Scott Wisniewski at CES 2026 - Satellite meet smartphone the new era of connectivity

[00:00:06] Speaker A: Good afternoon and welcome to the final Space Trek session at CES today. My name is Samia Nadrali and I'm a manager at NovaSpace. And for the next 40 minutes, we're going to be talking about satellite direct-to-device connectivity and what it means to make no signal a thing of the past. I'm joined by executives of representatives from different satellite operators in the D2D landscape today. And we'll be covering what's changed over the past year in the D2D sector, what capabilities exist today, what's to come in the future, investments and partnerships in this sector, spectrum and regulatory hurdles, amongst other challenges, as well as the path to profitability. In 2025, we saw the industry shift from pilots and beta testing to early commercialization of services. So reflecting on the past year, and I think CES is a great time for that as we kick off 2026, I'll invite each of the panelists to briefly introduce themselves and share what has meaningfully shifted D2D over the past year. So, Barbi, I'll let you get started and we can make our way down the line.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Thank you, Samaya. It's good to be back at CES with NovaSpace. So Globalstar, we're a mobile satellite services company. We've been providing mobile satellite services globally for well over 25 years, and we have been supporting real direct-to-device connectivity now for over 3 years. So Globalstar connectivity is now in the hands of over half a billion consumer devices worldwide.
[00:01:41] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:01:43] Speaker D: So, thank you again. My name is Amy Melman. I'm Executive Vice President and Chief Global Affairs Officer for Lync. Link is a company that about 7 or 8 years ago came up with this funky idea of direct-to-device and trying to get a signal from a satellite in low Earth orbit to your unmodified phone, essentially to be a cell tower in space. Make sure you're always connected, whatever the situation is, whether there's an emergency and everything has gone down on the terrestrial side, or you're just out of range. So we've been, you know, working in the United States. We had a, you know, the benefit of being the, you know, first one to actually get a direct device license in, well, anywhere actually. So we were excited about that and certainly excited about the industry and where it's going and how it's really gaining And I'm Kevin Cohen.
[00:02:48] Speaker E: I lead business development and partnerships at ViaSat, and nice to be here. So ViaSat, through its acquisition of MRSAT a few years ago, we got access to global coverage with geostationary satellites and the largest portfolio of spectrum across the globe. So those satellites have been offering service for safety of flight, maritime safety for 20-plus years now. And with direct-to-device and 3GPP standards with Release 17, we've been able to bring that spectrum into use in commercially available devices. So we're seeing with Pixel devices, Samsung S25 devices in the US with Verizon offering satellite SMS when you're outside of coverage. And then we're also seeing in automotive where new cars are going to be coming out with a feature to be able to talk to satellites when you're outside of connectivity. And one of the things, if you visit the Qualcomm booth, You'll see a demonstration of voice over our GEO satellites, a live demonstration of that. And I think it's a pretty big change to where you're out of connectivity, you won't lose the ability to connect with people.
[00:04:00] Speaker F: Hi, I'm Susie McBride. I'm the Chief Operations Officer at Iridium, and we too are a mobile satellite service provider with over 25 years of service covering the entire globe. pole-to-pole. Our specialty is in a lot of safety services, IoT across multiple markets, aviation, maritime, personal communications. And so I think I always joke, 'cause direct-to-device has been around actually quite a long time. I mean, now it's direct to unmodified devices and trying to use chipsets. So we've been moving into the standards world, especially in the narrowband IoT-focused area to ensure that we can continue to provide connectivity to our key customers that need it in multiple regions of the world and know that when they travel, they can use the same product anywhere that they go.
