Telcos should collaborate with NTNs to turn potential foes into friends – and take flight together.

NTNs – one year on

This report is a follow-up to STL Partners’ introductory report on the non-terrestrial network (NTN) market, ‘New satellite connectivity: Rising star or pie in the sky?’, published in November 2023.

Since then, there have been numerous service and constellation launches – though not as many as some expected. This report analyses the short-term roadblocks to NTN expansion and what telcos should do to capitalise on this emerging opportunity.

The main question faced in respect of NTNs is whether telcos should regard NTNs as more of a competitive threat to their business or as an opportunity to collaborate, and create new use cases and value together. The short answer is that they are both potential friends and foes – and significant ones, too. But the less telcos engage with NTN providers to explore the opportunities, the greater the threat they will pose.

There is, in short, no need for telcos to adopt a ‘fight or flight’ mentality towards NTNs: a threat to be fought or to run away from. The best way to defend against the competitive challenge is to collaborate with NTNs, as they are eager for new business and partnerships. Collaborate to take flight – in the other sense – together.

STL will continue to track the evolution of the NTN sector and its interaction with other telecom players. We will follow up this report with a closer examination of the convergence of NTN and terrestrial mobile that is expected to take place in the 6G standards and era, in a publication entitled ‘NTNs and 6G: A marriage made in the heavens?’.

Multi-orbit services and multi-NTN partnerships are a promising way forward

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Table of contents

• Executive summary
• New NTN platforms enable multiple use cases based on ubiquitous coverage
• NTN take-off has been hampered by a lack of telco take-up
• Further inaction by telcos will only increase the threat from the big NTN players
• Partnering on NTN use cases now will lay a foundation for sustainable growth for telcos

Related research

• New satellite connectivity: Rising star or pie in the sky?
• Network innovation as an engine for growth: A manifesto
• Achieving next-level network autonomy

David Martin

David Martin

Senior Analyst

David Martin has specialised in telco cloud at STL Partners since 2016, writing numerous strategic reports on different aspects of the topic. He also originated STL’s Telco Cloud Deployment Tracker: a major database of commercial telco cloud deployments by leading operators worldwide. He is a telecoms analyst of around 25 years’ experience, having also worked for leading analyst firms including the now Analysys Mason and Omdia. David obtained a First Class degree in French and German at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he also pursued doctoral studies in French.