested certain waivers of the ATC base station and terminal requirements from the FCC. In addition, it is quite possible that there may be requests by Harbinger to extend the very aggressive terrestrial deployment deadlines associated with the LightSquared network at some point in the future, and in the near term, LightSquared recently delayed the launch of its first next generation satellite to December 2010, which will also require a waiver from the FCC, and questions are sure to be raised about whether this delay was solely attributable to technical problems.
With comments due in response to the July 2010 NPRM/NOI tomorrow, it is likely that a lot of last minute redrafting of submissions is going on tonight, so it will be interesting to see whether any of these issues are raised either by the satellite companies themselves, or by terrestrial wireless interests encouraging the FCC to continue to take a hard line on ATC.
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08.31.10
Posted in Financials, LightSquared, Operators, Regulatory, TerreStar at 10:50 am by timfarrar
In early August, LightSquared announced an agreement with Airspan Networks, under which Airspan will “exclusively market LightSquared’s 1.4 GHz wireless spectrum” to the utilities industry as “a comprehensive solution for Smart Grid and Smart Utility applications”.
The spectrum will be managed by Airspan and used in conjunction with “Airspan’s proven, reliable and robust broadband and next generation 4G products”. Notably, Airspan’s products appear to be WiMAX-based, so it appears that any buildout by Airspan in the 1.4GHz band will now be totally decoupled from LightSquared’s nationwide LTE-based ATC network deployment, and will instead depend on the individual contracts that Airspan is able to secure with “utilities in their distinct geographic markets”.
Financial details of how this exclusive agreement will work have not been released, although Harbinger/LightSquared has committed to pay TerreStar $2M per month to lease the spectrum, with an option to buy the spectrum for up to $250M. However, it seems unlikely that Airspan would have the resources to take over these lease payments, as according to SEC filings, Airspan’s revenues declined to $70M in 2008, with an annual loss of $50M, before the company was delisted.
This means that any utility that would contemplate a deal with Airspan faces considerable uncertainty about whether it can rely on the spectrum being available for the long term (given that the lifetime of any Smart Grid solution would be a decade or more). Not only is TerreStar (the ultimate owner of the spectrum) in financial difficulties, but the prospects for LightSquared are also hard to determine. In addition, Airspan has clearly been experiencing financial challenges, given its history of losses and declining revenues, and the future of its WiMAX technology is therefore somewhat uncertain. One contact of ours, who has been looking to acquire spectrum for wireless backhaul, suggested that these complexities would make it very hard to consider partnering with Airspan at this point in time.
As a result, it is unclear how much if any revenues will flow from the LightSquared-Airspan agreement, and the valuation that can be attributed to the 8MHz of 1.4GHz spectrum (and will need to be assessed if TerreStar files for bankruptcy) is similarly difficult to establish. In this context, the history of the 1.4GHz spectrum is quite interesting. It was originally auctioned by the FCC in Auction 69 in Feb/Mar 2007 for a total of $123.6M, with half the spectrum acquired by Echostar (through Port LLC) and half the spectrum acquired by CCTV Wireless (backed by Columbia Capital). In spring 2008, TerreStar purchased Echostar’s share of the 1.4GHz spectrum in exchange for 30M shares of common stock (valued then at ~$140M), while Harbinger bought the remaining 1.4GHz spectrum from CCTV Wireless for $212.5M, before contributing the spectrum to TerreStar in exchange for non-voting Junior Preferred Shares convertible into 30M share of common stock. Jefferies provided a fairness opinion at that time, and TerreStar suggested that the spectrum could be used in combination with its satellite spectrum “to service projected demand in the machine-to-machine market” and that it contemplated using the 1.4GHz spectrum “to enter the emerging femtocell market by alleviating spectrum interference issues”.
Subsequently in September 2009, Harbinger agreed to lease the 1.4GHz spectrum from TerreStar for an initial amount of $1M per month, increasing to $2M per month in June 2010. Harbinger could purchase the spectrum initially for $150M, later increasing to $250M, with credit for 50% of lease payments and with 40% of the purchase price paid in TerreStar debt or preferred stock. The agreement also contemplated pairing the 1.4GHz spectrum with other spectrum (the details of which were not specified in the publicly filed version of the agreement), although it is not clear that permission was ever sought from the FCC for such a change.