[00:04:42] Speaker C: My name's Scott Wisniewski. I'm president of AST SpaceMobile. We're building a more purpose-built direct-to-device constellation that does broadband direct to unmodified phones. We've been doing this for close to a decade now, and our strategy is to go direct with operators. So we partner with operators around the world, over 50 of them that cover nearly 3 billion subs. Today, as of Christmas Eve, we are flying 6 satellites in orbit, 6 of the largest ever launched into low Earth orbit commercially. And a lot of discussions in the last couple of months have talked about the importance of putting big things into orbit. And that's one of the things we've always focused on is how to put a big satellite into orbit in order to connect to a small device very far away. And so we're entirely focused on the direct-to-device opportunity. Our strategy is broadband. And we build our own satellites here in the United States, in Texas. And 2025 was a really important year for us because we started it off with a long-term rights acquisition of L-band spectrum in January. We raised over $3 billion over the course of the year to fund approximately 100 satellites in our constellation. And we advanced significantly some of our partnership agreements, including with Verizon in the United States and Vodafone in Europe and Bell in Canada. So these are some of the big things that we've done in 2025, and we're very eager to get going in 2026.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: Thanks, Scott. So over the past year, many of you have announced major partnerships and investments, some that you've touched upon, that will really shape how D2D scales. And I personally think that this has really changed the D2D competitive landscape over the past year. So we'll dive a little bit deeper into that and see what that's unlocking for the D2D world and what it really means going forward. So Kevin, maybe starting with Viasat first, the recent launch of Equitus, the joint venture with Space42, How do you anticipate that this joint venture will influence Viasat's D2D plans, and what is it designed to enable?
[00:06:42] Speaker E: Yeah, so when we, uh, when we founded the joint venture Equitas with Space Forward 2, we were looking at ways to fund a constellation that could bring more capacity by bringing the satellites closer to Earth so we can reuse the spectrum more efficiently and bring multiple spectrum holders to the party while not having a single operator that has to fund the whole thing. So when we came up with basically a space tower approach, it allows for a different funding profile, a different return, and it allows multiple companies to actually get access to those towers to enable different types of service for their customers, whether it's existing customers, whether it's future applications. And we're anticipating that in the next few months we'll be making additional announcements about that constellation. But, you know, we're expecting launch in the 2028, 2029 timeframe. And it will always be backed by that, the GEO satellites that we have that are operating today, by bringing this LEO constellation as well to offer better services.
[00:07:42] Speaker A: So Scott, AST is also bringing together, you know, an ecosystem of mobile operators, many that have also served as strategic investors, maybe honing in on the Vodafone partnership and the SACCO joint venture. How do you anticipate that this will strengthen AST's D2D strategy and how will it help expand into regions outside of North America like Europe?
[00:08:04] Speaker C: Well, like I said, our strategy is to go exclusively to market with the mobile network operator. We do it typically as an add-on basis with a revenue share. We split 50/50. And so that's enabled us to get early investment over the years from Vodafone, AT&T, Verizon, Google, Bell Canada, Rakuten. And then even this year, we signed up a 10-year agreement with STC in Saudi Arabia across the MENA region. So we've We really focus on partnerships because we don't have all the assets to go to market with 6 billion subs that use phones today. So partners are in our DNA. Vodafone's been a very early supporter. They've invested in us 3 times. And so we took the decision to make a joint venture with them about a year ago. That is an entity in Europe that allows us to go to market and kind of strengthen the reach. So it's like a distribution entity for us in Europe. So rather than just focusing on UK, Germany, Spain, France, you know, the big markets, it allows us to not only hit the big markets, but also expand beyond the Vodafone footprint and go across the entire member states of the union. So we've signed up to date 21 of the member states to initial MOUs and basically look to use that as an entity to drive utilization across Europe.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: Lynk also recently announced plans to merge with OmniSpace. So Amy, curious to hear your thoughts on how OmniSpace's merger plans will influence Lynk's D2D path and what becomes materially easier because of this transaction.
