05.14.09
Posted in Financials, ICO/DBSD, 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.
Permalink
04.30.09
Posted in Globalstar, ICO/DBSD, Inmarsat, Iridium, LightSquared, Spectrum, TerreStar at 10:44 am by timfarrar
On Monday, the Wall St Journal revealed that Harbinger plans to push ahead with “a multibillion-dollar plan to build an international satellite-cellphone business” which would “complement existing cellular networks with satellite coverage, and…use new chips that could fit inside affordable, mainstream phones, keeping costs down for consumers”. This is quite different from the original plan of SkyTerra, TerreStar and ICO to build out Ancillary Terrestrial Components (ATCs) – basically a new terrestrial cellphone network using their satellite frequencies. Instead, subscribers will simply rely on their existing cellphone networks and only use the satellite services of these companies as a roaming partner when they are in uncovered areas. From that perspective, the new plan is much more similar to the business plans of Iridium and Globalstar in the late 1990s, that business travelers would rely on satellite networks to fill in the gaps in cellular coverage. For example, here’s a description from the Economist in June 1998:
“By far the largest number of subscribers is likely to come from the “cellular roaming” market. These are users of land-based cellular phones who want to be able to extend the range of their handsets when they are travelling through areas of poor or incompatible coverage. MSS subscribers will be equipped with a dual-standard phone that will switch to a satellite when a ground connection is unavailable (Iridium’s first offering is a soon-to-be-superseded $3,000 half-kilogram brick). Subscribers will pay a higher standing charge to their normal cellular operator and a premium on MSS calls. Numbering will not change and unified billing will be standard. This week Iridium said it had recruited 200 distribution partners among cellular companies.”
Of course there are many advantages that the new and very capable satellites being built by SkyTerra and TerreStar will offer over the 1990s technology of Iridium and Globalstar. Most obviously, the extra power and sensitivity of their satellites will allow the satellite service to be added to mainstream cellphones with little or no penalty in size and weight, as opposed to the ‘brick’-sized handsets produced by Iridium and Globalstar in 1998 and 1999. In addition, SkyTerra, TerreStar and ICO have signed agreements with Qualcomm to incorporate satellite technology into Qualcomm’s next generation cellular chipsets, which are likely to be used in a wide range of handsets.
However, there is a major difference between the principal sources of revenue for an ATC and a satellite roaming business plan. In the ATC case, a cellular operator would pay to lease the satellite spectrum to provide terrestrial services over a new terrestrial base station network, thereby enabling it to add capacity or new broadband services to its network. Satellite services, while available, would be a minor component of the overall revenue stream for the satellite operator. On the other hand, a satellite roaming business plan relies on the satellite services themselves to generate revenue, with perhaps some incremental benefit to the cellular partner through reduced churn, if the satellite service is sufficiently compelling to subscribers.
Even more importantly, the decision maker who will produce these revenue streams is very different: in the ATC case, it is simply a matter of convincing the cellular operator to lease the spectrum, whereas in the satellite roaming case, the end user must decide to buy the satellite service. Many people who were intimately involved in the launch of Iridium and Globalstar’s services remain convinced that it will be very difficult to explain the limitations of satellite service to a mass market: those services were sold as enabling coverage “anywhere”, and so there were numerous complaints about the inability of satellite service to work reliably in buildings, cars and urban areas. For most people, their experience of cellphone coverage limitations is in precisely these areas: in the Bay Area there are 375K riders of BART each WEEKDAY (where coverage in the underground parts of the transit system has only recently started to be deployed) compared to less than 200K visitors to Pinnacles National Monument each year (the location where we most recently spent an extended period of time outside cellular coverage). Remember also that even the new phones almost certainly won’t switch beween terrestrial and satellite modes in the middle of a call, so will likely drop an ongoing call if the user moves through a cellular (or satellite) deadzone. As the Wall St Journal explained in July 1999:
“At its core, Iridium is struggling with an incongruity between its design and its market ambitions. It was originally intended for millions of globe-trotting business travelers, and it was launched with a $180 million world advertising campaign last year aimed at that market. But when Motorola began operating the system on Nov. 1, the Iridium handsets weren’t powerful enough to work within buildings or urban areas. As a result, a vast network intended for a mass market was usable only by niche groups, such as mariners, oil-rig workers or the military. Iridium faces a tough struggle to cover its huge costs in such relatively small markets.”