Presumably such a change would have made the spectrum more useful for LightSquared’s LTE network, but the agreement with Airspan appears to indicate that LightSquared now no longer plans to use the 1.4GHz spectrum itself. This leaves LightSquared with 5MHz of terrestrial-only spectrum between 1670 and 1675MHz, plus rights to use up to 46MHz of L-band satellite spectrum through agreements with Inmarsat. LightSquared has also stated its intention to offer terrestrial-only devices using its terrestrial spectrum. While this could simply refer to Airspan’s network in the 1.4GHz spectrum, it seems more reasonable to assume that this comment was intended to refer to the 1670-75MHz spectrum. Will LightSquared therefore be deploying a 5MHz TDD LTE channel in this band to complement the 5x5MHz FDD LTE channels being used in the L-band satellite spectrum?
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08.23.10
Posted in Financials, Handheld, ICO/DBSD, LightSquared, Operators, Regulatory, Services, Spectrum, TerreStar at 12:09 pm by timfarrar
That’s the big question facing TerreStar and its investors, as the company moves towards a bankruptcy filing which we assume will come in the next week or so. TerreStar Networks has a very substantial amount of debt secured against its in-orbit satellite and 2GHz spectrum assets, with $857M of 15% Secured Notes and $109M of 6.5% Exchangeable Notes outstanding at June 30, 2010 according to TerreStar’s latest 10-Q.
TerreStar stated in the 10-Q that it had “commenced restructuring discussions with certain holders of our 15% Secured Notes and 6.5% Exchangeable Notes”. However, if these discussions are not successful, and TerreStar and its advisers want to argue that the satellite spectrum is worth considerably more than the outstanding first lien debt, then it is possible that they could try to keep this debt in place and raise DIP funding based on TerreStar’s other assets, such as its 1.4GHz spectrum and the ground spare satellite (which is encumbered by a separate $73M Purchase Money Credit Facility).
The result would likely be a dispute in bankruptcy court over whether it is better to halt TerreStar’s plans to launch commercial service, and sell off its satellite and spectrum assets in the near future (e.g. if the current FCC proceeding permits incentive auctions for the 2GHz MSS spectrum), or to keep the company afloat and moving forward with the launch of the Genus phone, which was recently postponed until September. Of course the second option would require considerably more funding to be made available, and it is extremely questionable whether a feasible business plan could be developed to justify commercial launch of the Genus phone. In our profile of TerreStar, published back in January 2010, we estimated that the handheld Genus phone could generate perhaps $25M in wholesale service revenues by 2014, but after trying out the phone in March, we scaled back our expectations.
It may also be difficult to argue that TerreStar’s in-orbit satellite and spectrum is worth significantly in excess of the $966M of outstanding Secured and Exchangeable Notes, when a judge found in the DBSD bankruptcy case last fall that DBSD (with a satellite in orbit and having chosen its 20MHz of spectrum ahead of TerreStar) should be valued at $492M to $692M.
It is far from clear that either DBSD or TerreStar are better positioned than they were last year to secure a strategic partner (such as a wireless operator) who is prepared to fund the rollout of a multi-billion dollar terrestrial ATC network. Indeed, given the recent decision of Harbinger to go it alone with a wholesale approach for LightSquared, major wireless operators have to date proved unwilling to invest on the basis of the ATC model and associated satellite spectrum (despite five years of trying on the part of SkyTerra, ICO/DBSD and TerreStar).
The FCC’s recent NPRM could potentially enable the 2GHz MSS operators to monetize their spectrum via an incentive auction or similar mechanism once the proceeding is completed in 2011, which does represent a change from last year, but the FCC has also emphasized that it will need to receive compensation for the step-up in value accruing from removal of the current ATC rules in the 2GHz MSS band. If the proceeds of an incentive auction were shared 50/50 between the current spectrum holders and the government, as appears plausible, then (taking into account the delay before an auction could take place, most likely in 2012, and the need for additional funding in the interim) such an auction would need to raise close to $0.50 per MHzPOP in order to repay the Secured and Exchangeable Notes.
Although such a valuation is similar to those mooted by Clearwire and Credit Suisse in recent months, the FCC’s interests are not necessarily supportive of increasing spectrum valuations, and the balance between potential buyers and sellers of spectrum is significantly different to that back in 2006, when the AWS auction raised an average of $0.54 per MHzPOP.