[00:09:36] Speaker D: Sure. As we started this whole, this venture into D2D, we were very much focused on the MNO spectrum. We still are definitely working with the MNO partners. We have, I think, you know, 52 or so around the world. But with the OmniSpace merger, that actually brings a lot of MSS spectrum, 2 GHz spectrum to the table. That's going to be really important. I think a lot of us are going to be looking to blend those 2 opportunities to bring that seamless connectivity to the customer, make sure that we have enough capacity to offer those more advanced services as we go forward. I would be remiss if I didn't also mention a very, very key strategic partnership as well with SES that we have. That is gonna be very, very important to our build. You know, we are utilizing some of their infrastructure, making sure that we do this much more efficiently and effectively so that we can actually provide those benefits on, you know, and those lower costs onto the consumer. So they are a very strategic partner of ours in this as well, along with the MNOs who are basically our sales force. So, but this is all very exciting for us and we're hoping to, you know, get this system up and operational sooner because of it.
[00:10:54] Speaker A: Iridium has also partnered with several operators and service providers to support the NTN Direct solution. So Susie, curious to hear what has been the most influential or one of the most influential partnerships to Iridium over the past year or so.
[00:11:11] Speaker F: Yeah, well, there's a, I mean, there's a couple obviously from the MNO standpoint. We have announced Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom. And what we're finding is, you know, everybody wants to make sure they got lots of alternatives and pricing and options for ensuring that they got connectivity. About 2 years ago, we made the switch from only proprietary to GSM standards and we— amazing support we got through going through the 3GPP process. And it was amazing how quickly we got our frequencies built into that. And now we've been developing that. In fact, we've been testing over the last couple of months and have done our mobile originated messages now using Nordic chips. And Nordic is another key partner of ours in terms of a chipset. And we've got other partners we're working on but aren't officially announced yet. And so I think all of that is key in getting our infrastructure in line. We also have Syniverse to do some of our connectivity to ensure that we can, you know, do the roaming agreements easily and work with all the big MNOs that are used to working in this realm. So those kind of partnerships, a lot of our ecosystem and products that we already build in our other proprietary type solutions, those customers are very anxious in wanting to, you know, drive down some of their chipset costs where they can now do both cellular and satellite in one device. So, you know, they're partnering with us in testing and coming in now that we've got our system up and running, which is a big change to how we used to do things. They're in there to start testing, and it's going to be a big year for us ahead as we get ready to launch in 2026.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: And with Globalstar, Apple, you know, being the primary partner with the latest developments over the past year or so, what is the impact on Globalstar's D2D expansion plan?
[00:12:51] Speaker B: Quite remarkable. You know, we have historically focused on the consumer mass market since our beginning. We've wanted to make devices that operate over our satellite system that are small, inexpensive, easy to use, and saw everyone as a customer. We started working with this company in Cupertino a few years ago. And we're successful in integrating our unique satellite solutions into their new devices. And we announced that breakthrough in September of 2022 and started commercial service in November of 2022. So Now, you know, we are, I think, fully committed to a D2D approach with, with our, with Cupertino. And I'm proud to say that I'm here sitting on stage with 2 devices, consumer devices that operate directly with our satellite system. One is my iPhone and the other is my new watch. So very— I think it's been a very successful relationship, and we look forward to that relationship expanding in the very near future.
[00:14:17] Speaker A: Certainly. And these partnerships are really influencing the type of services that are coming to the market. So shifting over to service differentiation and what works reliably today versus what's to come, Barbie, maybe you could share a little bit more about the services that are currently offered and what's intended to be offered by the new or next C3 generation constellation.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: Sure. So, you know, Globalstar, we have our own mobile satellite services, products and services that we develop in-house as well as with partners. We have supported a Spot line of products since 2007 that's been responsible for over 10,000 rescues globally. Again, a device, inexpensive, easy to use, put it in your pocket, take it out when you need it and use it. With what's coming up? I think that, you know, we are in the process now of replenishing our existing constellation, our senior constellation, courtesy of a new 15-year license from our Federal Communications Commission. So over the next year, we'll be launching satellites to replenish what we call our IBLIO constellation that we've been operating now for over 2 decades. And at the same time, we have announced a major additional investment in the 3rd-generation system. We call it C3. We are currently in the process, I guess I would say, in a global construction project where we are installing about 90 new ground station antennas around the world, proudly made in the United States, but being exported to 25, approximately 25 countries, about 35 sites. All in preparation of launching our third-generation constellation. So the ground infrastructure will be in place when we start launching those additional satellites in the not-too-distant future. This will provide, I think, of course, an expanded level of ability for us to support additional D2D features that will be announced in the future.