Indeed there are about 150,000 Iridium and Globalstar satellite phone subscribers within these niche markets in North America at the moment, generating about $100M in retail service revenues per year (excluding international users like the DoD). New smaller, cheaper handsets from SkyTerra and TerreStar should increase the size of this “professional” MSS niche significantly (including amongst “police, fire and ambulance personnel”). In addition, a low cost “satellite backup” service might appeal to several million consumers, particularly in earthquake or hurricane-prone areas such as California or the Gulf Coast, if it is explained properly: as an emergency service for use outdoors in the event that other communications are unavailable. In order to achieve this level of take-up, cellular carriers will not only have to sign roaming deals with the satellite networks, but also ensure that satellite connectivity is included in the phones they sell and support large scale distribution of the phones themselves. Even then, it may be hard to explain properly: there were reports after Hurricane Katrina that first responders were unable to get their satellite phones to work, and it was later discovered that some were trying to use the phones in a basement conference room or inside the Superdome. Although gaining several million subscribers would be a great achievement for the MSS sector, in view of these challenges we remain skeptical that there will ever be “vast global demand for the network [Harbinger] envisions”.
In contrast, we are more positive about the long term potential of ATC: cellular operators will ultimately need more spectrum to cope with the surge in wireless broadband data demand and will use up the stockpiles of 700MHz and AWS spectrum which they have purchased in recent years. At that time ATC will be one of the most obvious sources of supplementary spectrum, and there is no technical reason why it can’t be made to work. Indeed many of the developments being put in place to enable satellite roaming (such as the Qualcomm chipset) are precisely those needed as a pre-requisite for ATC deployment. The only problem is how long it may take before major cellular operators feel a pressing need to use MSS spectrum for their terrestrial operations – it is likely to be several years off at a minimum. Indeed, if WiMAX struggles, then Clearwire’s spectrum may be sold off to other players, pushing out the timeframe in which ATC might be considered even further into the future.
Permalink
03.19.09
Posted in Financials, Globalstar at 11:08 am by timfarrar
On Monday, March 16, Globalstar filed an NT-10K, stating that it was “unable to file its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2008 within the prescribed time period…because certain information regarding its available sources of liquidity is not available at this time and may materially affect the disclosure to be contained in the Annual Report”. We’ll see in the next two weeks what this information turns out to be, but it’s not surprising that Globalstar’s sources of liquidity are of significant concern to the company, given that it needs to raise substantial additional funds in the next few months to complete construction and launch of its first six second generation satellites later this summer.
As of September 2008, Globalstar expected to need about $260M (at today’s exchange rates) in the following 12 months to meet existing contractual obligations (excluding satellite insurance and any operating losses), and only had $100M of available liquidity including the escrow account, although since that time, Thermo has injected a further $50M into the company. This leaves Globalstar needing to raise perhaps $150M to meet all of its obligations over the next six months, assuming the escrow account is drawn down significantly (but not to zero) during that time and that it is unable to defer any of the payments that are coming due.
In our view there are three obvious potential sources of liquidity which could cover some or all of this funding requirement:
1) Further injections of capital from Thermo Capital (run by Jay Monroe, the company’s CEO), in addition to the $450M or so already invested in the company
2) Access to the restricted funds in the satellite construction escrow account with Thales Alenia Space, which Globalstar indicated last November it may seek to access if Thales Alenia agreed to this
3) One or more new strategic investors, through some partnership to exploit Globalstar’s satellite and spectrum assets.
A possible fourth option, securing new financial investors, seems less likely to materialize, given that investors in the convertible bond issue last year have not fared well, and the current economic climate makes it very difficult for almost everyone to raise money.
