Rivada Space Networks is building a constellation of 600 low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites to be launched in 2024-2028 that can serve high-bandwidth connections and multiple laser links.
The Germany-based company is currently seeking requests for proposals (RFPs) after completing requests for information (RFIs) and has not yet decided whether to work with one partner or several, Chairman and CEO Declan Ganley told Connectivity Business News.
“Launch services is one of these things that, in current market conditions, people are spreading around — Bezos hired everybody except SpaceX, for example,” Ganley said.
Rivada has 4,000 MHz of contiguous spectrum obtained with its acquisition of Liechtenstein-based Trion Space Systems, according to published reports.
The company plans to build larger LEO satellites than Starlink, for example, capable of serving high bandwidth connections and multiple laser links with latency of 200 milliseconds for a link around the world, Ganley said. Users will be business customers and internet of things (IoT) systems.
“We don’t plan to be launching satellites all the time, forever,” Brian Carney, Rivada senior vice president for communications, told Connectivity Business News. The company’s satellites will last longer than Starlink’s and be replaced less often, he added.
Pricing disruption
“As we go to billions of [IoT] devices, satellite gigabytes are going to be a very important role,” Ganley said. “But for that to take place, the barrier to entry to using [IoT devices] have got to come down a lot.”
That means lower prices than terrestrial mobile network operators’ plans currently permit. “There are business cases for mobile devices that connect at four cents a year or 0.003 cents a year,” Ganley said. “If they’re doing their thing at 4 a.m. and there’s nothing else going on [on the network, the marginal cost is zero, so] clear the gigabyte, take the money.”
“I hate these guys that keep the barriers to entry up,” Ganley said. “How may [IoT] devices can we connect at $30 a month or $15 a month? I mean, it’s just stupid.”
There will be a winnowing of satellite communications constellations, Vivek Suresh Prasad, consultant at Northern Sky Research, told Connectivity Business News.
“The LEO market is expected to witness more competition in the coming years with more players deploying their solutions. This will benefit end users by giving them bargaining power,” he said. “The bigger question is on the long-term sustainability — as not even a single player in the segment has proven their business model and many are still in the nascent stage. NSR expects the LEO market to witness continued volatility across pricing, services, market exits, bankruptcies and M&As.”
Wireless background
Rivada Networks, with offices in the U.S. and Ireland, is an owner of patents and intellectual property for terrestrial wireless services. The company applied in 2018 to the Federal Communications Commission for approval as a spectrum access system administrator and environmental sensing capability operator — essentially running the databases that ensure that spectrum users follow applicable rules with a particular focus on serving first responders in disaster areas.
At the time, Rivada Networks’ primary business was “designing, integrating, building, and deploying fixed infrastructure and mobile communication systems and networks to support first responder personnel,” according to the application.
Since then, Rivada Networks established a subsidiary, Rivada Space Networks, based in Germany but registered in Liechtenstein, Ganley told Connectivity Business News. “We’re building a team in Munich … hiring as fast as we can,” he added.
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