Starlink has already massively disrupted numerous satellite companies and industries in just over five years since launching its first satellite. These gains are despite capacity limitations and the economic disadvantages of low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites.

With a low-latency LEO network of more than 6,000 satellites and increasing, seemingly unlimited access to capital, vertical integration with the world's largest launch company (SpaceX), robust brand name, and embedded fan base, S&P Global Ratings believes Starlink is a strong competitor that will continue to gain market share. And another deep-pocketed LEO player, Amazon Kuiper, is set to enter the market in 2025.

Not surprisingly, Starlink has had an impact in the residential internet market. However, it has been more successful than expected in other markets, including in-flight connectivity (IFC), government, and maritime. It recently won a landmark contract to outfit United Airlines' entire fleet. Shortly thereafter, Air France announced that it chose Starlink to outfit its fleet.

This comes on the heels of Starlink winning several major cruise line contracts the past two years as well as several government contracts. Here, we examine the shifting competitive environment, which end markets face the most competition, and how it affects satellite issuers that we rate globally.

Chart 1

Rural Residential Internet Under Intense Long-Term Pressure

LEO providers have an advantage given latency comparable to a fiber connection that allows customers to take video calls and play video games in real time. In comparison, geostationary satellite (GEO) satellite home internet is more of a service of last resort given its higher latency and often slower download speeds. Thus, Starlink has taken market share from Viasat Inc. and Hughes Communications Inc. in the U.S. over the past three years.

Hughes had 714,000 U.S. broadband subscribers as of June 30, 2024, down from 1.144 million three years ago. Viasat does not publish its subscriber count regularly, but we believe similar trends have taken it down to 228,000 as of Sept. 30.

In contrast, Starlink has expanded to about 1.4 million U.S. subscribers as of August 2024, according to a report filed with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), since its debut in 2021.

However, in the next 2-3 years, we expect that Viasat and Hughes will stabilize subscriber trends. This is due to new satellites coming online, Viasat-3 and Hughes' Jupiter-3. These companies have been capacity constrained in recent years. We believe there are still enough U.S. homes that lack a viable alternative, which for now will drive overall industry growth when capacity is available.

More than 7 million homes lack a high-speed internet option, according to the FCC National Broadband Map. Starlink is likely running into capacity constraints of its own as subscriber growth has slowed considerably in 2024 and the company raised prices. A major hurdle is that LEO satellite capacity is uniform, static, and mostly stranded over the oceans. Unlike with GEOs, with high-throughput spot beams, it is not possible to dynamically allocate more capacity where it's needed.

Over time, residential internet will become even more challenged. Starlink will continue to increase capacity by adding depth to its network and expand its subscriber base. It has 12,000 satellites approved to be deployed, which could increase as high as 42,000. New players include Amazon.com Inc.'s Kuiper, which will enter service with a planned constellation of more than 3,000 satellites (half of which must be deployed by 2026).

Meanwhile, the number of homes without a high-speed wired internet option will shrink as the government implements its $42 billion subsidy program for underserved rural markets.

The players

• Hughes: The largest player in the U.S. satellite internet market. Residential internet contributes most company revenues. However, it will not be investing in another GEO satellite following the recent launch of Jupiter-3, which will help preserve cash flow.
• Viasat: Residential internet only contributes about 10% of its overall revenue. Management opted to stop investing in expensive satellites to support this data-hungry market, which provides a more credible pathway to lower capital spending and positive free cash flow in 2026.
• Telesat Holdings Inc.: A small portion of revenue comes from providing satellite capacity to Xplore Inc. in Canada and Hughes in South America.
• Eutelsat Communications S.A.: Not likely to target this market with its OneWeb, which is more focused on enterprise customers with a smaller fleet of 630 satellites.

IFC Faces Increased Competition

Starlink's United Airlines installation will take several years, with the first passenger flights expected in late 2025. United has four Wi-Fi providers that will be displaced: Viasat, Intelsat Corp., Panasonic Holdings Corp., and Thales S.A. on different planes and routes. This is Starlink's largest airline contract, but it also has deals with Qatar Airways, Hawaiian Airlines, Air France, Latvia's airBaltic, Japan's Zipair, and charter operator JSX.

Capital markets recoiled at the United announcement. ViaSat's stock traded down and spreads widened. We believe this signals potential risk to our longer-term growth forecasts if other North American airlines adopt new LEO technology and switch providers or if Starlink wins an outsize share of international airlines that haven't yet chosen a Wi-Fi provider. Furthermore, LEO options could drive pricing pressure on new awards or at contract renewal. If Starlink continues to gain momentum, we could take rating actions. However, the impact from this single award will be gradual and manageable.