We’re therefore waiting with bated breath to see what happens with the eventual 10-K filing and whether Globalstar continues to defy the skeptics and secure the necessary additional liquidity. Most intriguing is the possibility that a new strategic investor will emerge, although its hard to guess where such a partner might come from. Perhaps Satellite 2009 next week will provide the catalyst for a major announcement by Globalstar?
Permalink
03.12.09
Posted in ICO/DBSD, 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 2x30MHz 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.
Permalink
03.04.09
Posted in Globalstar, Handheld, Inmarsat, Iridium, LightSquared, TerreStar at 11:52 am by timfarrar
Its been revealed today that EMS has taken a $3.4M charge to terminate its work on the Inmarsat next generation satellite phone, and that Inmarsat will be assuming “more control over production phases of the product development”. This is the latest in a long line of setbacks for the ISatPhone, with the first generation phone failing to achieve any meaningful traction and repeated delays in completion of the next generation phone since Inmarsat acquired the ACeS customer base two and a half years ago.
In our view, a key reason for the failure of the original phone was its poor performance on the Inmarsat I4 satellite, with users advised to use a hands-free kit and keep the phone antenna pointed at the satellite! It remains unclear if EMS had solved these technical challenges with the new phone (which are caused by the smaller 9m antenna on the I4 satellites, compared to the 12m antennas used by Thuraya and AceS), and therefore it is quite possible that serious constraints may still apply to the usability of Inmarsat’s new handheld, a concept model of which is shown below. Certainly we expect that it will be difficult if not impossible for Inmarsat to ensure satisfactory handheld performance in Alaska and much of Canada.
The launch of the new phone had already been pushed back from early 2009 to the end of the year, with features such as packet data dropped to save time and money. Now it looks like Inmarsat will experience a further delay until well into 2010, and yet another increase in costs, adding to a development program which already totals around $100M. We will be looking with interest at whether Inmarsat maintains its stated intention to sell the phone for around $500 retail, thereby making it even harder to recover its investment in handset development. Notably, this price point has already met with pushback from potential distributors, who would be unable to realize the margins they make today on the sale of other satellite phones.
The clear winner is Iridium, who will have even more time than they had expected to capitalize on the lack of handheld competition from Inmarsat, and who managed to complete the development of their new 9555 phone on time and at a cost of less than $10M. Other current and potential satellite handheld providers, such as Globalstar, Skyterra and TerreStar, who have faced a barrage of criticism from Inmarsat in recent months, will also be rubbing their hands with glee at Inmarsat’s embarrassment.
Permalink
02.17.09
Posted in Financials, TerreStar at 9:38 am by timfarrar
So Liberty Media has struck a deal to invest up to $530M in Sirius XM, in the form of secured loans, and will receive preferred stock convertible into a 40% stake in the company in exchange for its investment. The first $280M tranche from Liberty will be used to pay off $171.6M in bonds held by Echostar, which are due for redemption today. Subsequently, and subject to “various closing conditions”, Liberty will loan Sirius XM a further $150M and offer to acquire up to $100M of the company’s outstanding loans.
While this means that Echostar’s attempt to acquire Sirius XM has been defeated for the moment, it may be too early to write Echostar off completely. As we highlighted previously, Sirius XM would offer potential synergies with Echostar’s other investments (particularly in TerreStar), which will not be available to Liberty. Indeed other analysts have commented on how satellite radio holds little interest for DirecTV, and in our view, speculation that Sirius XM is a good route into mobile video is completely misplaced. We highlighted back in September 2006 that even if the mobile video opportunity is large (which is now far from certain), satellite radio is a very poor solution for providing the necessary handheld coverage, without deploying a huge number of repeaters. Unless either the Sirius or XM radio service was closed down, it is also unclear that there would be sufficient capacity for a meaningful video service, since both Sirius and XM each have only about 4-5Mbps of data delivery capability within their current architectures.
Instead, we consider that the potential to add two-way (OnStar-like) capability to the in-car service, using Echostar’s other assets (i.e. TerreStar), offers much more long term promise. Viewed from this perspective, Liberty’s investment should be seen more as an attempt to frustrate Charlie Ergen’s ambitions, and acquire the satellite radio service at a very attractive price, rather than a desire to add new mobile services to DirecTV’s offering. Conversely, we shouldn’t rule out the possibility of Echostar coming back with a better offer (or simply acquiring more debt than Liberty would want to buy back), given the much greater synergies available to it from an acquisition of Sirius XM, and the likelihood that Sirius XM will continue to struggle to generate enough cash to meet its debt repayments over the next year or more, while new car sales remain at a low ebb.