[00:16:31] Speaker A: Thanks. And I think Iridium is in a similar position to, you know, being in the market offering D2D-type connectivity for quite some time now. So maybe, Susie, just sharing some thoughts on how Iridium's NTN Direct solution is really augmenting what Iridium already provides to the market today.
[00:16:46] Speaker F: Yeah, I mean, obviously we're going to have a lot of customers that continue on the path that we've been on and that because they really enjoy what they have, it's built into a lot of their solutions. That they've got big solutions built around. Sorry, but for the end-to-end direct solutions, what we're where the expansion comes for us is some of our current partners. But also, there is a lot of situations in solutions out there. You always use an example of one where you know some Brazilian solutions for farming called once, and they wanted to know about using satellite because the cell networks weren't as reliable. They had outages, but it's a very kind of fixed place, and so having. a chip that does both, that can use the cellular, but then roam onto a satellite solution like Iridium's NTN Direct, is a great way to supplement and grow the market in that way and expand in places that weren't traditionally looking at satellite solutions. So our go-to-market is also through MNOs, you know, and then also having some large direct relationships with partners that want to have a global solution and a mobile solution, because, you know, one of the key things for us and why we differentiate from others is because we have been a truly global dedicated spectrum area where partners can build stuff and they know wherever in the world it goes, it can work. And so we're trying to use that as one of our key differentiators, especially in some of the key markets that we address today.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: And when we think about D2D and the services that are going to be offered in the future, one of the questions that continuously comes up is when will the service be similar to what traditional terrestrial services are offering today? So specifically thinking about voice, data, broadband capabilities. How close are we to delivering an experience comparable to what is being offered today, and what still limits that capability? And maybe, Scott, I'll lean on you to get us forward as AST's path, you know, does show broadband connectivity as one of the services to be offered.
[00:18:40] Speaker C: I think, you know, when you think about direct advice and you think about making it useful to everybody, you want the phone to just work, right? The phone in your pocket that doesn't work, you want it to just work. We all want it to just work. That feeling when the phone doesn't work and you're just sitting on $1,000 in your pocket, it just drives you nuts, right? So it's really all about how do you bring to bear something that's like terrestrial connectivity? And that's why we've gone from the beginning for a very big satellite in orbit that can support big throughput and why we've acquired spectrum rights to do so and why we've partnered with the operators. So we're not only looking at 100 MHz of MSS globally, we're looking at 1,000 MHz of cellular spectrum globally. So those factors, keeping the pipe big, keeping the antennas big so that the phone can ultimately experience better than 3G, LTE, or even 5G is critical. And so it's a network infrastructure thing. It's getting integrated with 3GPP early, which is something we did with our Nokia partnership about 5 years ago to kind of build on 3GPP and not wait for the standards. So having those solutions to make it truly mass market so that you have a low-friction experience that can be rolled out to the consumer mass market in a meaningful way, those are the facilitating factors. And so today, and since really 2023, when we have a satellite overhead, we can do cellular broadband, we can do video calls on the phone. We're in the process of rolling out more satellites in orbit so that instead of 30 or 60 minutes of uptime a day, you have 24 hours. And that's really the journey we're on now during 2026 is get to that 24-hour uptime.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: Amy, did you want to jump in there and also share, you know, Link's path forward with device?
[00:20:25] Speaker D: Sure, sure. I mean, I think I, I don't disagree with, uh, a lot of what Scott said. I will say, um, you know, the goal in the first instance for those who are looking to actually get to a direct-to-unmodified device is to really look at the entire ecosystem throughout the world. There are a lot of people that have situations where they're not connected, they can't buy that $1,000 new phone and might not even be able to in the next couple of years when those new phones with the various additional MSS bands are actually included. So we want to make sure that we are actually including all of these various devices, the 2G, 3G, 4G devices that may stay out there for a while.
