Starlink Considered Increasingly Tough GSO Competitor

Starlink has had "tremendous" broadband subscriber growth in the past year, going from 1.5 million in May to 2 million in September, NSR analyst Lluc Palerm said. That far eclipses HughesNet's 1.5 million subs and Viasat's 700,000, he said. Starlink has a far more global presence than those GSO operators, operating in more than 50 nations and continuing to spread, while the GSOs focus largely on the U.S. and Latin America, he said. GSO has numerous addressable markets and its subscriber numbers should continue to grow, but Viasat’s ViaSat-3 anomaly (see 2307130003) could affect the GSO market's overall growth, he said.

SpaceX is being “unusually cautious” in its mobile supplemental coverage from space (SCS) approach, NSR said. Palerm said SpaceX appears to be planning to offer a total of 15.5 Gbps of capacity over the U.S. in the near term -- enough for emergency alerts but not adequate to offer voice and data services. Operators like Iridium and Globalstar are ahead of SpaceX in SCS tech readiness and regulatory approvals, but they lack the bandwidth to scale up to voice and data services, he said. He said the emergency messaging SCS service is a relatively small market opportunity of perhaps $100 million revenue annually. He said the real business opportunities are voice SCS services -- with potentially $1 billion revenue a year -- and data, at $10 billion. The 3rd Generation Partnership Project's Release 17 opened the door to satellite-delivered emergency messaging, he said, noting 3GPP's Release 18 -- expected next year -- "will be more sophisticated” and likely will incorporate voice and data services.

Del Rosario said GSO operators have some competitive advantages over Starlink, including a large installed base and that network swap-outs are expensive and time-consuming. He said GSO consolidation on the horizon also will help them compete with Starlink and other low earth orbit operators. GSO broadband operators need a multi-orbit strategy and better branding, he said. “Everybody knows Elon Musk,” he said. But Starlink hurdles include regulatory approval challenges in nations like India, plus flat panel antenna costs, he said. Delays in SpaceX’s Starship launch vehicle will delay deployment of the second-generation Starlink satellite, he said.

Citing the SpaceX/SES cruise ship connectivity partnership announced last month, NSR analyst Brad Grady said he expects more GSO/non-geostationary orbit constellation team-ups as more NGSOs demonstrate their viability. Added NSR CEO Christopher Baugh, broadband competition with SpaceX is going to hinge on consolidation and partnering.

In a letter this week to Polly Trottenberg, Transportation Department deputy secretary-acting FAA administrator, SpaceX countered an FAA report estimating the risks of Starlink debris causing injuries or fatalities on the ground (see 2309290060). Calling it "deeply flawed," SpaceX said the report didn't look at reentry risks posed by other large constellations. The FAA report said the space industry hasn't reached a 90% success rate for post-mission disposal, but the report omits "the critical and clearly pertinent fact" that SpaceX's post-mission disposal rate is higher than 99%, it said. The FAA report is based on an Aerospace Corp. analysis "that makes preposterous, unjustified and inaccurate claims," SpaceX said.

Between July 24 and Monday, SpaceX had four Starlink maneuverability failures, it told the FCC Monday. Sensitive components in one have been removed from future designs, it said, saying the root causes for the failures of the other three are under investigation.