Permalink
02.14.09
Posted in Iridium at 10:31 am by timfarrar
There continues to be confusion about who said what to whom and when. Iridium stated emphatically on Thursday that “it had no advance warning of the impending collision”. However, Nicholas Johnson, NASA’s chief scientist for orbital debris, was quoted in a Washington Post article on Friday afternoon as saying “Iridium, the Bethesda-based satellite phone company, had received a report that its satellite — one of 66 used in its communications network — would pass within 300 meters of the non-operational Cosmos. Instead, the Iridium suddenly went silent. Soon thereafter, the military picked up on its radar indications of debris in orbit over Siberia. The improbable had finally happened.”
Curiously enough this quote was removed from the final printed version of the article, and Mr Johnson had previously noted that Iridium wasn’t on the top 10 list of most likely collisions on Tuesday, while the US Defense Department has been quoted as saying it did not predict the collision.
While the trading of accusations may continue for some time, it seems increasingly likely that the problem will turn out to be due to some unanticipated modeling error in the orbit prediction programs used by both military and civilian operators. Its pretty certain that this will lead to calls for more funding of space observation networks, to avoid any future problems. As a minimum, better data, and more sharing of the data that does exist, needs to be high on everyone’s agenda.
Permalink
02.13.09
Posted in Iridium at 11:13 am by timfarrar
Our initial reaction to the collision of Iridium SV33 with a non-functioning Russian Cosmos 2251 satellite was that NORAD (or rather the US Strategic Command or Stratcom to give it the current title) would have questions to answer about why it did not warn of the danger of a possible collision. Its now been pointed out to us that both Iridium and Stratcom would have been running their own collision prediction software, not least because Iridium has to be careful that its own satellites do not collide with one another, though the input data is supplied in a USSC database (and is publicly available at Heavens Above).
However, it appears that the data did not show any predicted collision between the two satellites and they were expected to miss one another by 80km or so. Either something happened to the Russian satellite to dramatically increase its drag (“a bit falling off”?) or the Iridium satellite was moved (which appears implausible since it was in service at the time and has to stay within a box of a few km to keep its crosslinks in contact with the rest of the constellation).
Hopefully a better explanation will emerge soon, but this highlights why Iridium didn’t identify the Russian satellite correctly at first and was taken by surprise by the collision. In the meantime, we’re sure this will give ammunition to conspiracy theorists, speculating about Russia deliberately trying to take out an American satellite. However, that would undoubtedly be going too far – as the US Missile Defense Agency knows only too well, its pretty hard to hit such a small target, and no-one has actually suggested that the Russian satellite was secretly under control.
Permalink
02.12.09
Posted in Iridium at 2:57 pm by timfarrar
So now the unthinkable has happened, and two satellites have collided in orbit, despite the fact that NORAD is supposed to be tracking “more than 10,000 pieces of high-speed debris, some no larger than a football” and warning of potential collisions. Indeed to our knowledge, Iridium satellites have been moved in the past to avoid possible near-misses with debris.
As we said in the WSJ interview, the Pentagon are going to face a barrage of questions about exactly why there was no warning given about a possible collision: though you can’t predict that two satellites will definitely hit one another, unless Iridium had been maneuvering its satellite (which does not appear to be the case) it is easy to calculate when they may come within a few miles of one another a minimum of several days in advance.
Fortunately for Iridium, the disruption is reduced by the availability of in-orbit spares, and the fact that the satellite is only one out of 66 providing coverage, so there will just be a hole passing over any point on the Earth’s surface twice a day for 5-9 minutes (less at higher latitudes). Its a lot better than the failure of a GEO spacecraft which could eliminate service for months (or even years) across a large part of the globe, while a spare satellite is built and launched to replace it.
