The final piece of the puzzle fell into place for Telesat’s Lightspeed network when authorities in Ottawa and Montreal approved C$2.54B ($1.87B) in public loans for the company’s 198-satellite LEO broadband network last week.
As Canadian politicians were sparring about the deal on X, Elon Musk weighed in to suggest that it would be cheaper to just buy service from Starlink. (Maybe he forgot that SpaceX is being paid to launch most of the network on 14 Falcon 9 flights.)
But it does raise the question—in a crowded market, what does Lightspeed look like when it comes online in 2027?
Betting on basics: In the race to conquer satcom with massive LEO networks, a few strategies have emerged: Be everything to everyone (Starlink), bolster LEO with assets in other orbits (Eutelsat OneWeb), and TBD (Amazon Kuiper).
Starlink has emerged as the market leader, but it’s not clear if the network is profitable as it begins to replace its first generation of spacecraft. The high capex for these networks seems to require Musk’s apparently limitless fundraising ability, Amazon’s massive revenue stream and data business, or sovereign partners, as with Eutelsat OneWeb.
Telesat’s network is more tailored than these constellations, predicated on three strategies, per Stephen Hampton, the company’s head of global public policy.
- Targeting enterprise: Lightspeed isn’t looking for direct to consumer opportunities like Starlink; the design of the network is predicated on the needs of Telesat’s existing customer base.
- Guaranteed service: Hampton argues that Lightspeed’s willingness to guarantee specific service terms will be key to winning business among discriminating customers who can’t find certainty elsewhere.
- Government partners: Working hand-in-glove with the government—Canada now owns warrants to purchase 10% of Lightspeed—will smooth the path to winning national security business.
“Instead of building the cheapest LEO network we could, we built the system that addressed what our customers were looking for,” Hampton told Payload.
