Iridium plans to deliver direct-to-handset communications from its global LEO constellation to cell phones around the world by 2026. Dubbed Project Stardust, the company bills the effort as the “only truly global, standards-based IoT and direct-to-device service.” And while Iridium took something of a circuitous route to get to this point, CEO Matt Desch is confident it is the correct choice for the company and that, ultimately, it will deliver the best network for consumers.
If you are a standards based service… you don’t have to be the first, but you do want to be the best. We believe we already have the best network, the furthest reaching, the most reliable, providing the best IoT service today. And we expect that our Project Stardust offering will continue that trend.
– Iridium CEO Matt Desch
The company initially planned a proprietary offering, developing a chipset in partnership with Qualcomm. That effort officially severed late last year, with hints that a standards-based solution was coming. And while the new offering offers some benefits on the hardware development side, it is still not a sure thing.
The standard must be approved. Manufacturers must build the frequency and waveform support into the radio chipsets. Handset manufacturers must choose to include those radios in their builds. And service providers must develop a billing plan (and possibly application layer) to handle the data consumption on the satellite network.
Oh, and Iridium has to update its constellation of satellites in low earth orbit to support the new communications protocols across the existing hardware infrastructure.
Satellite updates required
In some ways making the changes in space is the easiest part of the process. Yes, the company will spend tens of millions of dollars to develop and deploy the software updates on the constellation in orbit. It also must invest in updated ground infrastructure at its gateways to handle the new traffic flow.
The company will also have to account for the new protocol within its existing spectrum and capacity, something Desch is confident can be handled relatively easily. The existing network traffic is channelized to support the various services, including voice, data, and push-to-talk. Iridium will allocate channels to the new service, using the existing spectrum and the existing network to handle the new traffic.
But those are all things under the company’s control. It has the developers and processes in place to manage the software and the deployments. Getting the standards approved and into the chipsets on handsets brings other parties into play.
Chipsets, handsets, and dispatch
Getting the standard approved and then integrated into the chipsets depends on outside parties. Still, Desch appears unconcerned at the challenge or timing of that effort. He expects buy in from multiple suppliers and handset manufacturers, suggesting there is significant support from the industry for the revised approach. But it will still be a couple years before it enters services. Desch explains, “It won’t be [available on] a phone that you bought today, because that phone today doesn’t have our our frequency in it right now. But whatever chip supplier, you know, is in your phone can buy a chip from their normal suppliers in say the 2025-2026 timeframe that will have our service in it. And then it will work directly with us.”
That SpaceX announced its first successful messages on existing handsets today, less than a week after it launched the first satellites supporting its direct-to-device approach, makes that two years perhaps seem much longer. Especially since the SpaceX solution works on existing frequency bands already in the devices.
Still, Desch sees room for multiple players in the market and is happy to “just be one of those in that space,” building on the strong IoT network the company already operates.
As for how the service will actually work on the devices, that’s still somewhat up in the air. Unlike Apple, Iridium does not plan to build an emergency dispatch facility to monitor messages and calls. Desch explicitly says, “we certainly have been very successful not getting into the application business,” explaining that he’s far more keen to leave on partners for that.
He also expects that the connectivity will be managed through a dedicated application on the device. But that’s far from finalized. Desch says Iridium is still in discussion about “whether the [network operator] just makes it available and you can use it anytime you want to or whether you could buy it from an app store” or both, depending on the carrier and device model. “All those are possible,” he continues, but notes the company is still in discussions on exactly how it will be implemented.
The company will also leverage its experience in IoT programs in the existing network to extend the Stardust offering into that space. The standardized chipset and software options may prove more compelling for some systems developers than the range of terminal hardware available today.
Ultimately the D2D play by Iridium is relatively low risk. Yes, it will cost tens of millions of dollars, but that is far less than developing and deploying a new satellite constellation. Or developing the back-office integration, billing, and support structures to manage the connections once the devices are deployed. That also means the company does not need to sell a ton of traffic across the network to justify the investment. It can exist alongside the other services, generating a nice side stream of incremental revenue.
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