The main worry now is about how far the debris cloud will spread, and whether it will affect other Iridium satellites at that altitude, or even other satellites in nearby orbits. The closest commercial sytem is Orbcomm (only about 10km away), then there are optical imaging satellites a bit lower. The debris won’t get up to Globalstar’s orbit (600km further up) or of course the geostationary belt (36,000km above the earth). However, there are also a lot of government (military and civil) satellites in and around these orbits (including weather and other Earth observation satellites). In a worst case situation it is even possible that Iridium might have to raise the orbit of its remaining satellites slightly, but within reason this could probably be achieved without any additional service disruption.
Permalink
02.04.09
Posted in Financials, ICO/DBSD, Spectrum, TerreStar at 10:50 pm by timfarrar
Its now been reported that Echostar has acquired a substantial portion of Sirius XM’s maturing debt as part of a possible attempt to take control of the company through a forced bankruptcy filing. This doesn’t come as a great surprise given Echostar’s other investments in satellite-delivered mobile TV (in Korea and China), in 700MHz spectrum that would likely be used for mobile TV in the US, and in TerreStar’s MSS-ATC system (where it has stated an interest in using the satellites for mobile video, most recently at the SATCON conference in New York last October). Indeed, a primary reason for the spin-off of Echostar from DISH was to enable Echostar to exploit new business models in mobile entertainment, while the slow growth DISH business would ultimately be sold to a telco or merged with DirecTV.
In our view, satellite radio has always had a far more viable business model than mobile TV, despite the recent downturn in new car sales making it difficult if not impossible for Sirius XM to achieve subscriber growth this year. We believe that satellite radio will remain an attractive feature for car manufacturers in the medium to long term both because the satellite infrastructure is ideally suited to providing a near ubiquitous car-based service with only a limited number of terrestrial repeaters and because the technology is not going to change dramatically over the next decade, avoiding the risk of existing OEM installations being left with no service (as happened to many OnStar subscribers when analog cellular networks were switched off). Compare this to cellular-based navigation and entertainment systems, where technology is advancing very rapidly and an aftermarket solution (or a flexible OEM solution such as Sync) is the most viable option for car manufacturers and end users alike. However, we also view a bankruptcy filing by Sirius XM as highly likely, because it will enable the company to renegotiate its biggest (controllable) expense – that of content rights. While some providers such as talk radio hosts may feel that there is a better deal on offer from terrestrial free-to-air networks, for most sports programming there is no viable alternative to satellite radio as a distribution mechanism, because no other broadcast (audio) medium can offer sufficient capacity and reach to deliver multiple simultaneous games to a widely distributed national audience. Some may argue that internet streaming is an alternative, but 3G and 4G wireless networks are (and will remain) ill-suited to providing continuous in-car coverage (not to mention the difficulty of extracting any revenue stream for content providers other than advertising from such users).
So if Echostar does now move to take control of Sirius XM, how will this fit with its other investments? Most obviously it seems plausible that TerreStar’s satellites could be used to provide a two-way communications channel for future generations of Sirius XM receivers, while Sirius XM’s repeater network could form part (although not all) of the necessary Ancillary Terrestrial Component (ATC) to ensure signal reception for TerreStar in urban areas. This would enable low cost integration of other services into cars, whether desired by the manufacturer (such as over-the-air fault monitoring) or paid for by the consumer (such as an OnStar alternative). Indeed, with the exception of mobile video (which we do not believe is likely to gain traction in cars, for the simple reason that the vast majority of satellite radio use is by solo commuters, who obviously couldn’t watch a video) this sounds surprisingly similar to ICO’s proposed Mobile Interactive Multimedia (MIM) service, and given Sirius XM’s strong relationships with most of the major auto manufacturers, this prospect could make it even more difficult for ICO to move forward with a commercial launch of MIM. Perhaps it might even provide an incentive for ICO to contemplate merging with TerreStar (as has often been rumored in the past)? Certainly Echostar’s interest in satellite radio is likely to shake up the MSS sector as well.
Permalink
« Previous Page — « Previous entries « Previous Page · Next Page » Next entries » — Next Page »