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07.17.10
Posted in Financials, ICO/DBSD, LightSquared, Operators, Regulatory, Spectrum, TerreStar at 7:17 am by timfarrar
The FCC’s NPRM/NOI issued on Thursday clearly indicates that we are approaching the point where the 2GHz band will be redesignated for terrestrial-only use, with the ATC rules abandoned, and some form of compensation paid (to the government) for the step-up in value accruing to the current 2GHz spectrum holders. It also looks quite possible that any attempts to offer MSS services in those bands could be discontinued, despite the $1.5B spent to date on satellites by DBSD and TerreStar. Ironically, this comes at a time when the only real barriers to ATC deployment are economic and financial, rather than technical.
Even more significantly, the Wall St Journal is reporting that Harbinger is now seeking a $400M debt investment “to keep the [SkyTerra MSS-ATC] project moving forward” and “pay off debt coming due in the months ahead and other expenses related to the wireless plan”. This is a dramatic turnaround from the $1B to $2B of equity and bank financing that Harbinger was reported to be seeking back in April.
SkyTerra has numerous expenses coming due in the months ahead, according to its 2009 10-K, including $120M of vendor notes payable to Boeing, for which the principal is “due in full in December 2010″. Other items listed include the senior secured discount notes (cash pay from October 2010), and various other amounts related to next generation network construction, satellite launch services, and the “chipset, device and satellite base station subsystem” (which totalled an expected $150M during 2010, though could presumably be cut back). According to SkyTerra’s 2009Q4 results presentation in March 2010, the company also estimated it will need to pay $70M for insuring the SkyTerra-1 satellite launch (which is currently scheduled for August 17).
Given these expenses, $400M of new debt wouldn’t provide much money to pay for any large scale terrestrial network deployment. More to the point, will Harbinger be able to continue to fund TerreStar, which has been costing about $10M per month to keep afloat, in addition to SkyTerra (note that SkyTerra’s existing funds were used for the most recent injection of $40M into TerreStar via a “Satellite Minutes Agreement”)? I’m sure we will see the answers to that question very soon, given that Harbinger’s current 90 day exclusivity agreement with TerreStar (signed on May 6) expires on August 4.
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06.28.10
Posted in Financials, Globalstar, ICO/DBSD, LightSquared, Operators, Regulatory, Spectrum, TerreStar at 1:32 pm by timfarrar
The President has now announced his support for the proposal set out in the FCC’s National Broadband Plan (NBP) to free up 500MHz of spectrum for wireless broadband over the next decade. However, even though “Our nation’s ability to lead the world in innovation and technology is threatened by the lack of sufficient spectrum for wireless broadband applications and services” according to the FCC, it doesn’t necessarily mean that spectrum will prove to be a good investment over the next few years. (In this analysis, we’re looking at the opportunity for financial investors, as opposed to cellular operators – just like in the housing market, if you intend to use your spectrum, then that’s a different proposition from planning to flip it to someone else).
Indeed it is highly desirable from the FCC’s point of view that spectrum should become cheaper rather than more expensive, because that will enable more competition in the wireless market and result in lower prices for consumers. In the absence of lower prices for spectrum, it is likely that some cellular operators will be shut out entirely from 4G, or will be forced to merge with competitors in order to combine their spectrum holdings – not the outcome that the FCC wants to see. The FCC also doesn’t want to reward speculators – it would much prefer spectrum to be put to use, rather than see financial investors lock it up with a view to profiting from higher prices in the future. Although some might argue that the FCC also needs to raise money from auctions (not least to fund the buildout of public safety networks), it is far from clear that such motivations will weigh heavily in the FCC’s decisions (even if some members of Congress disagree). Certainly the concept of maximizing the proceeds of future auctions was not emphasized in the NBP.
From a historical perspective, despite this apparent crisis, spectrum prices in the US (on a per MHzPOP basis) are actually far lower than a decade ago. This is entirely logical: if it now takes 50MHz+ of spectrum to support $30 of monthly data services, whereas ten years ago operators required only 20MHz of spectrum to provide $50 of monthly voice services, then cellular operators simply can’t produce the same ROI from each MHz of spectrum as they did in the past.
Just the objective of freeing up 500MHz of spectrum (almost doubling the amount currently available for terrestrial cellular service) alone is likely to put a damper on spectrum prices. In recent months, we have also seen the FCC moving rapidly to finalize rules to enable use of 25MHz of WCS spectrum, and formulate policies to ensure that 90MHz of MSS-ATC spectrum is put to use. In addition, the FCC may also decide to limit the amount of additional spectrum that AT&T and Verizon (who accounted for the vast majority of spending during the 700MHz auction in 2008) can acquire in the future.
