Ligado TLPS Plans Worry Iridium CEO; He Seeks Industry Help Fighting Space Debris
Iridium continues to have profound worries about Ligado's proposed broadband terrestrial low-power service, CEO Matt Desch said in an interview. He said there needs to be industry-driven discussion on tackling space debris management. The company, meanwhile, expects this year to be in a position to start paying down debt and generating free cash flow instead of investing vast fortunes on building and launching satellites, he said.
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Ligado's plans are "real risk" to Iridium's network, Desch said: "We can't handle their interference." He said Ligado’s focus has been more on PR and lobbying than on concrete solutions, saying Iridium hasn't come up with anything that “comes even close to fixing the issues they cause us." Iridium has been a critic of Ligado's TLPS plans (see 1709260048, 1708040029 and 1702230041).
Ligado said it "tried to engage with Iridium to develop a solution that works for both companies" for close to two years, including a 2016 offer that's "over and above what our current proposal provides and what is required by the applicable FCC rules." Ligado said its analysis "is based on the same methodologies used by the government’s spectrum experts, and so we are confident in our position. Ligado has a clear track record of compromise and has approached Iridium with the same willingness to compromise. Despite our ongoing good faith efforts, we have never received any kind of counteroffer.”
Space debris is a prevalent design philosophy in NewSpace ventures about a largely off-the-shelf approach with less built-in redundancy to make satellites substantially cheaper, Desch said. He said over its 20-odd year life, Iridium's first-generation constellation lost "maybe 15 or so satellites," or about a 15 percent failure rate. For mega constellations of non-geostationary orbit satellites, a failure rate anywhere near that means huge numbers of "rocks" -- dead and uncontrollable satellites -- in orbit, he said. “That's a potential huge issue,” Desch said, adding he doesn’t have a regulatory prescription andsuggesting an industry-driven approach. A challenge is operators are incentivized to err on the side of keeping satellites up as long as possible, he said.
The company said it has 32 Iridium Next satellites and 34 first-generation satellites in use, out of 40 Next and 47 first-gen satellites in orbit. It said two of the first-gens are on the verge of deorbiting. Desch said Iridium has launches scheduled in April and about every five to six weeks thereafter, with the last Next launch to be in July or August.
Iridium’s L-band broadband product, Certus, will launch in the next few months commercially, Desch said. He said it will allow data transmission of up to 1.4 Mbps, though Certus' initial speed will be 352 kbps -- upgradable to 704 within a year. He said Certus' niche will be direct competition with Inmarsat’s L-band broadband product, with Iridium promising faster speeds, and cheaper and smaller terminals. “I think the market is excited” about the competition, he said, saying Certus' focus will be on such markets as commercial aircraft cockpit connectivity and corporate jet and general aviation, plus maritime and terrestrial applications. Inmarsat didn't comment.
Strictly an L-band operator, Iridium will remain "complementary" to Ka- and Ku-band operations, Desch said. "Intelsat, SES, Eutelsat don’t fear us,” Desch said. “They're all friendly with us."
There's investor confusion about low earth orbit startups and whether they're competition to Iridium, Desch said. “It’s just an architecture," he said, saying planned LEO constellations like SpaceX and OneWeb are validation of Iridium: “I’m cheering them on.” Of planned LEO constellations, not all are likely to get funding given the numbers of them vs. investment money available, Desch said.
Looking ahead to later this year, being cash flow positive is being part of "that financially mature satellite club," opening the door to paying dividends or making deals, Desch said. "You can do all kinds of stuff with free cash flow."