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Intel and telcos left in virtual RAN limbo by rise of AI RAN
A multitude of general-purpose and specialist silicon options now confronts the world's 5G community, while Intel's future in telecom remains uncertain.
Mavenir, a vendor primarily targeting mobile networks on the ground, is now looking to non-terrestrial network (NTN) operations – satellites in space – for a financial boost.
Officials at Mavenir believe they've found an important new opportunity for the struggling vendor: selling hardware and software to satellite operators.
"This is a fantastic business opportunity for us," said Rick Mostaert, Mavenir's VP of radio access network (RAN) product management.
Moreover, Mostaert argued that Mavenir's non-terrestrial network (NTN) opportunity is not too far from its core business of selling cloud-native software and hardware to telecom operators on the ground
"This serves a very critical unmet need in the marketplace," he said.
Mavenir hopes to sell its core and RAN management software to satellite operators across the globe. The company sees the emerging market for direct-to-device (D2D) connections – where regular smartphones connect directly to satellites – as a catalyst for the opportunity.
But Mavenir officials aren't providing any firm numbers for the company's NTN opportunity. A 20-page white paper from the company only cites 2023 predictions from BIS Research, which forecasts global 5G NTN growth at 12% annually to $14 billion in revenues by 2033. In comparison, the global terrestrial RAN market reached $35 billion this year, according to Dell'Oro Group.
Satellite networks are far different from normal cellular networks on the ground. For example, T-Mobile's 5G network spans around 85,000 cell towers across the US, while SpaceX's Starlink network comprises around 6,000 satellites for near-global coverage.
But for vendors like Mavenir there are some financially relevant similarities: the need for RAN and core management software, for example.
And Mavenir has a high-profile NTN customer to show off: satellite operator Terrestar, which hopes to launch D2D services across Canada within the next year or two.
"It was very important for us to work with a vendor that ... can adapt continuously," said Terrestar CTO Serge Legris.
Sky-high hopes
Mavenir first announced its deal with Terrestar at last year's MWC Barcelona show. Then, in December 2024, the company said it conducted live data sessions (using the satellite-friendly NB-IoT transmission standard) over Terrestar's Echostar T1 geostationary satellite.
That announcement coincided with Mavenir's annual analyst day in December, during which the company spent two days going over its business opportunities. Terrestar officials participated in a keynote at the event that garnered some accolades.
"Some of these [Mavenir] use cases are past the peak of inflated expectations (private mobile). Some are still on the uptrend (D2D)," wrote James Crawshaw, an analyst with Omdia (a Light Reading sister company), on social media.
Other analysts who attended the event (which was closed to the media) disclosed some of Mavenir's top-line speaking points: The company counts more than 250 mobile network operator customers; it has 3,100 full-time employees; and it has recorded 25% revenue growth since 2019.
"The numbers demonstrate Mavenir is fully capable of fulfilling its mission of transforming mobile network economics, especially in the three key areas of cost reduction, revenue generation and revenue protection," argued analyst Ron Westfall, Futurum Group's research director, on social media.
Spending slowdown
Mavenir's analyst day arrived at an important time in the company's corporate trajectory. Shortly after S&P downgraded the company in the fall, Reuters reported that Mavenir was in talks for a $1 billion injection from Saudi Aramco. That cash hasn't materialized, but in December longtime Mavenir executive John Baker left the company amid some layoffs.
Mavenir isn't alone in struggling.
"Mobile infrastructure investments slowed significantly in 2024," wrote analyst Stefan Pongratz with Dell'Oro Group this month in his assessment of the global RAN market. That situation has dragged on all of the mobile industry's vendors, from Ericsson to Airspan.
Pongratz said the slowdown is why RAN vendors are pursuing related opportunities ranging from private wireless networking to fixed wireless access. Pongratz did not list NTN among those RAN opportunities.
The Terrestar evolution
Terrestar traces its corporate origins to a company founded in 1988. After a 2010 bankruptcy, Terrestar Solutions emerged as a mobile satellite service (MSS) network operator and service provider headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Since 2020, Terrestar has provided retail MSS service across Canada under the Strigo brand name.
