"Space: The Final Frontier”

When I grew up many decades ago, every episode of Star Trek always started with the famous words “Space: The Final Frontier”. Although we’ve had satellite telephones and IoT over satellite for decades, they were usually reserved for high value use cases due to cost and size limitations. The market dynamics have now changed significantly with the introduction of smaller and more cost-efficient Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites and significantly lower launch costs making it feasible for more organizations to use satellite services for more use cases or even having their own constellation of satellites.

Summary

Using satellites to connect unmodified smartphones and IoT devices in areas without traditional mobile operator coverage is slowly becoming reality in 2026. Pricing for satellite services has become much more attractive and the elimination of the need for special satellite hardware means an increasing number of use cases can benefit from satellite services. As usual, it’s imperative to verify that the satellite service meets current and future requirements of the use case, as their characteristics vary significantly. In addition, vendor viability, as well as the viability of its partners, is extremely important in a capital intensive and quickly changing market.

The Ecosystem is Coming Together

The ingredients are starting to come together:

• More and more satellites are being launched. There are probably around 14.000 satellites orbiting earth whereof approx. 90% are LEO satellites, in January 2026. This number is expected to grow to 30.000 – 40.000 in the next 5 years based on launch plans.
• More and more participants in the device eco system are becoming direct-to-satellite capable:
  o A number of high-end smartphones are already satellite capable.
  o Semtech was the first module manufacturer to bring an IoT module with both satellite and cellular in a single casing to market in 2H2025. Leading IoT module manufacturers as well as manufacturers of ruggedized devices are expected to ship cellular and satellite capable devices in 1H2026 either through completely new designs or in some cases by upgrading the firmware in existing devices.
  o Leading smartphone operating systems such as iOS and Android have incorporated support for satellite services and “satellite awareness” like ways to show the user if they’re connected over the mobile network or satellite.
  o Some mobile apps have been enhanced to work better over a satellite connection where bandwidth is limited and latency significantly longer than in a mobile network. One such app is WhatsApp.
• Mobile Network Operators (MNO) are increasing their investments in 5G and moving to Release 17, the first release that supports Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN), or the later Release 18, also known as 5G Advanced. All leading MNOs have partnerships in place with at least one satellite services provider.
• Telecom Regulatory Authorities (TRA), like FCC, is increasingly supporting direct-to-satellite services by allocating or authorizing use of existing spectrum for this use case.

Background, Satellite Service Providers and Technologies

In the old paradigm, most satellites were Geostationary (GEO) satellites operating at much higher altitudes than LEO satellites. Two decades ago, developing a satellite could typically take 6 years and then it underwent testing for another 2 years before being put into space by a dedicated “disposable” rocket. These days, designing a custom LEO satellite typically takes around 18 months and the rockets used to put them in space are re-usable and can carry a large number of satellites in its loading bay that significantly reduces the cost of launching a satellite. The cost of building as well as launching a LEO satellite has gone down at least 10X compared to one decade ago. Please see figure 1 for an illustration on the different types of satellites and their orbits.

Figure 1. Different types of satellites and their orbits.

Close to 50 satellite operators are catering to various communication needs ranging from incumbent operators with geostationary satellites to newer LEO small-sat operators although less than half of them currently offer commercial services.

The biggest operators by subscriber base tend to be the incumbent Geo satellite operators including:

• Eutelsat
• SES (including Intelsat acquisition)
• Globalstar
• Iridium
• ORBCOMM
• Viasat (including Inmarsat acquisition)
• Thuraya

Many of which have a legacy in operating satellite phones or more traditional VSAT networks.

Satellite services have very different characteristics when it comes to:

• Bandwidth
• Latency
• Geographic availability (footprint)
• Frequencies used
• Connection frequency – always connected, connected once every x minutes (limited by number of satellites in constellation and geographic coverage

Types of satellite services providers:

• Legacy satellite providers, typically using GEO satellites and with a long history of providing satellite phones and VSAT links to organizations
• Satellite connectivity aggregators like Skylo that leverages existing, typically legacy satellite providers, and focus on developing the connectivity layer for mobile operators to connect to.
• MNOs and other Telecom Service Providers (TSP) that provide the services through a partnership with a satellite services provider. Most leading MNOs have at least one partnership announced.
• Newer entrants, typically leveraging their own LEO satellites. These satellite operators can be divided into two categories:
  o Operators of small constellations like SatelIot that focuses on IoT and have currently 4 satellites in operation.
  o Operators of large constellations like Starlink.
• Organizations forming partnerships with established satellite operators where the company will have their own satellites with their own technology but leveraging capabilities of a partner. One such example is T-Satellite from T-Mobile US that have partnered with Starlink/SpaceX. T-Mobile have their own constellation of approximately 650 satellites with T-Mobile technology onboard to cover the continental US (Including Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the southern part of Alaska). These satellites “piggy back” on the Starlink constellation for backhaul to ground stations and they also use SpaceX for deploying the satellites. See figure 2 for an image of the actual satellite.

