For years, enterprise customers of Starlink have complained that the company doesn\u2019t offer a conventional enterprise contract, with the traditional guarantees of bandwidth, uptime, and availability, known as \u201cservice level agreements\u201d or SLAs. Starlink has still landed enterprise customers without the traditional SLAs, but a lack of SLAs has been part of the conversation with maritime and aviation customers in particular.<\/p>\n
That could be set to change. SpaceX<\/strong> CFO Bret Johnsen told a panel at SATELLITE last week that he is pushing for Starlink to add guarantees to the service.<\/p>\n \u201cOur offering right now is really compelling and the uptime has been amazing,\u201d Johnsen said. He added that he had been \u201cpersonally harassing my sales team about not just publishing that, but making some guarantees to that.\u201d<\/p>\n Johnsen said he sees the current level of service as enterprise-grade. \u201cWe have an amazing service that\u2019s enterprise-quality right now, I think it\u2019s just a matter of communicating it differently to the enterprise folks,\u201d Johnsen told Via Satellite<\/em>.<\/p>\n The SpaceX CFO also addressed the question of going public, telling the panel he is \u201cnot working on any near-term IPO efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re laser-focused on operations right now,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n [Read more from SATELLITE 2025 in the Via Satellite SATShow Content Hub]<\/em><\/p>\n Speaking less than a week after SpaceX\u2019s second high-profile Starship test failure in a row, Johnsen acknowledged there are a \u201ca lot of eyes on Starship right now.\u201d He called Starship \u201ca transformative capability for not only SpaceX, but for the whole industry.\u201d<\/p>\n The Starship developments aside, Johnsen highlighted SpaceX\u2019s 134 successful launches and the growth of Starlink. \u201cRight now, almost 7,000 satellites in space,\u201d he said, \u201cWe have over 5 million customers on that network, in 125 countries around the globe.\u201d<\/p>\n He called SpaceX\u2019s go-to-market strategy \u201cdiversified.\u201d \u201cNot only do we come from a very diversified background on the launch side \u2013 launching civil space and Space Force and all the commercial and private passenger [launches]. \u2026 But now also being a satellite business and also being very diversified. Consumer is a huge piece. [There are] 5 million customers on the network, not impacting or impacted by defense spending,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The panel also heard from CFOs from Intelsat, Iridium, and Speedcast.<\/p>\n Up and down the value chain of satellite services, companies are searching for ways to grow revenue to satisfy investors. While SpaceX and Starlink may be grabbing headlines, long-standing market players have a lot to offer investors.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re throwing off cash,\u201d boasted Iridium<\/strong> CFO Vincent O\u2019Neill, saying the company had paid out $1.2 billion to shareholders since 2021, mainly through stock buybacks, but also through dividends in 2023 and 2024. He said the company would pay out another $300 million this year.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we\u2019re talking about returns, that\u2019s pretty compelling. I think it\u2019s pretty unique in the industry,\u201d said O\u2019Neill.<\/p>\n He highlighted Iridium\u2019s high reliability and global availability through its L-band services, and the company\u2019s multi-year contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense. The combination of longevity, global availability and high reliability makes the company ideal for safety or other critical services. \u201cWe\u2019re one of only two providers certified for safety for both maritime and aviation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Iridium is focused on the unique services it provides, but for other operators and providers in an increasingly commodified satellite communications marketplace, the key is adding value and combining services.<\/p>\n Intelsat<\/strong> CFO Toby O\u2019Brien said the company had last year \u201ccertified a new multi-orbit antenna for our commercial aviation business, and started deliveries of those antennas,\u201d improving its offering to the aviation market.<\/p>\n He said as the merger with SES<\/strong> moves forward, \u201cThe entire management team has spent a lot of time refocusing the company, pivoting the strategy, focusing more on managed services, not just selling bandwidth, getting it in better shape financially,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n For a technology-agnostic service provider like Speedcast<\/strong>, CFO Clint Stewart said the key is knowing the particular demands of the verticals you operate in and sell to. \u201cWe are everywhere, we have boots on the ground,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For years, enterprise customers of Starlink have complained that the company doesn\u2019t offer a conventional enterprise contract, with the traditional guarantees of bandwidth, uptime, and availability, known as \u201cservice level agreements\u201d or SLAs. Starlink has still landed enterprise customers without the traditional SLAs, but a lack of SLAs has been part of the conversation with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49551,"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-49550","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\/49550"}],"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=49550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}