Praveen Shankar of Capgemini and Derek Long of Cambridge Consultants explain what telcos should want from satcos, what customers want from telcos and the balance of power
Praveen Shankar (PS), global telecom industry leader for Capgemini who also leads the UK practice for telecom, media and technology and Derek Long (DL) talked to Mobile Europe recently. Long is the commercial lead for the telecoms business unit at Cambridge Consultants, a Capgemini business that focuses on deep technical innovation. It delivers R&D projects for clients across sectors including satellite, terrestrial telecoms, enterprise comms, the space economy and aeronautical communications.
Here’s an edited version of that wide-ranging conversation.
ME: Why do you say few operators grasp the challenge presented by satellite?
PS: Satellite is becoming mainstream – [trailblazers] are looking at satellite in a very different way than telecoms used to, which was simply to buy wholesale capacity. Now they have to completely reimagine the business model.
DL It’s evolved rapidly from a new and emergent support for emergency calls…T-Mobile US is in the forefront with device-to-device comms (D2D) and broadband services. There are a number of satellite operators looking to work with terrestrial operators to augment their coverage with a cheaper solution, not only rural area coverage, but for infill coverage.
With the acquisition of the Echostar’s spectrum last September, Starlink is positioning itself as a competitor to [mobile] operators in a small number of countries, but it’s also a big opportunity for partnership and to disrupt the infrastructure side of the business*.
PS: [Most telcos] are interested in partnerships [with satcos], but have bigger fish to fry. They are thinking about how to grow. [Satellite] is one part of the way they can grow but they still need to finish that full fibre build and network modernisation, to think about doing their best with their data. They’re worried about regulatory compliance and…they’re thinking about simplifying the overall business and which part of which businesses they need to be part of.
ME: Some analysts are talking about the possibility of satcos, specifically SpaceX, ultimately using telcos’ infrastructure as supplementary coverage rather than the other way round.
PS: If and when the balance of power shifts, it won’t happen today or tomorrow…On the one hand, operators want to collaborate and every day you see announcements by telcos around the globe partnering satellite firms, but not to the extent we would expect because they are worried about that power balance.*
In my 2026 predictions, I stated the entire partnership strategy must be properly considered. They cannot only look to mobile towers and the fixed network. Around terrestrial and non-terrestrial partnerships, everything has to be considered, including fallback plans for resilience, and whether they just need LEO or multi-orbit partners and different layers [see below].
How important will satellite be to European sovereignty?
DL: It already is. We’re talking to people around the globe, who are already picking up on this point and it’s not really even about having two solutions – one fibre-based solution and the other satellite based. We shouldn’t see it as one being the fallback for the other, so much as combined solutions that are resilient to attack, whether it’s a cyberattack or something physical – or possibly both…If telcos can become the face of sovereignty, they are a very, very interesting partner.
PS: Recently I’ve been talking to people in government about resilience given the current geopolitical scenario. They are asking, ‘What is my [critical infrastructure] backup?’. The UK is a series of islands so satellite is a proper alternative infrastructure. I couldn’t be more excited about it. This is an interesting time for all of us.
ME: Are telcos offering what enterprise customers want regarding satellite?
DL: Many customers are looking to NTN [non-terrestrial networks] in the mix, but we found only 17% said telcos are providing them with a proper NTN-related solution…There is some work to do: B2C for telcos is supposed to grow by 1-2% for the next five years, while B2B is supposed to grow between anywhere between 6-8% percentage points.
Achieving that growth is about how you partner, how you become the ecosystem orchestrator, how you innovate, how you leverage trust and sovereignty, how you are providing seamless digital-first experience and all those kind of things.
Today there’s something like 16 million satellite connections, which is expected to grow to almost 90 million by 2030 as it becomes mainstream. We are working with a lot of companies in different areas. For instance, some that are reimagining how mobile connectivity works in airlines, refreshing it to faster and better networks, looking at customer experience.
PS: There are two aspects. Telecom services to enterprises for their internal communications and there’s a resilience element to that, but increasingly, organisations want a certain level of independence from their provider and a high level of mobility as well. If you are a cruise operator, each ship has thousands of passengers generating a huge amount of traffic. They also need enterprise-grade, standardised connectivity between their office buildings and their mobile units as well.
Another element is more B2B2C, where telcos enable providers of digital services to keep in contact with their consumer customers…whether it’s via a terrestrial or satellite network or whatever, operators need to make sure it happens.
That goes back to Praveen’s point that operators need to work with their target clients and their target clients’ segments.
ME: What are enterprises striving to achieve?
