Originally published by Space Intel Report on January 22, 2025. Read the original article here.

BANGKOK— Satellite fleet operators ABS, Intelsat, SES and Eutelsat Group agree on the problem: finding the key to better compete with SpaceX Starlink and Amazon’s future Project Kuiper. It’s the solution they don’t agree on.

For example, some operators believe that Starlink’s full vertical integration and Kuiper’s similar model is a key factor in their strength. Rocket Lab shares the view that having in-house satellite production and launch capability is the key to a successful business model in tomorrow’s market.

Mark Rigolle, chief executive of ABS, has drawn the same conclusion, even if he sees LEO conststellations’ weaknesses.

“MEO and LEO alternatives to GEO cover the globe in a uniform way, with as much capacity over areas with customers as in places where they will never have customers. So they push the price point as low as possible through vertical integration,” Rigolle said here Nov. 5 at the APSCC 2024 conference.

“I believe in GEO because there’s always going to be a need to top up capacity where LEO or MEO constellations get full, and where there is no business case to add another layer of LEO,” Rigolle said. “The business case gets increasingly difficult to make if you are a non-GEO operator.”

Having summarized GEO’s advantages, Rigolle said its disadvantages lie in the fact that GEO operators cannot be vertically integrated to the level of Starlink or Kuiper.

Kuiper is building its own satellites but will be using a variety of launch services, including Blue Origin’s New Glenn. Blue Origin is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. It’s reasonable to assume that once Kuiper’s first constellation of 3,232 satellites is deployed, it will turn to Blue Origin for replacement and second-generation launches.

Rigolle said the GEO operators have been badly served by satellite builders that have not kept pace with innovation.

“The big challenge we have is that we are not vertically integrated as a GEO ecosystem. We don’t build our own satellites and the people who build satellites are still building them the way they were 20-30 years ago to a large extent. They are having trouble innovating, as you have seen with the delays in the software-defined satellites.

“That’s the real challenge. It’s not Starlink or Kuiper, it’s how do we improve our cost permit as a GEO operator while not being vertically integrated?”

Fleet operator Intelsat, with some 50 GEO satellites in orbit, is merging with SES this year and thus will have access to a growing fleet of MEO-orbit satellites in addition to Intelsat’s investment of $250 million in LEO capacity from Eutelsat’s OneWeb constellation.

Robert Suber, Intelsat’s Asia-Pacific director, said a multi-orbit strategy is the right one but that “there will not be gold nuggets lying on the ground to pick up. We are going to have to go digging and mining.”

Suber said the 3GPP standards-setting organization’s integration of satellite capacity into its new releases ultimately will be a problem for vertically integrated operators.

“The vertically integrated players are going to be on the outside,” Suber said. “If 5G will be a form of standardization for GEO operators, we will be horizontally integrating with those businesses. Proprietary technology will keep us in cottage-industry mode. We need to come together to be part of a greater ecosystem.”

Mandeep Singh, SES’s senior Asia manager for enterprise and cloud sales,

SES has added Starlink to its maritime service offering in addition to its MEO and GEO capacity and is developing an SD-WAN technology to manage the shift in demand between MEO and LEO for the company’s maritime cruise customers.

That configuration works for markets where low latency is a requirement — for energy and mining, oil and gas, government, military and certain enterprise customers.

Customers that do not need low-latency service can stick with GEO without paying a price penalty. “GEO is not significantly higher cost than LEO when we offer a multi-orbit solution with integrated management,” Singh said.

With its ownership of OneWeb, Eutelsat Group is the only operator with an in-house LEO and GEO offer.

Bala Balamurali, the company’s vice president for Southeast Asia, said the advantages of LEO are obvious, but that its long-term business model has yet to be proven.

“It’s a massive investment that lights up parts of the world where there are really no users. We need to develop technology that saves our satellite capacity and uses it where it’s needed,” Balamurali said.

It’s also not clear what percent of the world’s nations will invite LEO constellations onto their territory to do business.

Starlink is still not authorized for use in much of Africa, Russia, China or India, although Indian access is expected.

Despite pitching itself as a friend to fixed and mobile terrestrial network operators, OneWeb is still struggling for market access in nations like Thailand, which is scheduled to publish a space policy on local access this year.

“There’s barely 10% of the populated land where we have to make all our money,” Balamurali said. “That’s not an easy task. Not all of us can cross-subsidize left and right,” he said, a clear reference to Starlink. “We have to operate as a real company.”

Originally published by Space Intel Report on January 22, 2025. Read the original article here.