Figure 2. A T-Satellite orbiting earth

The two main spectrum options:

• Work with existing, typically GEO satellite providers, leveraging Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) spectrum, typically L-band (1.5–1.6 GHz) and S-band (2–2.5 GHz), that are largely harmonized worldwide, for connecting satellites directly to handheld and IoT devices.
• Use Mobile Network Operator (MNO) dedicated spectrum, same spectrum that is used for traditional cellular communication on the ground. This means using traditional 5G spectrum licensed to a specific operator in a specific country, where permitted by the TRA.

It’s now also becoming possible to leverage LoRaWAN over satellite in addition to the 3GPP based standards and technologies. At least three Satellite providers are in various stages of offering it (Lacuna, Echostar Mobile, Plan S) using the conventional LoRaWan spectrum in the unlicensed sub-gigahertz industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) radio bands.

Consolidation and new entrants into the satellite market

There has been a number of acquisitions among the legacy satellite operators consolidating the industry. Most notably SES acquiring Intelsat in 2025 and Viasat acquiring Inmarsat in 2023.

Some of the new entrants that typically deploy LEO satellites include:

• Starlink with approximately 9.350 operational satellites in January of 2026 providing close to global coverage, limited more by regulatory aspects then technology.
• AST SpaceMobile that is scaling up during 2026 from a handful of satellites to 40.

Some specialty satellite providers with a small number of LEO satellites in their constellation may provide close to global coverage but only when a satellite is overhead. This is typically using Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT). One such provider is SatelIoT who operates a constellation of currently 4 LEO satellites that circle the earth every 90 minutes. For this to work, the satellite acts as a store and forward service, collecting and sending data when overhead the IoT device and storing data until it’s overhead a ground station where the data will be handed off and new data for the IoT device uploaded.

Financial viability is important when selecting your provider

The satellite business is still very capital intensive based on:

• Launching satellites are more cost effective now compared to a couple of years ago but still expensive. As a reference point, the lowest cost to get a LEO satellite launched today is around USD 2.500/kg (1 kg is approximately 2,2 lbs). Customer need to make sure satellite operator has access to capital to get the entire planned constellation in operation (if customer requirements require that).
• LEO satellites typically have a life expectancy of 5 years (can range from 3-7) due to atmospheric “drag” slowing them down and limited onboard fuel for repositioning. It’s imperative that the satellite operator has access to capital to replace satellites in the constellation as needed or service levels will degrade. As a comparison, GEO satellites typically have a life expectancy of up to 30 years. Another reference point is that Starlink loses about 1-2 satellites per day.

Another aspect is to understand what launch partners the satellite operator uses and if that is a viable solution in the longer term.

Satellite and Enterprise Mobility

Being able to communicate with employees when they are in areas without coverage or in situations where the normal mobile coverage is disrupted, through natural or man-made disasters, have significant value. Just being able to send and receive text messages can have tremendous value for both to the organization, individual and society.

None of the current Direct-to-Satellite services offer native voice calls, just messaging and low bandwidth, high latency data connections. In order to make a voice call the organization currently needs to use a Voice over IP (VoIP) app on the device. For that app to deliver an even remotely acceptable experience, it has to be able to sense when it’s on a satellite connection and switch to satellite optimized code, protocols and codecs. Trying to run unmodified business applications or collaboration suites over a satellite connection will deliver a substandard, in most cases useless, experience.

Organizations planning to leverage satellite connectivity for their workforce need to manage expectations of what will work and not work and what fallback procedures are in place. One such fallback procedure may be to message back-office agents to relay information in and out of the backend systems. Special care needs to be taken to ensure that employees don’t start using non-security approved apps to get the job done when connected over satellite.

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Leif-Olof Wallin

Advisor at Lionfish Tech Advisors, Inc.

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©2026 Lionfish Tech Advisors, Inc. All rights reserved.

Title image and Figure 2: AT-Satellite orbiting earth (Image courtesy of T-Mobile US)
Figure1: The different types of orbit (Image licensed from Shutterstock: 1509609815)