Most international airlines do not yet have a Wi-Fi provider, creating a large opportunity for new awards. Ultimately, we expect incumbent operators to benefit from this growth market. For example, Viasat recently announced 350 incremental aircraft orders in the contractual process of being added to the backlog from six new airline customers for which Starlink presumably was a competitor.

Several other factors could slow adoption rates for Starlink, should it:

• Not sign service level agreements. GEO operators typically guarantee speeds, whereas Starlink offers service on a best-effort basis. It's unclear whether LEO service at scale can perform well in more congested areas.
• Need more supplemental type certificates to install equipment on some aircraft models.
• Require airlines to offer free Wi-Fi, burdening them with the cost.
• Not allow "white labeling" of its service, the practice of purchasing service from another company and rebranding it as its own.
• Encounter potential capacity limitations on its LEO network as adoption increases, which could limit speeds.

We believe Starlink will continue to be a formidable competitor, particularly as it continues to add depth and capacity to its constellation. With significant unused capacity, at least as of today, Starlink's service has proven speedy with low latency. However, it lacks the capacity of very-high-throughput GEO satellites, which will likely allow players to win their fair share of new awards. For these practical reasons, we believe that hybrid connectivity that combines LEO and GEO might become more prevalent.

The players

• Viasat: We believe it is relatively better positioned among legacy operators given its large backlog and solid record of performance and reliability. We estimate that Viasat has about 30% market share in IFC and believe its service quality is better than that of GEO peers, including Intelsat, Panasonic, and Anuvu Corp. Therefore, the roughly 70% of the market served by these other players is at greater risk of share losses. Viasat recently disclosed it is in advanced discussions with Telesat to buy capacity on its Lightspeed constellation (which is expected to be operational in 2027), which could bolster its position with airlines seeking a low-latency offering.

We estimate that Viasat serves about 50% of the United fleet, or 500 aircraft, which accounts for 10%-15% of its IFC revenue, 2%-3% of total revenue, and only a very small portion of its backlog. Viasat will continue to service these aircraft through the life of the contract while the other three providers will get replaced earlier. They may have been operating with shorter duration contracts.

Separately, Air France operates a much smaller fleet than United and also had three incumbent suppliers, so we estimate the impact of the Starlink award will be minimal. We continue to expect Viasat to increase IFC revenues meaningfully over the next 2-3 years, supported by a backlog of more than 1,500 aircraft that provides good visibility despite the recent loss to United.

• Intelsat: We estimate that it has 15%-20% market share, including 25 commercial airline partners and close to 3,000 aircraft with a backlog of about 800 aircraft after acquiring Gogo Inc.'s commercial unit in 2020. We believe vertical integration will allow it to compete effectively, but recognize that it lacks the reputation and stronger brand of Viasat.
• Hughes: A new entrant into the IFC market with Jupiter-3, it has secured a contract with Delta Air Lines to offer service on 400 planes, including regional jets. It also has partnered with Eutelsat OneWeb to offer LEO service. It could be more challenging to win new awards, but IFC does not constitute a meaningful portion of its service revenue. Conversely, the company designs and manufactures a LEO antenna used by Eutelsat OneWeb and Gogo business jets that could help drive revenue growth.
• Gogo: It operates entirely in business aviation, serving smaller aircraft with a highly fragmented customer base utilizing its air-to-ground network. Gogo is rolling out its own LEO service, but does not own these satellites and will lease capacity from OneWeb. While Starlink does not have antennas capable of serving smaller crafts, we believe this technology can be developed. Gogo's fragmented customer base also helps somewhat insulate it from near-term pressure as Starlink targets larger contracts. However, we expect Starlink will eventually move downstream and enter the private aviation segment. Gogo is acquiring Satcom Direct, which also operates primarily in business aviation. However, Satcom tends to serve larger planes that could more easily equip Starlink's antennas.
• Eutelsat: IFC is included in mobile connectivity, which is 14% of its sales. The company aims to combat the shifting environment by offering its own multi-orbit product with OneWeb LEO, which should position it well.
• Telesat: Its exposure is slight, providing broadband communications to airplanes as one of many parts of its enterprise segment that constitutes 51% of total revenue. However, IFC could be a growth vehicle as Telesat continues to develop and invest in LEO satellites that it expects to launch in 2027. Still, we believe competitors such as Starlink will have a first-mover advantage that could further intensify competition for new awards.

