Two out of five mobile phone subscribers are unwilling to pay extra for direct satellite services, which could be a cause for concern for operators who continue to pump money into building out infrastructure.
There is a lot of competition to enable satellite connectivity for mobile phones, which is designed to help companies provide coverage in areas far from cities where there is no nearby mobile network. The GSM Association (GSMA), the industry organization representing the interests of mobile network operators worldwide, has 1,000 people in ten countries he asked me about how much extra spending they would accept in their mobile tariff if it included the satellite connection. About 40 percent said they wouldn’t pay anything more for that capability. The remaining 32 percent would only be willing to pay an extra 5 percent; 17 percent said they would be willing to pay up to 10 percent more, and only 4 percent were willing to increase their tariffs by 20 percent.
The GSMA welcomed this, saying that the figures show that on average 60 per cent of people are willing to pay more on top of their existing bills. According to the trade organization, even a 5 percent increase in tariffs would significantly increase the average revenue per user “for the entire customer base of mobile service providers.” According to the organization, “if the system is built, the customers are likely to come.” The GSMA also noted that willingness to pay is “part science, part art” and that consumer attitudes “must be treated with caution relative to actual purchases.”
Another key factor in whether people will be interested in the additional services of satellite services is – unsurprisingly – the quality of mobile network coverage where they live. Some 94 percent of the 1,000 people who responded to the GSMA survey rated their mobile service at home as good or excellent, which declines when traveling (such as by train), though most fall into the “good” camp rather than the “excellent” camp. The inverse correlation shows that demand for satellite coverage is likely to be highest in developing economies such as South Africa and Brazil.
The figures come from the GSMA’s Q3 Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN) and Satellites report, which highlights that telcos and satellite companies have already signed 105 agreements, showing that the technology is moving from a gap-filling strategy to a wider industry gets support. Of course, many of these alliances are for space-based services that are not yet operational, such as the agreements between US networks Verizon and AT&T to use the satellite network being built by AST SpaceMobile.
The Asia-Pacific region has the largest number of telecommunications companies with satellite connections, twice as many as the next largest region, sub-Saharan Africa. There are 10 in Europe, six in North America, 14 in Latin America, eight in the Middle East and North Africa, and four in Eurasia. Among satellite operators, Starlink remains the leader in deployments, with more than 6,300 satellites in orbit as of August 2024, according to GSM. However, it is estimated that only about a hundred of these units currently support the direct calling capability. Eutelsat OneWeb has the next most deployments, with around 650 units in orbit, while Amazon’s Project Kuiper and AST SpaceMobile will soon join the duo.
China also plans to launch thousands of satellites in the near future, and the GSMA notes that these are part of a broader strategy to support defense and economic goals and are largely for domestic use, unlike other network operators such as Starlink.
Source: sg.hu
