Satellite D2D Texting Just the Start for Wireless Consumers: TPI Panelists
Texting is “only the beginning” of what will be available to wireless consumers through direct-to-device (D2D) satellite service, Recon Analytics’ Roger Entner said Tuesday during a Technology Policy Institute webinar, the first in the group's winter spectrum series. Other experts said evolving D2D rules show that the FCC is allowing long-desired flexibility in spectrum rules.
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A “full roll-out of broadband services” will come “very quickly,” Entner said. “The future is here -- it’s just unevenly rolled out.” He noted that wireless carriers have followed different paths to making D2D service available to subscribers. AT&T and Verizon took a guard band for the 850 MHz cellular spectrum and made it available to AST Space Mobile, while T-Mobile made the G block of the PCS band available to Starlink, he said.
Entner predicted that D2D will work the best and see the greatest use in the most rural parts of the country. For AT&T, which is offering D2D as part of FirstNet, the service is “heaven-sent” for firefighters putting out wildfires in remote areas, he said. People want connectivity and don’t care how they get it, he added. “Where satellite works, people are extremely happy with it.”
Jennifer Manner, senior vice president of regulatory affairs and international strategy at AST, said her company’s satellites were “designed for broadband,” and it’s “certainly a capability that’s here today.” The technology and economics of putting satellites in orbit have changed, and now it’s time to focus on spectrum, she said. The spectrum from terrestrial operators may not be enough when the service starts to see “more and more users.”
AST satellites can operate without causing interference to terrestrial mobile users, Manner said, which is very important to satellite operators. “We’re leasing spectrum from the terrestrial operator,” and they determine when, where and how the service will be available to their consumers, she noted. It really gives wireless carriers freedom to use the satellite connection “in a way that makes sense.” AST is the "pipe" in the sky that brings the traffic down to a gateway and passes it along to the carrier.
Manner added that AST had FirstNet officials at its factory, and “they were thrilled.” The service gives them capability “right from their device,” and they don’t need a separate device to connect, she said. “They can be mobile. They can be fighting a fire.”
The concepts of terrestrial and satellite spectrum have become meaningless, argued Greg Rosston, an economics professor at Stanford University. “To me, there’s [just] spectrum,” he said. “When you say 'there’s not enough spectrum for satellite, we need more' -- well, maybe you need terrestrial.”
Clemson University professor Thomas Hazlett said the changes to spectrum rules are “fantastic.” He agreed that the FCC should stop classifying spectrum as set-aside for a certain use. The discussion shows how restrictive regulators have been “and how loosening guardrails allows pretty amazing new stuff,” said Hazlett, a former FCC chief economist. Regulators have “blocked a lot for a long time.”
It will become clear in 10 or 15 years how the satellite and D2D market will evolve, Hazlett said. When satellite TV started in the 1990s, it was supposed to be just for rural areas, he noted. “Very quickly, it started showing up in suburbs and even in high-density urban areas.”
However, Entner said, satellite broadband has limits. “Here and now, there’s not enough launch capacity, and Starlink has most of it.” He also noted that comparisons based on the number of satellites in operation are difficult. AST satellites are “much more powerful” than Starlinks, but the latter company has many more in orbit. “We have to look at: What can each of the satellites do?”
Hazlett said investments by SpaceX, Starlink’s parent company, are “shaking the foundations of the system.” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has access to capital that others don’t, Hazlett said, noting reports that SpaceX and xAI will go public in an initial public offering valued at $1.25 trillion.