International

Private Sector Space

November 11, 2021 By Timo

The second session of the Course on “The Business and Economics of Space” was on Tuesday, Nov 9. This time the topic was the Private Sector of the Space Industry, as distinct from the government, civil or military side. You can find my earlier posts on the first session here, as well as my remarks from pre-school here and here.

The key takeaways were trying to answer three basic questions.
– How big IS the Space Economy ?
– What does the Industry Supply and Demand look like ?
– What are the current industry dynamics ?

There is no easy answer to the question of measuring the size of the Space economy. Different people and organizations come up with different estimates as there is disagreement about how it should be measured. We know that some reports, such as a very busy industry map from SpaceTech Analytics, grossly overestimate who is a space company. Estimates from reliable sources like Euroconsult and Bryce Tech would put the range from $290B to $370B

*Image from Bryce Tech 2020 Sat Industry Stats*

One of my personal favourite sources is the Space Foundation and their quarterly Space Report. They estimated the Global Space Economy in 2020 as $446.88 B

*Image from the Space Foundation* 2021 Q2 Space Report

The breakdowns are interesting for people outside of the space bubble. Roughly just over a third of the revenues are from Ground equipment and just under a third from Satellite services. Government Space Budgets (including Human Spaceflight) are about 27% of the total with the USA by far the biggest of that. Sat manufacturing (3%) and the sexy launch sector (only 1.5% or $5.3B) round it out. Launch gets a lot of attention but it is not a large amount of the total.

How fast is this growing ? Well, the average CAGR is about 4.3 % per annum but that hides a lot of variation within sub sectors. One of the biggest satellite service sectors is TV, particularly Direct-to-Home (DTH) service like Dish & DirectTV or Bell & Shaw Sat TV in Canada. Streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime have caused a lot of cord cutting, not only of cable connections but also Satellite TV connections. Hence it is declining by about 8% annually.

Yet, there are industry forecasts that are regularly touted that space will grow tremendously in the next decade. Most famously there is the Morgan Stanley forecast (here) that says Space Sector will be a $1Trillion industry by 2040. Bank of America (here) expects the space economy to triple in the next decade to $1.4 trillion. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates the space economy will grow from approximately $385B in 2017 to $1.5 trillion by 2040.

Where is this forecasted explosive growth going to come from ? Especially if cash cows lie DTH TV are declining. That is the trillion dollar question. That is why we are taking this course !

Where is the demand for space economy services coming from? Historically it was governments, and specifically the U.S. government and its lettered agencies (NOAA, NRO, DOD etc). Currently the public sector still dominates the demand side outside of Satellite Communications (SatCom). The key would be to see more space services migrate to a model where the government as just an anchor tenant and then eventually to be just one customer among many to a private venture. That is the holy grail.

Who are the space sector actors trying to solve this riddle, pursuing this holy grail ? Some are household names now due to their famous billionaire founders ; Musk’s SpaceX & Starlink, Bezos’s Blue Origin & Project Kuiper and Branson’s Virgin Galactic & Virgin Orbit. But there are hosts of companies, as shown in this industry map by Seraphim Capital, the largest Space VC and now a publicly traded investment trust in London, U.K.

*Image fro*m Seraphim Capital SpaceTech Map 2020

The next session will be on Space Financing. Really looking forward to this session ! Expecting to learn more about IPO’s, SPACs and Valuations. Stay tuned for my synopsis on that session next.

Filed Under: Business of Space, Competition, International, Internet, Satellite

Pre-School

November 7, 2021 By Timo

Tomorrow, Monday Nov 8 is the first session of the course I am taking on the Business and Economics of Space. The last few days I have been getting acquainted with the student portal and going through the onboarding process.

Also, I have met my peers on this journey. What an impressive group of people ! We were encouraged to introduce ourselves to each other on the site, so I did that plus reached out to connect with them on LinkedIn and follow them on Twitter as well, if they were users of the platform.

Some interesting trivia about our cohort;

It is a diverse group by many metrics. A quarter of the group is female, which I was pleased to see. Often at telecom events the ratio skews much lower than that.

