Globalstar, Inc. (NYSE American: GSAT) today announced that it
has obtained terrestrial authorizations in Canada, Brazil and
Kenya. These three countries represent an additional covered
population of 300 million and 3.7 billion MHz-Pops, bringing the
Company’s total terrestrial authority to over 9 billion MHz-Pops
and coverage of a total population of approximately 700
million.
Jay Monroe, Executive Chairman of Globalstar, commented, “Since
completing the FCC licensing process for terrestrial service in 2.4
GHz, we have pursued a global initiative to obtain terrestrial
authorizations in a multitude of countries in pursuit of commercial
spectrum global harmonization. We are very pleased that the hard
work of our team has culminated in this success at roughly the same
time across three continents. Each of these countries is a
significant win for us because they represent important
developments for our regulatory efforts – Kenya shows continued
momentum in Africa, Brazil has the largest population and economy
in South America and Canada is a step forward to a harmonized North
American resource.”
Monroe continued, “There are three components of our spectrum
effort – international regulatory, standardization and
commercialization. After the FCC process concluded we immediately
began working on the 3GPP standardization which led to Band 53. We
then moved our efforts to the 5G variant which we completed known
as Band n53. The standardization of the band allows our partners to
add to the ecosystem of devices and infrastructure available which
in turn drives regulatory momentum. All of this progress has led to
increasing commercial interest in the band and we continue to
receive significant support from our growing list of partners.”
INTERNATIONAL SPECTRUM AND REGULATORY UPDATE
With licensing complete in Canada, we continue to make progress
in creating a harmonized North America spectrum resource. Mexico’s
telecom regulator, IFT, also announced recently that it granted
Globalstar’s request to include Band 53 spectrum on its official
regulatory agenda for terrestrial action during 2021, following
similar proceedings recently conducted by IFT for other S-Band
satellite spectrum. Once completed, Mexico would fully unify Band
53 support throughout North America and add another 1.5 billion
MHz-Pops while extending coverage to an incremental 130 million
POPs.
We remain active across Europe and Africa working with numerous
national administrations to authorize Globalstar’s services,
including its terrestrial offering. Botswana was the first such
international administration to do so. Botswana has been followed
by six other African nations – South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique,
Gabon, Rwanda, and, now most recently, Kenya. These countries have
authorized Globalstar to provide terrestrial services without any
power limitations.
In Europe, Globalstar’s request for Band 53 terrestrial service
is currently being considered as a formal technical work item
within CEPT, the pan-European telecom coordination body.
Globalstar’s work item is supported by multiple European
administrations. Most recently, ARCEP, the French telecom
regulator, granted Globalstar a test license to permit Band 53
demonstrations in Paris to further support the technical work being
conducted at CEPT. The successful completion of the CEPT study is a
prerequisite for future terrestrial licensing by European
administrations. Globalstar remains committed to seeing this work
through successfully.
TERRESTRIAL SPECTRUM IMPLEMENTATION UPDATE
Kyle Pickens, Vice President of Strategy at Globalstar and
Partner at Thermo Companies, said “The number of opportunities we
are currently pursuing for our terrestrial spectrum and the support
we are receiving from international regulators and our ecosystem
partners are all moving in the right direction. In the following
paragraphs, we will explain certain current target opportunities
and how the markets for Globalstar’s spectrum assets are developing
generally. These views are enhanced by Thermo's current portfolio
and partners, including FiberLight, Lumen, Pivotal Commware,
Airspan, Recon and XCOM Labs. Nearly all of the Thermo investments
over recent years are meant to directly help Globalstar maximize
its potential which has proven to be a helpful strategy thus
far.”
Globalstar passed an important milestone recently when the New
York Power Authority announced they are trialing Band 53 in their
new private wireless network. We believe our spectrum is
well-suited for their applications and are hopeful that Band 53
will ultimately be chosen within this new network. The utility
industry is a logical early adopter of private wireless networks
because they can leverage their already substantial infrastructure
and require high levels of security and reliability. In fact, today
we are being actively considered for a large-scale utility project
in the Southwest in which Qualcomm provided helpful analysis for
this project. The utility is trying to consolidate many disparate
networks into a single private network and believes Band 53 could
be a valuable resource.