[00:21:07] Speaker A: Right.
[00:21:08] Speaker D: So we want to— we are looking forward to having all of that legacy set of devices connected. We are, you know, going to be building over the next couple of years, making sure that we can actually do that along with providing, as I mentioned, the MSS service opportunity as well, the additional capability capacity. But I really do think it's very important to make sure that we get to those folks in need in various places of the world that can't necessarily buy that new phone. So we're looking forward to, with everybody else in this room, making sure that we can address that opportunity.
[00:21:46] Speaker A: Certainly, and I think that leads me to one of my next points, which is talking about some of the enablers of offering D2D connectivity, and one of that is really device readiness. So what do you see today as the biggest blocker on the handset side, and what strategy is your company implementing to ensure that handset and chipset adoption keeps pace with your network readiness?
[00:22:10] Speaker E: So, well, yeah, so if we look at the device availability for MSS spectrum, there's a very limited amount of devices at this time because there's very limited capabilities that these satellites can offer today. But as we get to the point where we're offering near broadband, I think that the OEMs are going to open up to where you start out with the flagship devices, which you're seeing some of with Samsung and Pixel and Apple with proprietary waveforms. And it will eventually get down to where anyone who buys a device, whether it's a smartwatch or a phone or an IoT device, basically it will be embedded in everything. So we go from our legacy, the legacy MSS operators total, there's a few million devices that are offering service today. This will move to the point where we've got billions of devices that all can connect. Maybe they aren't all paying for connectivity, but it's there and it's latent. And probably in the early 2030s, mid-2035s, you'll be at the point where, you know, just about every smartphone, every device will be able to talk to both cellular and satellite. And that just opens up a massive market opportunity for everyone.
[00:23:21] Speaker C: So we're building a low-band constellation first. And so the low-band constellation has the ability to switch between all the major frequencies in low-band that are in the phones today. So in the US, for instance, We brought together AT&T and Verizon who are jointly contributing 850 MHz spectrum to our network. And so our satellites will be able to use 850 MHz spectrum in the US as well as 700 MHz spectrum, which is FirstNet AT&T in the US. And around the world, we can use lots of different low-band spectrum that's already on the phone today. So it's important, I think, to the earlier point that the backwards compatibility so that you can do today's phone is important. And then over time, you can supplement it with MSS frequencies, which is why we've made our acquisitions in MSS throughout 2025.
[00:24:08] Speaker A: And that's another key enabler to offering D2D connectivity in the market today is really the spectrum access piece. We see approvals are still uneven across different markets, even with recent moves to secure MSS rights. So in your opinion, what is currently the biggest regulatory bottleneck that you're seeing today?
[00:24:29] Speaker F: Well, for Iridium, we don't have much because we have spectrum. So that's when you have spectrum, that's, it's easy. But I mean, I do think there's going to be a lot of challenges for others going forward, especially as global rights to ensure that, you know, a lot of these, a lot of our partners, especially in the mobility markets, they need to ensure that it works wherever you go versus a localized or a country solution. So for those going after spectrum, it will be interesting in the world's changing right now. A lot of it is becoming a little bit more nationalized and people not wanting to share as much as it used to be. So I think there will be a lot more challenges out there as people go after certain spectrum rights and how that's utilized and shared.
[00:25:08] Speaker E: I would just add that a lot of the regulators see this as an opportunity where they say, oh, now instead of just a few hundred thousand devices in my country, every device can connect to the satellite network using these frequency bands. So I think there's a little bit of risk of regulators thinking that this is something that we can now, you know, even with Iridium, Globalstar, Viasat, we're already licensed in these markets for this, uh, through NB-IoT or 5G NR waveforms. There may be additional requirements that could come down. It's not in Europe, not in the US, but there are— it is going to be a blocker to full global coverage.