Table 1

Maritime Under Invasion By Starlink

Starlink has focused on the biggest pieces of the pie first. In maritime, this means cruise ships. In this market, latency matters for leisure travelers who want to stream entertainment or video chat with friends and family on shore. However, given the concentration of data consumption on a large ship, GEO or medium-Earth orbit (MEO) still stand to provide either primary or backup capacity when LEO may not handle it all. Over the past couple of years, it has won major awards across the industry:

• Carnival's entire fleet is outfitted with Starlink service as of May 2024. This includes all the ships across its brands: Carnival Cruise Line, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises, Seabourn, Cunard, Costs Cruises, AIDA, and P&O Cruises.
• MSC Cruises has a full fleet of 22 ships as of mid-2024.
• Royal Caribbean is one of the first adopters of Starlink and plans to roll it out to sister brands Celebrity Cruises and Silversea.
• All of Norwegian Cruise Line's ships and related brands Oceania and Regent Seven Seas have the technology.
• Other cruise lines globally are adopting it, including Aurora Expeditions, Crystal, Hurtigruten, Lindblad Expeditions, Ponant, and Aqua Expeditions.

We believe Starlink could start moving down market into yachts and commercial vessels. Maritime very-small-aperture terminal (VSAT) provides bandwidth to small ships on a service such as Inmarsat FX (part of Viasat). It is usually up to about 10 megabits per second, which LEO constellations can match. Given that LEOs have stranded capacity over the oceans that otherwise cannot be monetized, we believe this creates the potential for aggressive pricing from LEO providers. However, the barrier to entry is on the antenna side, and traditional providers dominate the market. Antennas are already installed on thousands of vessels, which creates switching costs. Starlink does not offer service agreements that may be important for commercial customers as well.

The players

• SpeedCast Communications Inc.: The company has exposure in the cruise segment, which accounts for about 20% of its total revenue. The entrance of Starlink has created substantial pressure on the company's ability to negotiate with customers. While Speedcast has renewed contracts with the largest customers, Starlink has materially affected the economics of these relationships. In one case, Starlink has taken over as the primary connectivity provider, with Speedcast serving as a backup. As a result, we expect cruise segment revenue to drop 40% in 2024, with further declines likely as share losses or pricing pressure persist.
• Viasat: We believe the FX Fleet Express broadband service could face intensifying competition. This segment accounts for about 5%-10% of Viasat's total revenue. Viasat has partnered with OneWeb to offer multiorbit solutions for maritime customers.
• Iridium Satellite LLC: We do not expect Starlink to target the more niche backup VSAT market served by its narrowband L-band service. This is a very low-speed service for more basic data transmission.
• Venga Holdings S.a.r.l. (Marlink): It has small exposure to cruise, but heavy to commercial shipping. Being an aggregator and distributor of third-party operators' capacity, Marlink is technology agnostic and therefore not per se exposed to changing technologies as long as it continues to partner with relevant LEO and GEO operators. In addition, Venga's antenna ownership model of more than 8,000 VSAT installed base vessels could create switching costs for its customers. While not seen so far, given the fragmented customer base in particular, any disintermediation in commercial ships could be a significant constraint. This risk could be magnified by Elon Musk's (Starlink) and Jeff Bezos' (Amazon) cultures and history of directly serving end users in other major business lines, which could make it more challenging to partner with those operators on economically viable terms.
• Telesat: We believe it faces heightened competition from Starlink's service, which has led to customer erosion particularly among maritime customers. We expect revenues in the segment to remain pressured. There have been non-renewals of maritime contracts, and as a result the company has guided to a 25% drop in 2024 revenue from 7% last year.
• Intelsat: A portion of its mobility sales (about 30% of total revenue) is derived from maritime customers in cruise and merchant shipping. It is the market leader in maritime VSAT providing wholesale capacity to service providers such as Marlink, which could come under pressure from Starlink.

Government Could Come Under More Pressure

LEO constellations bring a new capability for military communications due to the low latency and reasonable bandwidth that can be used to fly unmanned aircraft and connect outposts and vessels. It's also somewhat more difficult to interfere with LEO constellations given the volume of satellites and relatively inexpensive nature of each satellite. Starlink, OneWeb, and even Kuiper have all signed government contracts recently. We expect LEOs to take share as significant capacity comes online.

Still, we expect some growth in GEO government revenues too as they remain well positioned for several use cases including fixed data transfer, bandwidth on demand, and mobility services for non-latency-sensitive support vessels and aircraft.