Shipping, Logistics and Mining are other industries pushing
private wireless networks, LTE now and 5G soon, in an effort to
reduce operating costs and improve efficiencies. We announced last
quarter that Globalstar won a small West Coast port deployment and
are now pursuing a second port opportunity where we expect a trial
to begin in the near-term. This opportunity is with a global
operator who is planning to deploy similar networks, utilizing
Nokia equipment, across their operations in several countries. Only
Globalstar offers the potential for globally harmonized spectrum
for their purposes. We are also working with additional logistics
companies planning to remotely control or fully automate their
equipment. It has been determined by these companies that
unlicensed spectrum is not a reliable enough alternative and they
need to rely on licensed spectrum such as Band 53. Mining
operations are high value, but dangerous, leading companies to
pursue automation where possible. This necessitates reliable,
secure and now more frequently, private wireless connectivity. We
are pursuing Band 53 deployments at mines in both the Western
United States and South Africa. These early private wireless
deployments help push the Band 53/n53 ecosystem forward and
generate cash flow but, importantly, do not foreclose the broader
more traditional spectrum deals which we are pursuing.
In recent weeks several announcements from the major technology
companies have highlighted the value of Globalstar’s collection of
spectrum assets. The Amazon Sidewalk initiative made us return to
Qualcomm’s inside/out small cell analysis which showed that with
household penetration of just 20% in a neighborhood, 96% of data
traffic could be offloaded from the macro network. While a
carrier’s interest in this is fairly obvious, other entrants could
use this model for new applications like security or other IoT
services. This analysis assumed a spectrum resource very similar to
ours and deployment at lower power levels than the levels at which
we are authorized to operate. As compelling as Qualcomm’s analysis
is, it has yet to result in significant deployments for several
reasons. First, this is a logical deployment for cable companies
who are already in most residences, but their wireless ambitions
have not fully matured. Speculation is that they have remained
focused on Wi-Fi due to the lower equipment cost and are currently
pleased to leverage their MVNO relationships. This paradigm may
change soon with expected CBRS deployments by cable companies and
lower cost 5G equipment driven by ORAN initiatives. We also expect
Pivotal Commware’s new repeater technology to drive greater
competition for the home broadband business from the wireless
carriers with mmWave spectrum like Verizon’s.
Brian Deutsch, CEO of Pivotal Commware, said of Globalstar’s
Band n53, “Pivotal is focused on providing solutions that enable
operators to lower TCO and accelerate time-to-market for mmWave 5G
deployment, but our breakthrough Holographic Beam Forming products
include offerings in Globalstar’s Band 53 and C-band spectrum.
Where fiber doesn’t make economic sense to deploy, those with
mmWave spectrum and our smart repeaters are able to reach those
homes or enterprises and compete favorably with cable. Pivotal is
building a US-based global technology company leveraging leadership
in mmWave, but we believe Globalstar’s Band n53 offers a unique and
complementary resource and we look forward to helping them
commercialize this asset alongside our products. This includes
providing private LTE/5G in homes and enterprises where Pivotal
deploys its mmWave network elements.”
Globalstar’s Band n53 with new low-cost smart 5G nodes could
offer any of the fiber-rich mobile network operators, cable
companies or those utilizing new advanced Fixed Wireless Networks
the opportunity to leverage their previous capex to build new 5G
consumer and enterprise networks from the “inside-out.” A recent
report from industry analyst Jonathan Chaplin says that the cable
companies and telcos collectively reach approximately 80 million
households with fiber. AT&T, Verizon and Comcast together reach
just under 50 million households. At an average of 2.5 people per
household, they are connected to approximately 125 million people,
or more than 1/3 of the entire US population. Globalstar’s Band n53
could anchor a new neighborhood and enterprise inside-out 5G
network, increasing the value created from the significant embedded
capital investment in fiber for any or all of these companies. This
could either be done in partnership with one or more of the
existing wireless and fiber companies or with a new disruptor with
established consumer relationships.
