SES has eyes on D2D
January 6, 2025
SES, itself busy looking to absorb arch-rival Intelsat which it agreed to acquire last April, perhaps has its eyes on its next expansion step. Rumours – wholly unconfirmed – suggest an investment in AST SpaceMobile could be in the offing.
The satellite operator’s Chief Strategy Officer JP Hemingway is already on record as saying that SES wanted to work more closely with the world’s telcos and that SES was watching the rapidly expanding low Earth orbiting (LEO) sector “very carefully” but was waiting to see how the technology and business model developed before jumping in.
Intelsat, which SES hopes to have fully acquired by mid-2025, already has a partnership in place with Eutelsat worth $250 million over a six-year period for capacity access and use of Eutelsat’s OneWeb fleet.
SES is committed to building 18 new mid-Earth (MEO) mPOWER satellites as part of the IRIS2 European highly-secure fleet. SES said its IRIS² satellites will form the foundation of the operator’s next-generation MEO capabilities. SES will have rights to commercialise the MEO capacity and part of the LEO capacity of the system. SES says the CapEx for these 18 new mPOWER satellites will cost about €400 million annually during 2027-2030.
Hemingway’s comments are followed by CEO Adel Al-Saleh who has made no secret that SES is already using LEO assets (including those of SpaceX’s Starlink) and said: “we don’t own LEOs but we would partner with LEO satellite operators. We use LEO assets when needed.”
He said in December that SES is committed to a steady investment strategy and believes that further consolidation is possible and needed.
“There is a question in terms of how many of the regional GEO players will survive and how many of them are able to have a business case to replace their satellites in the future. That is hard. There are a lot of new technologies coming in with micro-satellites that are very interesting and could be very disruptive. The intense disruption and competitive pressures in this industry suggest that there will be more changes in the future,” he told Via Satellite.
He added: “Direct-to-Device is a huge play. I have spoken to many D2D players and most of them require partnerships, particularly in MEO, for their backhauls and resilience enhancement coverage. This is not just about going direct-to-device but also about moving traffic which represents a substantial emerging business. I am confident that the demand exists.”
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