The players

• Viasat: We believe it is relatively well protected given that about half of its government revenue (20% of total revenue) comes from products that Starlink does not offer. The other half comes from services, which could face incremental competition and slow growth. However, we believe Viasat is well positioned in high-priority areas of the U.S. Department of Defense budget that will likely receive solid funding longer term and are less susceptible to budget cuts. Furthermore, the company has good program diversity, with no major concentration in any single platform.
• Iridium: Government revenue accounts for about 17% of its total service revenue. Iridium also provides material engineering and support services to several agencies within the U.S. government, which is not exposed to new LEO entrants. Iridium's LEO network utilizes L-band frequencies, which are less susceptible to interference from adverse weather, ensuring strong connectivity and low latency. This technology makes Iridium's network ideal for mission-critical operations.
• Eutelsat: Its exposure to government services is moderate (14% of sales) and somewhat protected given its recent merger with OneWeb that allows the company to combine LEO and GEO technologies.
• Intelsat: Government services account for about 20% of its total revenue as the largest provider of satellite capacity to the U.S. government. SES S.A. recently announced its intent to acquire Intelsat. The combined company will have a strong multi-orbital network of satellites in GEO and MEO and in LEO partnerships, including with Starlink and others. The combination also expands Intelsat's government footprint outside the U.S., including missions with the U.K., U.N., and NATO.
• Telesat: Modest revenue from the U.S. government includes that through service integrators, with more meaningful exposure to the Canadian government.

Network Services And Cellular Backhaul

There could be opportunities for lower-latency applications, particularly in remote areas. LEOs have an advantage over GEOs to improve users' internet experience. However, LEOs are unlikely to match the bandwidth to a single user terminal that GEOs can provide, and cellular backhaul requires high throughout. We believe this could constrain Starlink's capacity in certain markets as it prioritizes residential internet. However, we believe that OneWeb and Telesat will more aggressively pursue this business-to-business opportunity, which could exacerbate pricing pressure in this segment.

The players

• Intelsat: 20% of revenues from network services.
• Eutelsat: Fixed connectivity accounts for about 20% of sales. Eutelsat offers LEO from OneWeb, which it owns. We believe this multi-orbit service positions the company well.
• Telesat: A meaningful component of its enterprise segment (about 50% of total revenue) is related to cellular backhaul, internet backhaul, and related services to telecom carriers.

Internet Of Things (IoT)

Satellite IoT includes connecting a variety of devices such as sensors, trackers, and other smart devices often in remote or hard-to-reach areas where cellular coverage is not available. Low-latency, cross-linked LEO networks are ideal for mobile applications such as asset tracking or other applications that require real-time responses. Conversely, GEO satellites offer a stable, reliable connection best suited for higher data rates in static use cases such as oil and gas pipeline monitoring.

The players

• Iridium: IoT accounts for 27% of its service revenue. Iridium serves several end markets including energy, heavy equipment, agriculture, and commercial maritime. Iridium's LEO mesh network is ideal for many IoT applications, however the entrance of new competitors could pressure pricing and reduce profitability.
• Speedcast: Energy is its largest operating segment, with substantial exposure to remote offshore drilling. As a reseller of satellite capacity, Speedcast could face difficulty competing with LEO providers if they offer remote IoT service at low prices. A substantial portion of capacity will be stranded over remote locations at any given time. This encourages LEO providers to offer low pricing for remote services since any additional revenue will be immediately accretive to margins.
• ORBCOMM Inc.: The company has large contracts with global shipping giant Hapag Lloyd and several railroads. Should LEO providers enter the IoT market, they would likely seek to win large, high-dollar contracts before pursuing other more fragmented business. As a result, they could first try to compete with ORBCOMM's large contracts.

Media

GEOs remain best positioned to provide bandwidth-intensive, point-to-multipoint service for broadcasters aiming to distribute content to many different cable head-ends. Their wide coverage area makes them ideal for transmitting signals across large distances without being subject to intersatellite traffic handoff the way LEOs would be. Furthermore, most video distribution is not latency sensitive.

However, LEOs have an advantage in areas such as live news events when reporters in the field and anchors in the studio interact and conventional internet or Wi-Fi is unavailable, including natural disasters.

The players

• Intelsat: 30% of revenues from media.
• Eutelsat: 54% of revenues from media. Its OneWeb offering can deliver LEO broadcasting service.
• Telesat: Roughly 50% of revenue derived from video broadcast.

More Rating Actions Possible

Starlink is disrupting the satellite industry with low-latency service previously dominated by GEO providers. Different end markets and applications have varied sensitivity to latency, with residential internet (video calls, live gaming, etc.) at the top of the list. However, we believe adoption will continue to increase in other end markets, including mobility, over time. The presence of Starlink and the emergence of Kuiper presents a risk to our volume and pricing forecasts for several rated issuers.

With LEOs' capacity constraints, we believe operators that can offer hybrid service with the benefit of LEO and GEO are best positioned. However, Starlink and Amazon primarily are vertically integrated and may be unwilling to partner with existing industry players on terms that have favorable economics. Furthermore, more LEO capacity will come online in the next several years, which could exacerbate competitive pressures.

We will continue to monitor the evolving competitive landscape and could lower ratings or tighten triggers if operators lose major contracts, cannot achieve expected volume growth, or pricing concessions deteriorate margins. To this point, we have taken five rating actions due to heightened LEO competition (Table 2).

Table 2