While Globalstar’s close partner Airspan was an early leader in
economical small cell deployments through their customers Sprint,
Rakuten and Reliance Jio, Nokia and Qualcomm also recently
announced a new Smart Node portfolio of All-In-One base stations
for 5G indoor use. The platform is designed to deliver ubiquitous
indoor 5G coverage for residential and enterprise networks. As with
Airspan, these new 5G Smart Nodes are meant to offer flexibility at
an unmatched price point.
One obstacle to the commercial deployment of densification of
networks with traditional small cells has been that with increased
density there are too many overlapping cells and cell boundaries
leading to diminishing returns as the noise floor at the cell edges
increases. We are working closely with the XCOM Labs team, founded
by the former leadership of Qualcomm, to implement innovative
technical solutions to these issues. They are developing a
Distributed Unit which addresses these interference and related
issues, resulting in a material improvement in capacity from n53
(in certain environments as much as 5x-10x). We are working closely
with XCOM Labs on potential deployments for Band n53 in dense small
cell environments where the increase in capacity is most
meaningful.
Paul Jacobs, Founder & CEO of XCOM Labs said, “Future
wireless networks will be increasingly dense to provide the
capacity and latency required of 5G and eventually 6G applications.
Globalstar’s spectrum resources, Band n53 now and potentially
C-Band later, offer XCOM Labs the opportunity to roll out a global
strategy with a significant competitive advantage over our
competition.”
In summary, Globalstar has made progress in better positioning
the spectrum asset to be commercially available with great partners
that are at the cutting edge of wireless technologies. They see
value in the resource and we obviously agree.
About Globalstar, Inc. Globalstar is a leading provider
of customizable Satellite IoT Solutions for customers around the
world in industries such as oil and gas, transportation, emergency
management, government, maritime and outdoor recreation. A pioneer
of mobile satellite voice and data services, Globalstar solutions
connect people to their devices and allow businesses to streamline
operations providing safety and communication and enabling mobile
assets to be monitored remotely via the Globalstar Satellite
Network. The Company's Commercial IoT product portfolio includes
industry-acclaimed SmartOne asset tracking products, Commercial IoT
satellite transmitters and the SPOT® product line for personal
safety, messaging and emergency response, all supported on SPOT My
Globalstar, a robust cloud-based enhanced mapping solution.
Completing the satellite product suite are Duplex satellite data
modems, the innovative Sat-Fi2® Satellite Wi-Fi Hotspot, and
Sat-Fi2® Remote Antenna Station with all product solutions offering
a variety of data service plans. Learn more at Globalstar.com.
Note that all SPOT products described in this press release are
the products of SPOT LLC, which is not affiliated in any manner
with Spot Image of Toulouse, France or Spot Image Corporation of
Chantilly, Virginia.
Safe Harbor Language for Globalstar Releases This press release
contains certain statements that are “forward-looking statements”
within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on current
expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and
uncertainties which may cause actual results to differ materially
from the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements,
such as the statements regarding our expectations with respect to
the pursuit of terrestrial spectrum authorities globally, future
increases in our revenue and profitability, the impact on our
business due to unexpected events such as the COVID-19 coronavirus,
and other statements contained in this release regarding matters
that are not historical facts, involve predictions. Any
forward-looking statements made in this press release are believed
to be accurate as of the date made and are not guarantees of future
performance. Actual results or developments may differ materially
from the expectations expressed or implied in the forward-looking
statements, and we undertake no obligation to update any such
statements. Additional information on factors that could influence
our financial results is included in our filings with the
Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Report on
Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on
Form 8-K.
View source
version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201105006266/en/
Investor Contact Information: Denise Davila
investorrelations@globalstar.com
Globalstar (AMEX:GSAT)
Historical Stock Chart
From Aug 2024 to Sep 2024
Globalstar (AMEX:GSAT)
Historical Stock Chart
From Sep 2023 to Sep 2024