[00:25:46] Speaker D: Yeah, I would just, uh, add a little bit to that. First of all, you know, certainly, um, agree with what has been said, but there is a lag in various countries around the world as far as, you know, just getting the infrastructure as far as the regulations in place that we can rely on to make sure that we have a stable licensing framework. So that is really, I mean, there's certainly leaders around the world that have done this in Europe and in the United States, of course, But we really do need to see the movement much more quickly. There are some places around the world that actually just say, okay, you know, yeah, we think this is a good idea and just we're going to write a little note and say that it's good because they really need the connectivity. But most countries are going to have to put in a framework and that's just time, right? And time is money and time is service to customers.
[00:26:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree with everything that's said. Spectrum is our lifeblood. You know, our senior operators up here, we've been operating over the same few megahertz of spectrum for well over 2 decades, and we plan to continue to do so. And we do that globally. It takes spectrum and it takes very good relationships with the regulators around the world that are going to license our operations to use that spectrum. And as we show with D2D that that connectivity is now universal, that everyone's— quite frankly, the public's, you know, their view of what it means to be connected and what their expectations are are forever changed. As you know, Scott, as you said, people want their phones to work. And we're here to make sure that they do, regardless of where you are. Regardless of your circumstance, regardless of what may have just happened to the terrestrial network, your phone will still work. So that takes spectrum, that takes billions of dollars of investment, and it takes regulatory certainty to put those business plans together and then execute them and hope that over the coming years, potentially decades, that you, you know, you, you make it back. So that you can do what? Launch more satellites and get ready for your next generation constellation.
[00:28:10] Speaker A: Timeline is certainly key. And Amy, I think you said it well too. You know, time to market is going to be so dependent on the way the regulations shape out. So putting regulation timelines aside, happy to hear thoughts from all the panelists on where you expect to see your D2D capabilities to be in a year or two. And I may or may not hold you to that at CES 2027.
[00:28:34] Speaker E: Well, for Viasat, we already have NB-IoT service offered today over certain geographical markets, so we expect to see that expanded. We expect to see— there's been a lot of talk here about direct-to-handset and handset services, but there are a lot of market verticals that can use the same spectrum and use the same satellites and are today, whether it's cockpit communications or it's maritime communications for safety. So as we move forward, we're looking at expanding the number of devices that can actually connect to our network and then expanding the service capabilities. So one of the nice things about a LEO constellation is that you can launch more satellites, different orbital planes, and increase, improve the service quality, which means that your spend profile is changing as there's devices, as there's revenue. So you'll see a constant evolution and increase and improvement of the services over time.
[00:29:30] Speaker D: Yeah, so for Link, I would say our combined Link OmniSpace SES venture will evolve over the next 2 to 3 years. I would say the very, very nice thing about having SES as a partner is we're going to be able to use the multi-orbit infrastructure to do some things a little bit quicker. So that is a huge advantage for particular services. So I'd say about 2 to 3 years. It'll start out, as you know, he was saying, with lighter services as we start out, because you can only do so much with, you know, the satellites until you have full— a full complement of satellites for the seamless connectivity.
[00:30:17] Speaker B: We're supporting substantial D2D connectivity today, and our capabilities will only improve with the investments that we're making and the plans that we've announced.
[00:30:28] Speaker F: And for us, I mean, this is our big year for the N10 Direct launch with many more announcements and things to come as that service continues to build out. I do think the one thing, you know, we're gonna start slowly with messaging, and I think that's a key part to how we manage this as an industry as well. We've done this in the late '90s where people overpromised and underdelivered and set expectations higher than what satellites can do. There's still physics, there are still constraints, constraints on getting signals through certain areas and aspects and into these buildings. So I think as an industry, we all need to be cautious. And I do agree it's going to take time. And over the years, we will build this up and it will become much more of a given that people have connectivity wherever they are. And then that connectivity continues to grow as it has over the last 20-plus years. But I think we do need to be careful and cautious that we do this well and that we continue to show that satellites can be a dominant player in all connectivity in partnerships with MNO and terrestrial.
