The satellite industry has seen major mission, market and technology leaps over the decades, but nothing like the top-to-bottom disruption we are going through now. Driven in large part by the megaconstellations, especially Starlink, no aspect of the sector seems to be untouched.
While Starlink is the main focus at the moment, research firm Analysys Mason recently published a white paper titled “Meet the Challenge of Starlink and the Mega-Constellations with Software Ground” that highlights other initiatives on the horizon, such as Blue Origin’s Project Kuiper as well as similar projects in China. There are others, but what the big three have in common is, well, “bigness.” They can play at a scale — operationally, financially and with marketing muscle — that outstrips anything traditional, pure-play satellite companies can bring to bear.
And their ambitions seem larger: not to conquer the satellite world, but to leverage satellite capacity more broadly in global communications. For years, research has consistently set the satellite industry’s share at about 1% of the communications sector, and satellite players have consistently looked for ways to expand it. The good news is that Starlink is creating that opportunity for all by baking a bigger pie.
This will require traditional players to act bigger, finding ways to work together to compete at scale. It’s not a one solution problem, but there are some clear ways to achieve what our friends in defense call “force multipliers.”
Mobilize now for 5G NTN
Just as standards from 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), a collaboration between telecommunications companies, transformed the wireless industry, 5G non-terrestrial network (NTN) will be a game-changer for satellite operators, offering numerous advantages to better compete. 5G NTN’s waveforms and networking for burgeoning broadband connectivity, IoT and mobility services provide a seamless way for users to connect across different satellite and terrestrial wireless networks.
Beyond tapping growing market opportunities, one of the scale benefits 5G NTN brings to satellite operators is the vast ecosystem and significant investments made by the wireless industry in terminals, high-volume chipsets and related technologies. Many of the challenges facing satellite’s ability to mainstream have already been addressed in 5G NTN, with more coming soon. For example, besides lower terminal costs, one of Starlink’s proven successes is the ease of use in provisioning services and user experience.
Adopting 5G NTN brings numerous other advantages too. At the top of the list is that it will put networks on the same continuing innovation path, uniting them with thousands of global communications companies. As the broader industry moves forward with AI-native 6G, a next generation “network of networks” space will no longer be an isolated stovepipe.
Begin the business of roaming
Once the wireless industry enabled roaming, it experienced massive growth, making it easy for users to buy a service that works nearly anywhere. Seamless roaming removes friction, drives adoption and increases profits — all things that smaller satellite operators must do to compete with companies at the scale of Starlink.
Roaming within a given spectrum band requires tech capabilities which are already built into 5G NTN. However, business relationships beyond tech will also have to be negotiated for roaming to work, ranging from service level commitments to revenue sharing for particular services. Roaming is coming, but to be ready, satellite operators should start exploring the business side now and engage in discussions so it can be brought to market quickly once the tech is in place.
Actively engage with standards bodies
The 3GPP standards behind 5G NTN have helped mobile networks grow to near ubiquity. And companies that implement 3GPP take the standard seriously, so you don’t often see custom variations in play. By truly embracing interoperability standards, satellite players gain potential supply chain and operational partners that increase their scale — and create the foundation for countering the megaconstellations’ vertically integrated systems.
5G NTN is critical, but only one standard to be mindful of. Carrier Ethernet, a standard defined by the Metro Ethernet Forum, makes satellite services behave like standardized, high-speed terrestrial ethernet; and TM Forum defines the interfaces for OSS/BSS systems. DIFI (Digital IF Interoperability Consortium) has already made a big impact on ground systems, enabling elements to work together seamlessly and create an open satellite ecosystem. DIFI also has recently begun addressing standards for ESA antennas.
Start exploring software ground strategies
To lower cost per bit, satellite operators must take advantage of the new generation of Very High Throughput Satellites and software-defined satellites. Although software-defined satellites have been delayed, Analysys Mason forecasts that over 93% of satellites launched in the next decade will have some degree of flexibility. With their multi-fold increase in capacity, these digital architectures will provide the scale and flexibility to bring GEO bandwidth costs closer to competing with mega-LEO pricing.
Yet to drive down costs further, scale and flexibility in orbit must be matched with scale and flexibility on the ground. By pairing flexible satellites with orchestrated software-defined ground systems, operators can not only scale cost effectively, lowering the costs to deliver a service, but also better manage the network to improve the customer experience.
Cristina Rodriguez, vice president at Intel’s Network and Edge Group, recently told Fierce Network that “Nobody has ever gone software-defined and said this was a bad idea. Nobody who has gone to software-defined has ever abandoned that.”
As with 5G NTN, the advantages of orchestrated software ground systems are too many to list here, but they include the ability to run multiple services on common infrastructure, such as supporting and switching between protected, military and commercial waveforms and services. These are thoroughly delineated in Analysys Mason’s white paper, including how an orchestrated software ground system is also the ideal platform for deploying 5G NTN, allowing operators to unlock the more advanced 5G NTN satellite capabilities. As Analysys Mason writes, “Deploying 5G-ready, virtualized networks will future-proof new satellite network deployments.”
Operators should anticipate the transition and begin to consider the satellite/ground relationship in a new way; less as one supporting the other and more as a collection of nodes in a flexible, multi-function network that can scale and keep pace with customer needs, with some nodes in space, and some on the ground.
Phil Carrai is president of the space, training and cybersecurity division of Kratos Defense and Security Solutions, Inc.
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This article first appeared in the April 2025 issue of SpaceNews Magazine.
