TAMPA, Fla. — Ground network specialist ST Engineering iDirect is looking to carve out a place in the emerging market for providing satellite connectivity directly to standard smartphones.
Companies including SpaceX, AST SpaceMobile and Lynk Global are busy developing constellations that would keep subscribers of their partner mobile networks connected outside terrestrial cellular coverage.
While initial services would be limited to applications such as emergency alerts and texting, with enough satellites they aim to support voice and more continuous capabilities in a market analysts say could be worth more than $1 billion.
However, mass market adoption is new territory for a satellite communications industry built around niche applications and bespoke user terminals.
“How do you bring cell phones in and out of the network at scale as they’re turning on and off?” ST Engineering iDirect CEO Don Claussen said in an interview.
“We’ve never really had that problem in the satellite communications industry.”
The industry has branched out of mostly fixed terminal markets into government and enterprise mobile sectors such as maritime, land vehicles and aviation, but these terminals still tend to come online for at least hours at a time.
“If we’re bringing either land mobile — which I think is going to scale up in the next five years — at any scale, and then these handheld devices where you may have 10,000 or 20,000 of them in a given area that are going on and off and in and out of coverage, how do you manage that?” Claussen continued.
ST Engineering iDirect, a U.S.-based subsidiary of Singapore Technologies Engineering, is also looking to use its network management expertise to provide billing support and guard against interference concerns threatening to hold the market back.
Claussen pointed to his experience with a large government communications program while working for satellite operator…
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