[00:31:32] Speaker C: And at AST SpaceMobile, we've been trying to collect the ingredients to get to the finish line. And those ingredients, and when you look through the history, are capital, spectrum, network, customers, and the ability to produce the network and create the network and build the satellites. And so we're vertically integrated. We've got over $3 billion of cash and liquidity to build the 100 satellites we need. Over that next 1 to 2 year timeframe. We've got the partnerships so that we can attack the consumer market as well as all the other markets around it. And for us, we're very close to enabling the ground capability, which will allow us to integrate the capability as we get more satellites in orbit. So for us, there's many different pieces in addition to the regulatory piece that was just described that has been part of our program over the last decade. and they're coming together in 2026 in a very meaningful way.
[00:32:27] Speaker A: And achieving these milestones will mean, you know, one step closer to profitability. So even with clear demand from early demonstrations, willingness to pay signals that we've seen through several surveys that have been conducted in the industry, another key question really remains as to whether the unit economics still hold. So maybe for some of the greenfield constellations here, what leading indicator will tell you that profitability is becoming real? So maybe, Scott, I'll lean on you to get us started.
[00:32:57] Speaker C: Well, the dream of a constellation is an incredible dream. It's always been an incredible dream. And the key is how do you get it built? And do you have the right tech? And do the unit economics work? And we think they do. We think the key unlock here is access to the 6 billion phones in the world through the MNOs who have hundreds of millions of subscribers each and doing it in a low-friction way. And we think that the Demand for connectivity is incredibly, it's increasing every year. It's insatiable. It's growing with every generation. So we believe that that demand is significant. The market surveys you mentioned that are public, as well as everyone else's that have been done privately, including with our over 50 MNO partners we have globally, indicate that it's gonna be there. And so for us, you need the demand, obviously. We think the market's gonna be tens of billions of dollars. at the end of the day, and you need the unit economics. And for us, it's about getting satellites up in orbit and being able to support that fixed cost base, which we think we have. And so for us, the flow-through margins are going to be incredible for this, even if the demand is a fraction of what we think it is. And we think the demand is going to be pretty incredible.
[00:34:08] Speaker D: Yeah. So for us, I mean, I think building efficiently and making sure that we You know, have those partnerships that are demanding, as Scott said, this service. I think you have seen over the last year this switch in the market from on the MNO side from, hey, this is kind of a cool marketing tool to something that you kind of have to have as part of your service. God forbid, you know, somebody loses service or they can't get You know, to 911 or the eCall system in Europe, for example. So this is a critical piece of the infrastructure right now. And I think that the MNO side is seeing that. And I think that is the most leading indicator for us that this is going to be a successful business.
[00:34:56] Speaker E: Yeah. You know, from Viasat's side, we today operating on multiple orders of magnitude less bandwidth have Multiple very large businesses. And when you combine that all and you look at what can you do if you offer 1,000 times more capacity, but don't give 1,000 times the discount. So we see a big opportunity in the space of evolving our mobile satellite services that we've got today and improving those capabilities, where then as devices come online, as we unlock MNO partnerships, automotive partnerships, IoT, many different IoT use cases, we can see that revenue grow and the amount of connections grow. So we're looking at what can we do from that legacy base, and then how can we look at the amount of connections we grow over time in the given markets that we're operating in.
[00:35:51] Speaker A: And speaking of profitability, and also looking at the other players that are in the market, Starlink being commercially active in several different countries over the past year and kind of being a front runner in the D2D landscape, How do you see your solution being unique and, and what kind of approach are you taking to the market to really position yourself well going forward in the D2D landscape?
[00:36:13] Speaker B: Well, I think from Globalstar's perspective, we're, you know, we're in an enviable position because a substantial portion of the capacity over our current system and the system that we plan to launch is already spoken for. So I do believe that we will continue to provide, you know, a basic level of connectivity globally at a price point that is competitive. So that's what we plan to do.