Today, Terrestar is chasing the NTN satellite-to-smartphone opportunity with its Echostar T1 satellite and 20x20MHz S-band spectrum holdings.
Terrestar officials assert that the company has nothing to do with Echostar, which owns Dish Network and Boost Mobile in the US, other than joint ownership of Terrestar's primary satellite. Nevertheless, the companies' connection is interesting, considering Mavenir is a major RAN management software supplier for EchoStar's Boost Mobile 5G network. Further, EchoStar officials in the US have begun loudly hinting at their interest in NTN and D2D in general.
"We believe it's a pivotal moment for non-terrestrial networks," said Terrestar's Legris.
He explained that Terrestar's management mostly comes from the cellular industry, and the company is keen to pursue the NTN opportunity in Canada, a country famous for its endless tracts of mountainous, rural areas.
"We want to offer a service that is an extension to the mobile network operators," Legris said, explaining that Terrestar hopes to sell its NTN network connections to Canada's mobile network operators. He said the company has held talks along those lines but does not yet have any firm business agreements.
One major hurdle for Terrestar: getting its S-band spectrum integrated into phones for Canadian operators.
How it works
Suman Sharma, Mavenir's senior director of product management, said that Mavenir is mainly supplying the core and RAN management software to run Terrestar's NTN service. True to Mavenir's cloud-native focus, the company's core for Terrestar is hosted in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud.
Mavenir supplies a variety of components for Terrestar.
Sharma added that most of Mavenir's technology in Terrestar's network is software, but he said there are a few hardware components for connections among the company's various systems.
Legris said the company's D2D network performance service won't be comparable with a full-blown 5G network. But "it's going to evolve," he said.
Legris said that, because of the NB-IoT standard, Terrestar's network will initially support slow-speed messaging, chat and email. Users might be able to download email attachments if they're patient.
But that's just step one. "We're actively developing the voice capability over NB-IoT," Legris said.
The wider market
Mavenir is by no means the only mobile vendor chasing the NTN opportunity.
For example, Ericsson late last year joined the Mobile Satellite Services Association (MSSA), an industry initiative aimed at the D2D market. The MSSA was formed earlier in 2024 by Viasat, Terrestar, Ligado Networks, Omnispace and Yahsat.
Nokia too has discussed its NTN ambitions, primarily in relation to its efforts to sell its equipment to government users.
It's also worth noting that Nokia has been trying to leapfrog its competitors with radio equipment bound for a network on the moon (a PR story the company has milked for an impressive five years now.)
But that vendor noise is in reaction to all the companies that now have NTN aspirations. Apple and Globalstar kickstarted the trend with the iPhone 14, but it has since spread across the world thanks to satellite operators and other players ranging from SpaceX to Viasat, EchoStar, Omnispace, Lynk Global, AST SpaceMobile and Inmarsat.
Satellites cannibalizing cell towers?
There is one final element in the NTN discussion for mobile equipment vendors like Mavenir: Will the NTN trend eventually cannibalize the sale of equipment for terrestrial networks?
It's a reasonable question. After all, would it make economic sense for a mobile network operator to invest in the construction of a cell tower in a rural area when they can cover that same area with satellites from SpaceX, AST SpaceMobile or Amazon?
Mavenir's Sharma speculated that widespread NTN networks could lead some operators to shutter expensive-to-run cell towers in rural areas where there's not much traffic.
And Terrestar's Legris said that the company's satellite services could be useful not only in rural areas, but also in lightly covered areas where customers suffer from occasional cellular dead zones.
"The bulk of the opportunity would come from coverage holes at the edge," Legris said. "It's not for remote areas only."
But Mostaert, Mavenir's VP, said the rise of NTN services won't have a "material" impact on terrestrial networks. In financial parlance, a "material" event is something that can have a substantial impact on a company's financial performance, stock price or overall business operations.
"There will be [cell] sites that won't be built," Mostaert predicted. But more importantly: "The user experience is going to be greatly enhanced."
Concluded Legris: Satellites and cell towers are "essentially complementary in nature."
Article updated January 21 to clarify Terrestar's corporate history.
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