DL: If you ask any telco’s B2B customers what problem they’d like their provider to solve, it’s to help them grow. Next is ‘Can you orchestrate my ecosystem for me?’ Respondents to our B2B Pulse Survey Report say, “I want seamless, digital-first experience. I don’t care what you’re doing at the backend”.
Customers are asking what kind of innovation operators can bring to their business. As mentioned, sovereignty is a very key part, which still has to be figured out in satellite. On the other hand, incumbent telcos have it and are seen by the government and protected sectors as more ‘sovereign’ than many other players that are trying to provide sovereign tech.
AT: How do telcos acquire the knowledge to tackle vertical industries?
PS: They don’t need to acquire every bit of knowledge themselves. My prediction was that ecosystem partnership is going to move from optional to existential. They need to be very clear about what their place is in that entire ecosystem. Ecosystem partners are not their suppliers: many times this is a mindset shift too.
The part telcos need to acquire, and that nobody else can provide, is that mindset of solutions we keep talking about. One of the reasons telco has not done as well as it could – and I’ll be saying this to all my telco clients – is they need to get away from selling the same subscription boxes.
ME: What is satellites’ part in ubiquitous connectivity?
DL: Your household probably wants access to Netflix at the same time as Teams, and you want to be able to talk to people. Increasingly, you’re going to want to have access to intelligence, to AI, and we need to think about the means of delivery. It’s probably less important to you as a consumer than it’s equivalent to enterprise users but good quality is what’s important.
If telcos want to do this properly, they have to start selling solutions, rather than a pipe and connectivity. The question is, can their model be more than selling back-up and remote connectivity at a premium price? Users don’t care about the parts that make up the solution or how telcos solve the coverage and reliability problem.
AT: What developments will we see between now and 2030 and how fast are you expecting things to move?
PS: The big disruption in the last five to 10 years is the cost of launching rockets and satellites has fallen – by almost 95% in the last decade or so.
DL: We’ll see D2D services becoming mainstream up to 2030…and telcos will use autonomous network technology to make seamless integration happen. I think…we could very quickly see a resurgence in IoT and satellite-based IoT services.
The fourth thing is that currently the bulk of the traffic [on telecom networks] is streaming video. I think in the next five years, we’re going to see an adaptation for the transport of tokens with telecoms platforms becoming a platform for enabling intelligence everywhere
ME: We hear mostly about LEOs. What about multi-altitude configurations?
DL: Our vision looks at various altitudes, from geostationary, the furthest away, to medium Earth orbit, then low Earth orbit. We’e also working with companies and an ecosystem looking at high altitude platforms – autonomous platforms operating at heights of 20,000 metres. Each altitude has pros and cons – there’s always a the trade-off in terms of cost, coverage and latency.
ME: Aren’t multi-orbit constellations an expensive duplication, competing for the same business? Will there be issues about interoperability after the ‘space grab’?
DL There’s great disincentive to deploy proprietary solutions. It means creating an entire vertical ecosystem and limits the number of devices to which you can attach. All the players are tending towards Releases 19 and 24 Series from the 3GPP, which is 5G-Advanced leading into 6G when it comes to D2D.
The only people who are creating their own ecosystem – who have their own terminals and so on – are doing it because the investment in that technology and the maturity of the technology is so advanced. It might appear a bit messy, and there are innovations, but it’s converging very rapidly.
PS: We have seem a ‘messy situation’ like this in the telecoms market so many times, such as altnets in the fibre broadband market. It becomes messy for a while with overbuilding but there will be consolidation, people will align. Satellite is similar to the UK altnet market a few years ago.
* Since this interview, on 22 July, the US’ Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to free 160 MHz of upper C‑Band spectrum for terrestrial mobile use nationwide. It will be auctioned in 2027. The first Trump Administration freed up the lower C-band for 5G, fixed wireless and “other innovations”.
“The lower C-band, which the FCC freed up during the previous Trump administration, brought 5G, fixed wireless, and other innovations”. Brendan Carr, Chair of the FCC said, “This harmonized super band will be the envy of the world.” The FCC intends to offer 3,248 flexible use licences, with commercial deployment expected from December 2030.
Industry commentator Sebastian Barros writes, “For AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, this is a familiar spectrum auction. For SpaceX, it could be something much larger: an opportunity to transform Starlink from a satellite broadband service into a hybrid national communications platform.
The most controversial possibility is not that Starlink will outbid every carrier and build another nationwide mobile network…The more realistic threat is that SpaceX can buy enough spectrum to create strategic optionality, increase its negotiating leverage and make every incumbent pay more for the spectrum they cannot afford to lose.