[00:36:46] Speaker D: Yeah. So I would say this is a big market. You know, yes, Starlink has a little bit of a head start, but I do think that there is room for a number of us in the marketplace. I think there is a demand. From the rest of the world that is looking for more than one player. So I don't necessarily see this being a monopoly. I think everybody up here is certainly working to make sure that that doesn't happen. I think also for, you know, the market to grow and thrive and, you know, be able to offer those new and innovative services, you need the competition out there. And I think regulators, by the way, also recognize that. So I'm pretty confident that this is going to be a multiplayer market for the DDD, you know, group of companies. So, you know, I think things will be fine.
[00:37:40] Speaker E: Yeah, I mean, I think there's not going to be a winner-take-all also because there's not enough capacity from any one player given the amount of spectrum that they have to actually be able to offer service in every single vertical that is going to be requiring the service. And there are many You know, when AI comes, when autonomous mobiles come, you know, there's just a lot of different things that are going to require a ton of bandwidth that no single provider will be able to offer. And if we look at in-flight connectivity, which they were just on the last panel, you know, ViaSat's been in that space for a while. We took over a lot of the market share from another competitor, Gogo. And even with additional new entrants, we're still able to maintain a large market position because There's, there's the consumer's value choice, and in that case, the airline's value choice. So we just see a lot of these verticals where, you know, there's gonna be multiple partners, multiple players, and it'll allow us to all win at the end of the day because of how big the market is.
[00:38:39] Speaker F: Yeah, and I, I agree with that sentiment. I mean, I think there's, there's definitely indicators, and you see it from a lot of the agreements already signed with multiple companies up here. MNOs definitely wanna have options. They wanna have multiple companies to go to. I mean, for Iridium, this is just one slice of our entire business. We've got a lot of other verticals and markets that we address. And for us, the investment is small compared to a greenfield, right? We already have a network, we already have existing free cash flow coming in. And so this is, for us, the return that we need to make is quite different than, you know, doing a big greenfield. But I think there is— it's exciting, it's interesting to see all the big players coming in. Spectrum is still been shown to be the most critical thing to have. And global access to that spectrum is really important as well, especially when you're talking about connectivity to things that move. And you want to make sure that whatever that is that's moving can have services wherever they are.
[00:39:35] Speaker C: Well, I started my career in data centers and towers, what's called digital infrastructure, and there's multiple operators. And it's because they're working with multiple operators in each market. Every market has 3 or 4 Cellular operators, everybody has different spectrum, different requirements. So it's going to be a multi-operator landscape for sure. What differentiates us is a broadband-first approach, a purpose-built direct-to-device constellation. We're not adding onto a fixed broadband business. We are purpose-built for the operators. The mobile network operators have been in the room with us building this network, investing in us, Mutually exclusive contracts, long-term contracts with us, over $1 billion of cumulative committed revenue signed to date. So our differentiation is vertical integration on the production side, which gives us speed, access to the capital markets as a public company, which gives us capital, being able to access both cellular spectrum and MSS spectrum as of 2025. And doing that in a way that's good for the MNOs. We have made ourselves very useful to the operators so that they get benefit from us. They get marketing benefits, as was stated. We are a revenue engine for them. And doing that all while doing it through their system that they've built and standing on the shoulders of those giants that have built this incredible network that we all rely on. We all forget that we used to not have cell phones, right? I mean, over the last 30 years, We've gotten a computer that gives us all the world's information and a cell phone that lets us talk to everybody. So it's an incredible thing and we look to build on that. And we think that we've designed a mousetrap that does it just, just the right way.
[00:41:20] Speaker A: Thanks, Scott. Thank you everyone as well. We're coming to the end of our session here today. So special thanks to the panelists and all those who attended for making this such a great conversation. And I wish you a great rest of the week at CES.
[00:41:32] Speaker D: Thank you.
[00:41:32] Speaker B: Thank you.