A Year of Momentum
By Don Claussen, President and Chief Executive Officer, ST Engineering iDirect
Across the satellite industry, we have long been targeting an expanded role within the global telecom world.
This year, we saw advances on many fronts: a growing abundance of on-orbit capacity, faster and more efficient capabilities, a stronger commitment to common standards, virtualization proofs of concept, progress on network interoperability, and the ability to provide multi-orbit connectivity.
On a personal level, I accepted the position of President and CEO at ST Engineering iDirect. I have worked with iDirect in different capacities over the years and have long admired the company’s vision and respected its track record of standards-based innovation. I am extremely honoured to lead ST Engineering iDirect – and its customers – into the next chapter of growth.
An Industry Pioneer in Start-Up Mode
In the new space industry, start-up enterprises and new entrants are making waves and grabbing attention. There is a great deal of talent worldwide that is excited about the possibility of a commercial space ecosystem broadly defined as “new space.”
While these new entrants are bringing fresh ideas and new perspectives, new space is being built on the backs of the revered pioneers of this industry.
One of those pioneers is ST Engineering iDirect. We were once a start-up that asked the proactive question: How do we leverage satellites to extend connectivity to everyone who needs it, do it in ways where business growth is economically viable, and provide service reliably?
While we’ve solved a great deal of challenges over the years, we continue to ask this question in new ways. The focus is now on pioneering interoperable solutions that integrate space and terrestrial based communications systems, abstracting network transitions for the end-user, while allowing operators to manage networks at scale.
In this sense, we are now co-innovators with the global telecom industry, dedicated to the same digital transformation journey that mobile operators and cloud innovators have pursued for many years.
An open mindset is the only path to move past our industry’s traditional growth constraints and deliver the proper financial return on strategic space and ground investments.
Responding to Customer Insights
My year began with a worldwide tour of our customers and partners. I heard from the world’s leading satellite operators, major service providers, rising regional operators, and many more. There’s a strong sense of market opportunity, paired with a sense of urgency to advance technology and update business models.
An influx of capacity across all orbits is changing on-orbit economics, with new pricing models driving the emergence of new use cases, and increasing the industry’s total addressable market. New launch capabilities are fuelling this rapid growth in the space segment. Software defined satellites are bringing dynamic capabilities that are highly-flexible and can be reconfigured on demand.
The obsession over speed and efficiency in our sector is transitioning to completely new challenges – ones of virtualization, standardization, orchestration, interoperability, and the unification of technologies to establish one cohesive connectivity landscape.
The message is loud and clear, and is one that ST Engineering iDirect has already embraced - next-generation ground networks must enable seamless integration across networks, provide cost-effective scale on demand, and be significantly easier to deploy and operate.
Embracing Our Key Capabilities
In line with customer meetings, I completed a thorough audit of all ST Engineering iDirect technologies.
In key areas, we made immediate changes to accelerate innovation. This included a decision to move the overwhelming majority of our engineering resources on the final development stretch of our next-generation platform, and to build on the existing strengths of our Velocity system while incorporating key features from our Dialog system.
A closer look at our technology also revealed several fundamental technologies that are more relevant than ever. These include our unparalleled Global Bandwidth Management and Beam Switching capabilities, which enable satellite operators to maximize their satellite capacity by fine-tuning allocation to incredibly diverse SLA (service level agreement) configurations and dynamic bandwidth demands on the ground.
Another example is our Network Management System with its expanding focus on orchestration. At the highest level, our goal is to create a unity of operations and service delivery at the intersection of internal network management, external network integration, and end-user demands. Orchestration is the magic that makes it possible.
Building Up Our World-Class Leadership Team
Another major achievement in 2023 was adding key talent to our already strong leadership team.
Emma Park joined the company as Senior Vice President of Market and Growth Strategy. She is focused on our company’s go-to-market strategy, leveraging our cutting-edge technology to achieve growth across a wide array of market opportunities.
