- SES closed its acquisition of Intelsat last month, bringing together two major geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) satellite operators
- SES CEO Adel Al-Saleh told Fierce that the D2D market is very much in the combined company’s sights
- Beyond that, SES is working with the FCC to clear the upper C-band for auction
When Fierce talked with SES CEO Adel Al-Saleh last fall about SES’s plans for the satellite direct-to-device (D2D) market, the company was knee-deep in obtaining regulatory approvals for its $3 billion acquisition of Intelsat. Figuring out its role in the D2D space didn’t seem like the highest of priorities.
Flash forward to summer 2025, and SES is hot off the July 17 closure of its Intelsat transaction and ready to roll on D2D, the trend du jour in terrestrial/satellite communications – providing satellite coverage to everyday cell phones. Buoyed by its Series B investment in Lynk Global, SES is primed to work hand-in-hand with Lynk on its low Earth orbit (LEO) network architecture.
“We think direct-to-device is a huge opportunity in the marketplace,” SES CEO Adel Al-Saleh told Fierce. “This is an exciting segment.”
Lynk Global is a D2D player that came on the scene in 2017 and made headlines last year when it struck a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) deal with MLB star Alex “A-Rod” Rodriguez via his Slam Corp. That deal has since been scrapped, and Lynk is forging ahead with the deployment of its global D2D network.
According to Al-Saleh, Lynk is the perfect partner for SES. The company is led CEO Ramu Potarazu, a former COO at Intelsat who had served 10 years on the SES board prior to taking the top-ranking Lynk job in November.
“We're now the largest shareholder in Lynk,” Al-Saleh said. “The CEO of Lynk is a very dear friend to SES. We really like the company. We love their technologies and what they're developing, and we have committed to a very strong partnership.”
SES emphasizes its own “multi-orbital” satellite position because it’s strong in the geostationary and medium-Earth orbit (MEO) constellations, where it owns satellites, and it can get access to LEOs via partnerships. That contrasts with many of the D2D up-and-comers that are focused exclusively on LEO. Having access to multiple orbits means it can deliver the best solution for different customer requirements, according to Al-Saleh.
SES: D2D will take time
While stoked about the Lynk deal, he believes the D2D market will need several years to develop – even though others are way ahead of the game. After all, Apple has been offering SOS and text-based satellite messaging to cell phones using Globalstar’s LEO satellites for years. T-Mobile launched its commercial T-Satellite service with Starlink on July 23 after months of beta testing with U.S. consumers.
Isn’t a “few years” a little too late? Al-Saleh noted that plenty of others are still laying the groundwork. AST SpaceMobile, backed by AT&T and Verizon, is in the midst of deploying more satellites and anticipates launching a commercial D2D service in early 2026. Amazon’s Project Kuiper plans to have more than 3,200 satellites in its initial LEO constellation and sent its first 27 satellites into space in April 2025.
This past Friday, EchoStar announced plans for a new $5 billion D2D constellation of 200 satellites and an initial $1.3 billion contract with MDA Space to build the first 100 satellites. Although EchoStar has a history of delivering satellite services via its Hughes Network Systems subsidiary, it’s just now embarking on its D2D strategy.
“That’s why I’m saying it needs a few years to develop,” Al-Saleh said. “It will take a couple of years, but it will be a very fast growing in these coming years.”
Luxembourg-based SES will work with mobile carriers and other partners on distribution, with the first services being short messaging and other narrowband applications and later expanding to broadband. Beyond consumers, SES sees opportunities in enterprise applications, including IoT, government and military, he said.
What about the upper C-band?
SES’s biggest market segment, although dwindling in size, is providing satellite connections for media companies’ content distribution, followed by the rapidly growing government segment. Aviation and maritime are also key markets for SES.
In the wireless space specifically, SES historically provided backhaul for mobile carriers, but it’s perhaps best known in the 5G era for its role in making 3.7-3.98 GHz C-band spectrum available for auction.
SES and Intelsat were the two biggest satellite companies that vacated the lower C-band when the FCC decided to make it available for 5G. That meant the satellite players had to transition their satellite systems and move to the upper part of the band, which is now the subject of an FCC inquiry. The expectation is the FCC will find at least 200 megahertz in the upper part of the C-band for auction to wireless carriers.
SES has told the FCC it is prepared to repack and clear at least a portion of the 4.0-4.2 GHz portion of the C-band, provided the right incentives are in place for accelerated clearing.
The details are being worked out with the FCC and SES says it can work very quickly on clearing the first 100 megahertz of the spectrum. The second 100 megahertz requires more time, planning and the right technology to make it happen, Al-Saleh said.
Bottom line: SES isn’t going to leave its C-band video and media distribution customers in the lurch.
“We've been very open in our collaboration with the FCC, but at the end of the day, the FCC will drive the decision and we will work with them. We'll make sure that we have a solution for our customers,” he concluded.