In my view, all of these developments point to lower spectrum prices in the next few years. In the short term, prices will be depressed further by the glut of spectrum owners seeking to monetize their holdings at the moment: Harbinger, Clearwire, NextWave and other MSS operators, to name just a few. This comes at a time when there is a relative lack of buyers, with most analysts hard pressed to name anyone other than T-Mobile that is an obvious partner for these companies. Investors who acquired undervalued spectrum assets a few years ago (particularly if that was prior to recent rule changes) may be OK, but new investors will need to be more cautious about the price they pay for these assets.
In summary, even if there is considerable long term demand for spectrum, it is a fallacy to equate this with increasing prices. In that regard, spectrum is like oil: you know there will be more demand in the future, but that tells you nothing about how the price will move in the next year or two. The short term price (and indeed the price in auctions) is determined by the balance of demand and supply today. That alone is a negative sign for investors in spectrum assets. However, when the FCC (unlike OPEC) would also prefer to see lower prices for spectrum, then it certainly looks like a risky bet to assume that prices will go higher anytime soon.
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06.24.10
Posted in Broadband, Financials, Inmarsat, Maritime, Operators, VSAT at 5:12 pm by timfarrar
In recent discussions we’ve heard rumors that Inmarsat may soon make a bid to take over Thrane & Thrane, its biggest equipment supplier. Inmarsat has certainly been in acquisition mode over the last year, taking over Stratos and Segovia and investing in SkyWave. Nevertheless, such a move would still be quite a shock for many in the MSS industry.
However, it would be a logical accompaniment to Inmarsat’s Ka-band strategy: Inmarsat would be able to reduce the price of L-band equipment (particularly FleetBroadband terminals) and thereby help to fend off the threat from Ku-band VSAT for the next few years until its new Ka-band satellites are in orbit. Thrane could also play an important role in development of mobile Ka-band terminals, which are clearly the biggest technical risk in Inmarsat’s entire Ka-band plan.
Though the threat from Ku-band has been hyped up recently, most notably in Comsys’s recent maritime VSAT report, our view continues to be that L-band has a very sustainable market position, outside the highest spending ships. To date, Ku-band VSATs have achieved only limited penetration within Inmarsat’s core maritime commercial transportation market (which incidentally is much smaller than 100,000 ships), and most of these ships spend far too little to ever contemplate a move to VSAT.
By reducing the cost of L-band equipment, in concert with its aggressive moves on airtime pricing over the last year, Inmarsat has a very viable opportunity to hold off Ku-band VSAT incursion. Even the recent concerns about shortfalls in Inmarsat’s maritime revenue growth during the first quarter of 2010 appear to stem much more from the price reductions that Inmarsat and its distributors have used to remain competitive on high spending vessels, rather than any substantial loss of market share to VSAT in the commercial transportation business. Indeed many maritime VSAT service providers had a very disappointing year in 2009, and quite a number of them are now up for sale, in what we would view as an attempt to exploit the perception of rapid future market growth before they actually need to fulfill these expectations.
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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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05.25.10
Posted in Financials, LightSquared, Operators, Spectrum, TerreStar at 4:08 pm by timfarrar
As Harbinger tries to secure partners for its proposed 4G LTE network, it now looks like Craig McCaw and Clearwire could potentially end up playing spoiler.
A research note from Credit Suisse, published on Monday highlighted the potential value of MSS spectrum and suggested it could be worth as much as $0.50 per MHzPOP. It also noted that the spectrum value of Clearwire “is likely underappreciated”. No substantive justification is given for the $0.50 per MHzPOP valuation suggested in the research note, other than the fact that this is close to the median value in the 2006 AWS spectrum auctions, and there are a number of elementary mistakes in the analysis of TerreStar (most notably that no mention is made of the more than $400M of Convertible Preferred Stock which must be repaid before any value from the 1.4GHz spectrum is realized by the equity holders). The fact that the FCC “will expect a portion of the
step up in value for both [2GHz] MSS and broadcast spectrum” is also only mentioned in passing, despite the fact that this will have a huge impact on the realizable value if the spectrum is ultimately included in an incentive auction. Despite this, the research certainly seems to have stimulated some increased interest in MSS-ATC spectrum, as evidenced by the jump in the price of TerreStar’s stock on Monday, and could be seen as potentially helping Harbinger in its quest to attract investors for its 4G network.
