Top telco CEOs shut down the idea of establishing a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) agreement with a satellite player, saying they do not see satellite broadband as meaningful competition to their businesses. <\/p>\n
The CEOs of T-Mobile<\/b>, Verizon<\/b>, and AT&T<\/b> addressed Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) competition and direct-to-device (D2D) prospects during their second quarter calls this week. <\/p>\n
There\u2019s been recent speculation of SpaceX<\/strong> striking an MVNO deal to become a hybrid satellite\/terrestrial provider after analyst firm MoffettNathanson explored scenarios in a recent report, detailed by Light Reading. SpaceX\u2019s S-1 filing says the company intends to \u201ccompete to be the preferred connectivity experience\u201d in rural, suburban, and urban areas. <\/p>\n Verizon CEO Dan Schulman told investors Friday there is \u201cno backdoor to our MVNOs in any structure.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cWe want to work with the satellite providers, primarily through the JV with T-Mobile and AT&T. But there is no reason that we can see to extend an MVNO to any satellite player, and there is no way that anyone can get access to our MVNOs as well,\u201d Schulman said. <\/p>\n MVNOs like Mint Mobile and Cricket Wireless purchase network access in bulk from a major carrier and resell to their own customers.<\/p>\n Schulman referenced the joint venture announced in May between the three telcos to work together on direct-to-device, aimed at building a robust wholesale market for satellite D2D built around standardizing devices and spectrum-sharing. <\/p>\n AT&T CEO John Stankey was also asked if there is a scenario where AT&T would partner with SpaceX and Starlink in an MVNO agreement. Stankey said that satellite helps AT&T expand its reach to about 2% of traffic it can\u2019t cover. <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t necessarily need a wholesale arrangement to go and address that 2% of the traffic that I can\u2019t get at today because I can get at 98% of the traffic,\u201d Stankey said Wednesday. \u201cI\u2019m not prone to look for a wholesale agreement to solve a problem I don\u2019t have.\u201d <\/p>\n Stankey said he believes AT&T is building \u201cthe best converged product\u201d in the direct-to-device space. He said the service with AST SpaceMobile will \u201ccome to fruition as we move into next year,\u201d and be a seamless transition for customers. <\/p>\n \u201cBy the time we get into next year, we will have solved for that other 2%. We will be in the market doing what customers want \u2014 which is providing them the assurance that they can buy from one provider and always be on the internet. In that respect, we will be first in the market with that,\u201d Stankey said. <\/p>\n T-Mobile CEO Srinivasan Gopalan also addressed the telco\u2019s outlook toward partnering with satellite on both broadband and D2D, saying Thursday the company offers a \u201csignificantly better product\u201d than fixed wireless access (FWA) or LEO, and is best used as a backup. <\/p>\n \u201cThe way we think about partnerships is it needs to bring incremental value to us. And that incremental value is typically in some sort of differentiation \u2014 either in terms of product or in terms of new channels or in terms of new customer bases,\u201d Gopalan said. \u201cHaving worked closely with satellite over the last four years, we\u2019re just not seeing that incremental differentiation.\u201d<\/p>\n In terms of satellite D2D, Gopalan reiterated his view that that direct-to-device is a complimentary service and continues to be a small percentage of traffic on its network. \u201cIt\u2019s clear that with time, this is no longer going to be a differentiation. It\u2019s going to be table stakes as a complementary service to have satellite along with your cellular service,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Gopalan told investors T-Mobile\u2019s exclusivity period with SpaceX\u2019s Starlink for the T-Satellite D2D service does not end this year. <\/p>\n He said the telcos are \u201cprogressing rapidly\u201d on an agreement for the joint venture, seeming to indicate that T-Mobile will primarily source satellite capacity through the joint venture in the future. <\/p>\n \u201cThe JV does allow for individual operators to have conversations and agreements with other parties. But our expectation is the vast majority [of satellite] will be sourced through the JV.\u201d <\/p>\n In terms of broadband competition from LEO, Verizon CEO Schulman said he sees \u201cno impact\u201d from satellite providers on Verizon\u2019s broadband penetration. \u201cIt is very difficult for satellite providers to provide a service that\u2019s even close to what we can provide with our broadband services,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n He estimated the total addressable market for satellite broadband in the U.S. to be between 6 million and 8 million homes, primarily in very rural geographies, where building a terrestrial network is cost-prohibitive. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Top telco CEOs shut down the idea of establishing a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) agreement with a satellite player, saying they do not see satellite broadband as meaningful competition to their businesses. The CEOs of T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T addressed Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) competition and direct-to-device (D2D) prospects during their second quarter calls this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46679"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}