Using its $1.7 billion war chest, satellite operator EchoStar plans to launch hundreds of additional low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites in the coming years that the company's CEO said would provide "5G wideband service."

Details about the company's plans are scarce, however. EchoStar CEO Hamid Akhavan hinted at them during the company's recent quarterly conference call, according to Advanced Television.

"It is still in development," he said. "You should expect that in the second half of this decade, we will have a 5G wideband service based on a new, much larger [satellite] constellation that we are working on."

Akhavan suggested the offering would begin generating revenues by 2027.

Figure 1: (Source: Andrey Suslov/Alamy Stock Vector)

This is EchoStar's second LEO announcement. Earlier this year, the company said it would launch 28 LoRa-capable satellites to offer Internet of Things (IoT) services starting in 2024, according to Space News.

The financial analysts at Raymond James estimated that EchoStar would spend around $100 million to $200 million to launch the LoRa constellation. The company's second 5G wideband constellation will likely cost "meaningfully" more than that, according to the analysts.

5G, D2D ambitions

EchoStar – spun out from Dish Network in 2008 – is one of a handful of aging satellite companies hoping for a second wind from 5G. Along with Iridium, Globalstar and others, EchoStar owns valuable S-band spectrum licenses in the 2GHz range that could be integrated into terrestrial 5G networks.

Akhavan previously suggested that the company is eying the burgeoning market for phone-to-satellite connections.

"We are very focused on it," he said late last year. Such an offering could also work with Dish's terrestrial 5G network.

Apple's satellite-capable iPhone 14 has helped break open the market for "direct to device" (D2D) services. Such services initially promise to support slow-speed services like texting and voice calling.

However, EchoStar presumably is hoping to offer faster services from space, given its discussion of "wideband" 5G services.

Related posts:

— Mike Dano, Editorial Director, 5G & Mobile Strategies, Light Reading | @mikeddano