However, perhaps coincidentally, last Friday, Business Week published an article highlighting Clearwire’s spectrum value (which it puts at “$20B or more” or $0.50/MHzPOP). In my view, this article clearly indicates that Clearwire is now open to offers for purchase of some of its spectrum. In that case, wireless operators who are looking for spectrum in the short or medium term, such as T-Mobile, would certainly have a viable alternative to MSS-ATC spectrum if they are looking to build out a 4G network. Given that there are only a few potential purchasers of wireless spectrum at the moment (and the it now looks like the FCC doesn’t want AT&T and Verizon to buy any more spectrum in forthcoming auctions), the fact that Clearwire and Harbinger may end up competing to attract one of this limited number of partners won’t do anything to push up the price that can be secured for their spectrum in the near term.
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05.14.10
Posted in Financials, Handheld, Operators, Services, Spectrum, TerreStar at 10:26 am by timfarrar
Back in March, I was lucky enough to try TerreStar’s Genus phone at the Satellite 2010 conference. At that time it was clear that the phone needed further work to get it ready for commercial service, and recent filings from TerreStar indicate that the company is now working with HNS on an “ATT-QoS Workaround” to address some “APN Issues” (APN or Access Point Node relates to data services, which I did not try to use back in March).
UPDATE: I’m told by a technical expert in this area that the GMR1-3G protocol used by TerreStar treats all information as packet data, including voice (which has the highest QoS). Given that AT&T’s terrestrial network carries voice over GSM and does not normally provide an equivalent voice over packet data service at this point in time, it appears quite plausible that the workaround relates to an attempt to optimize voice performance rather than being an issue for TerreStar’s data services.
However, my concerns about the viability of the Genus phone relate much more to whether the orientation-sensitivity of the phone will actually be acceptable in real world usage conditions. To use the phone you need to know where the satellite is located (roughly southwest when you are on the East Coast) and have clear visibility in that direction. Though that was simple at the Satellite conference, where this direction was out over the Potomac river, it certainly won’t always be the case in rural areas, unless its a desert or a prairie. I still remember only too well the joke I was told by a Globalstar engineer ten years ago – that their system was designed for a “man out standing/outstanding in his field”. More to the point you also need to stand still and not turn around – very different to the situation with Iridium and Globalstar handsets, where the extending antenna goes above your head and allows you to “walk and talk”.
If orientation-sensitivity does prove to be a big problem for potential users, as I think it will, then TerreStar is faced with an unpalatable choice: design a phone with an extending antenna, which will work fine, but would have no mass market appeal, or sell a phone like the Genus, which could conceivably have wider appeal, but won’t provide acceptable performance in satellite mode. Fundamentally, I therefore don’t see any reason to change the opinion I expressed last year during the DBSD bankruptcy, that “the part of TerreStar’s business plan directed to a mass market service is very unlikely to succeed”.
However, there has been one important change in the environment for TerreStar over the last six months, because the FCC has now held out the possibility that 2GHz MSS spectrum holders will be able to participate in an incentive auction, which would potentially allow them to return their spectrum to the FCC for re-auction as terrestrial spectrum without any ATC restrictions. Given the difficulty in realizing value from a satellite roaming business plan, then unless Harbinger negotiates a lease agreement for TerreStar’s satellite spectrum, as part of its planned L-band ATC deployment, it seems likely that this would be the best exit TerreStar could hope for. However, given that the FCC would only give TerreStar a proportion of the proceeds from the auction, and it would probably take a couple of years before that auction even happened (during which period TerreStar will have to raise more money to keep its satellite in operation), it is hard to imagine that the proceeds could exceed the secured debt load that TerreStar has accrued to date. Even if TerreStar did enter some sort of lease agreement with Harbinger (some details of the draft term sheet for the Spectrum Pooling Agreement, which appears to contemplate a “potential purchase of the S-band Spectrum” as one option, but not a takeover of TerreStar itself, have also been publicly filed), then it seems implausible that this payment would exceed the value of SkyTerra’s lease agreement with Inmarsat, which calls for payments of $115M per year, and it could very well be much less. Unfortunately even $115M per year would be insufficient to pay the interest on TerreStar’s secured debt, when it becomes cash pay next year. Remember also that if TerreStar stays out of bankruptcy, it will at some point have to pay Sprint’s spectrum clearing expenses, which Sprint has claimed exceed $100M for each of TerreStar and DBSD.
At this point in time, the future for TerreStar therefore looks pretty uncertain. More importantly for the rest of the MSS market, it is far from clear whether the Genus phone will provide meaningful competition to other handheld MSS providers, and even whether AT&T will actually go ahead with any large scale commercial launch of the handset. I’m sure everyone will be watching with interest to see what news emerges over the next few weeks.
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