FROM THE INDUSTRY
Ultimately, it’s a high stakes gamble, as most of the substantial costs must be incurred upfront before service can even be offered. Sadly, there’s a real risk that some of the less well funded market entrants could run out of momentum before even reaching commercial viability. While the future of D2D and always-on connectivity remains bright, its path to success has hurdles to overcome. The financial risks are high, with substantial upfront costs and uncertain subscriber adoption. And for the organisations that need reliable connections right now, the connective technologies of today remain absolutely business critical.
Therefore, standards-based D2D is, in our view, less likely to cannibalise the existing satellite IoT market and more likely to unlock new, less mission-critical, but still highly valuable, use cases. The economics of these use cases are likely to require that the satellite connectivity is much lower cost, so more subscribers will be needed for the service provider to remain viable. For new companies venturing into the D2D space by launching satellites compatible with terrestrial waveform technologies, there are significant capital expenditure hurdles. To provide a commercially viable service, they must launch a number of satellites, at a steep cost, while banking on potentially tens of thousands of subscribers to recoup their investment.
www.groundcontrol.com
DECEMBER 2024 Volume 46 No.4
85
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