I am not the only one that can claim to have seen Neil Armstrong take his historic steps on the Moon back on July 20, 1969 live on TV. About 15% of us qualify as “experienced” !

Two thirds of the class are from the United States with a full third being international. Strong representation from Australia, with Canada coming in second most. Other nationals from the UK, Ireland, New Zealand , Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Spain, India, Singapore, Oman and Rwanda were also represented. I was a little surprised not to see more from the UK and also would have expected Italian students.

There were far less Twitter users among this cohort of people than I expected. Space Twitter is a real thing, and they are a great group of people. There is a lot of good info on Space Twitter and sharing of information. Genuine camaraderie. I think I may have to advocate that they check it out. Twitter doesn’t have to be toxic; if you avoid the hot button topics it can actually be a good experience !

After tomorrow’s class I will try to write a synopsis of the material. It is on the History of Space and the Contemporary Space Agency. Fingers crossed that is, as i promises to be a very full day otherwise.

Filed Under: Business of Space, International, Quality, Satellite

Back to School

November 2, 2021 By Timo

Some of you may have noticed that I write on here about more than just international telecom. There are book reviews, conferences that I attend, the fight against telecom fraud and space. On my twitter feed and LinkedIn there is also more and more about space. Why is that ?

The NewSpace industry is one that has captured my attention and interest. There are so many parallels between what is happening in space right now and where we were in telecom back in the go-go days of liberalization and deregulation in the ’80s and ’90s. From a telecom perspective, there is over a petabyte of data coming down daily just from the Earth Observation satellites. The amount of bandwidth available for providing broadband from space is about to increase 30x ! Telecom edge computing is not just migrating from the data centre to the hyperscalers (AWS, Azure and GCS) but also 1000 km up into Low Earth Orbit (LEO )

Need less to say I am excited about the opportunities. So I am going back to school ; I am lucky enough to have been accepted into the cohort for a live course on the Business and Economics of Space.

The instructor is the brilliant Sinead O’Sullivan. Sinead is a global expert in space economics and early-stage space businesses. Currently at Harvard Business School, she works with governmental space agencies, CEOs and investors to understand space market dynamics, identify sector opportunities, create strategies for growth and execute in challenging environments within the aerospace & defense sector

Beginning her career as an aerospace engineer, she project-managed human spaceflight missions at NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, designed a satellite constellation with the Brazilian Space Agency and worked on astronaut training for long-duration missions at the European Space Agency.
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Now working in the business and economics of space, she works with emerging national space agencies to develop local space economies within the private, startup sectors. She sits on the Board and Advisory Board of over $1 billion of early-stage space investment funds. She advises and invests in several startups from the earliest pre-seed stage right through to IPO. She is in space-specific leadership positions within prestigious organizations such as Sainsbury Management Fellows, Royal Aeronautical Society, the International Astronautical Federation, the US Center for Climate and Security and the Harvard Rock Center for Entrepreneurship.

The course is aimed at Aspiring Founders, Investors and those seeking a career in space related startups or enterprises. There will be guest speakers and cohort members from all aspects of the space industry including SpaceX, NASA, LeoLabs, Virgin Galactic, Axiom Space , RocketLab, Varda, Lux and Founders Fund. The chance to work and build a network of space business leaders is invaluable.

The sessions will cover topics like
1 – The History of Space and the Contemporary Space Agency
2 – Private Sector Space
3 – Space Financing
4 – A Deep Dive into Launch and Satellites
5 – A Deep Dive in Space Tourism and Exploration
6 – Space Law and Geopolitics
7 – Case Study ; Varda Space and In-Orbit Manufacturing
8 – Case Study – Hadrian and On-Earth Manufacturing

This will be vary exciting but also a huge challenge ! I will still be operating AurorA and Amitel, doing my Movember fundraiser by doing 200 Kettlebell swings a day and taking these courses all throughout November. Plus making sure everyone in the family gets a good breakfast and that we eat together at dinner. Nothing I cant handle !