Tim Verschage is onboard as Senior Vice President of Product Strategy and Development to concentrate on ensuring that ST Engineering iDirect technology is aligned in a way that fast-tracks innovation to meet a variety of new satellite applications.
The most recent strategic appointment is Sridhar Kuppanna, who is our new Senior Vice President of Engineering. With over 25 years of experience in managing global R&D teams, driving innovation, and bringing new products to market, Sridhar will focus on the development and delivery of our next generation platform.
Advancing Strategic Partnerships
2023 was also a year of expanding our strategic partnerships and achieving critical proof of concept milestones.
We formed a strategic partnership with Airbus to advance its satellite portfolio by reducing in-orbit costs, time to orbit and delivering flexible on-orbit solutions.
The agreement with Airbus is at the very leading edge of satellite design. We have one of the most innovative satellite companies, working together with ST Engineering iDirect, asking key questions about what features satellites will need, how they need to operate, and what they need to deliver. It’s a true space-to-ground collaborative partnership.
In complementary fashion, we are partnering with another world leader – Microsoft. Our goal is to virtualize satellite ground infrastructure providing a more flexible capability to enable and match the dynamic capabilities of the next generation space segment.
We have been working closely with Microsoft to virtualize our satellite hub and modem baseband capabilities and prove that satellite network architectures can be built with commercial off-the-shelf components that leverage cloud computing to its fullest potential.
Last year, we showcased the demodulation capability of an ST Engineering iDirect virtualized high-speed SCPC (single per channel carrier) modem running as containerized software on a COTS (commercial orbital transportation services) server located on Azure. In May of this year, we took the next step and highlighted virtualization of the modulator capability of the modem running on Azure. We are now ready to migrate our network processing functions to the cloud.
We also continued our work as part of the DIFI Consortium that has developed the DIFI v1.1 standard, supporting the digitization of the interface between modem and RF components. In September, we took part in a DIFI plug fest to gain a better understanding of DIFI compliance and interoperability across the consortium members.
A Renewed Focus for 2024
We have gone through a period of re-evaluation and have established a clear pathway forward that will enable our customers to unlock a larger addressable market. As a result, we have re-focused our vision along three core operating principles:
Standards-Based Innovation: The most significant opportunities to provide worldwide connectivity are achievable only if they interoperate in a global, multi-domain, cloud-enabled, standards-based telecom model. ST Engineering iDirect is dedicated to taking its customers on the same digital transformation journey that mobile operators and cloud innovators have, and continue, to pursue.
Operator Focused: Global satellite operators, regional operators, and large service providers must deploy highly-flexible networks at scale. We will provide our customers with the capabilities required that simplify their operations, reduce their capital and operational expenses, and speed up time to revenue, while providing end-users with increasing levels of control.
Collaboration as the Cornerstone: The challenges of new space are too complex to be solved in isolation. Our vision fosters an environment of collaboration and partnership with global and regional satellite operators, telecommunications companies, technology leaders, and our entire ecosystem.
We All Win Together
This is a time of major change in the satellite industry. Everyone is putting their foot on the pedal to move forward at lightning speed. This is a longer-term game requiring us to work together as an industry.
We are, collectively, at the foundational level of a new era of innovation. But, equally, and maybe even more importantly, an era of integration. We should applaud our breakthroughs and victories as individual companies, but we need to rise and give a standing ovation when we see the ecosystem partnering on industry-level innovation.
There’s no way to build the future of satellite communications without integrating our respective technologies into a shared digital ecosystem. I am looking forward to the point on the timeline when our respective innovation journeys intersect and become one that is interoperable and becomes a fully-integrated member of the global telecom industry.
That’s why I’m excited to be at a company that has been pursuing this vision since day one.
ST Engineering iDirect has always been driven to place connectivity in the hands of anyone and everyone who needs it, no matter where they are or whether they think they can afford it. We advocate for opening markets and fostering competition, for putting promising entrepreneurs into business, and new business models into practice.
The goal for all of us is a universally and equally connected world, with each of us playing a unique role, but with all of us declaring victory.