If you are interested you can find more details on this course here

If I find the time, I will try to post an occasional summary on here of what we are learning.

Filed Under: Business of Space, Competition, International, Internet, Regulatory, Satellite

RAG London 2021

September 26, 2021 By Timo

Timo selected to the 'Wise Head" Panel — *Timo Selected to the ‘Wise Head” Panel*

We are only a couple of days away from the Risk and Assurance Group (RAG) London 2021 Conference. I am beyond excited to be able to attend a live, in-person event after so many virtual conferences on Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic

The conference will cover revenue assurance, fraud management, cybersecurity, credit risk, billing accuracy, enterprise risk management, data integrity, nuisance prevention, margin optimisation, cost management and other kinds of business assurance.

The formal agenda will be completed by our traditional ‘Wise Heads’ panel of industry veterans who will review the themes covered during the conference and the state of the telecoms industry as it stands in 2021. The wise heads will include: senior manager and long-standing RAG contributor Andreas Manolis of BT; expert consultant and former Ooredoo Group Risk Director Lee Scargall; and Timo Vainionpää, the owner of Canadian wholesaler AurorA International Telecom.

I am honoured and humbled that they would include me as a “Wise Head”

As in previous RAG events, I hope to be able to provide some coverage of the days events here on my blog. Stay tuned as I cross the Atlantic to join my telecom industry fraud experts at the fabulous Sheraton Skyline Hotel.

You can find more details about the RAG London 2021 conference here.

Filed Under: Fraud, International, Quality, Regulatory

MVNO – Provide Exceptional Customer Experience

February 28, 2021 By Timo

cheerful multiethnic women browsing smartphone in park — Photo by Charlotte May on Pexels.com

In early January this year, Toronto-based Data On Tap received CRTC approval for its carrier brand “dotmobile” to become Canada’s first full Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO).

From their press release on Jan 8 dotmobile notes the following

“Generally speaking, a Full MVNO operates essentially the same technology as a mobile network operator, but without owning the radio access network (ie. cell towers). Instead, the Full MVNO’s core network connects to one or more existing radio access networks owned by other network operators, similar to how that same mobile network operator roams on other networks.

To better understand how similar they are, let’s look at the big three in Canada. They all provide nationwide coverage with their networks. The big guys do this by sharing their networks. For example, Bell and Telus each have cell towers that cover only half of the country, but they share them with each other so that their customers get national coverage. Each of them also operates multiple brands on their networks, which means Bell, Virgin, Lucky, Telus, Koodo, and Public Mobile all connect to the same network.

So since Full MVNOs operate a core network just like everyone else, and everyone else is already sharing networks, the difference really just boils down to whether you own any of your own towers or not.

A wireless provider’s core network is responsible for almost everything other than how many bars of signal your phone gets. It takes care of the basics like routing calls, text messages, voicemail, and connecting you to the internet. They can also do a lot more. Modern core networks that are built primarily as software can better prevent spam calls, seamlessly switch calls from a phone to a laptop and back again, support worldwide High Definition calling over Wi-Fi and LTE, or even integrate your AI assistant into a call. That’s just scratching the surface.“

One of the key things that any new MVNO will need is the ability to terminate their customer’s international voice calls. Since all the calls originated on a cellphone are compressed by its codec, it is imperative that only premium quality voice routing be used to terminate the calls, especially when they are calling overseas. An MVNO wants the best-in-class solution to transport their calls over high quality routes with minimal trans-coding so that their customers receive the highest quality of experience.

We expect a decision from the CRTC in early 2021 to grant MVNOs in Canada mandated access to the networks of the big guys. When this access is granted we will see dotmobile and other carriers approved to become full MVNOs enter the Canadian mobile services marketplace. AurorA will be there to cheer them on and also to provide them with their premium quality international termination, as well as any other international telecom services that they may need.

Competition is good for consumers and Canadian businesses, especially when they can be provided with premium quality services. I look forward to the future that mandated MVNO access will bring to Canada.

Filed Under: Competition, International, Mobile, Quality