you can't really compare iridium to purely geostationary operators as a business model, however, something LEO based that support very small L/S-band modems and handheld size terminals, embedded modems is very different than a company that only owns C/Ku/Ka band geostationary satellites and makes most of its revenue from selling transponder kHz.

iridium is truly unique in that in the pre-starlink era it has been literally the only, true global pole-to-pole coverage LEO network. the trade off has been that the original network architecture of it was designed for very low data rates, so just highly compressed voice and low rate data only.

even the second generation iridium network which is now operational is still very limited in IP data rates.

you're still not going to get a starlink terminal to be as compact as a very small iridium modem and L/S-band portable antenna.

Viasat while it has a lot of consumer facing exposure (and contracts to do things like build teleports for the DoD) is not a major player in the market of actually owning geostationary satellites. Look at entities like Intelsat and SES.

Intelsat’s numbers look horrible, and Wikipedia says they recently filed for bankruptcy:

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/INTEQ/intelsat-sa/...

SES SA is doing well, but only a couple years of data:

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/SGBAF/ses-sa/profi...

Several years ago I ensured that nothing in my 401k and other retirement savings plans has any exposure to geostationary owner stock.

I did the same as soon as Starlink launched. I saw it as an existential threat it is to all the Geo operators.

I was headhunted for a SRE position with Viasat last year due to my extensive Satcom background. I noped out as soon as I found out it was Viasat. Not because I dislike them personally, but because I don't want to be laid off next year.

Without going into too much detail I know someone who was headhunted for Telesat's proposed LEO network (too late, too low budget, too little technical clue) and ran away quickly once he had an idea of what he would be getting into.

Make sure Energy Vault (NRGV) is not in there either.

in terms of bandwidth they own more than all those others. it doesn't matter how many satellites you have if the capacity of each is tiny.

I would argue that 25% or so net margin for a decade is a pretty significant sign considering how small their customer base must be and how much expenses they must have.

But yes, I did in fact assume it to be higher.

I see a lot of volatility for Iridium with quite a few years with big losses and zero profit.

Viasat simply has near zero profit margins, and quite a few years with losses.

Inmarsat looks like it has 20% or so profit margin for the last few years, but I could not quickly find more years of data.

Also, I would expect decent (10%+) profit margins for a business with few customers and extremely costly barriers to entry. Both of those factors add to volatility, and investors would require a commensurate return to make it worth investing in.

Iridium apparently had much more expenses for a few years around 2018, possibly mass upgrading their infrastructure, but before that a decade of near constant 20-30% net, recovering again now, unless I'm misreading this data.

The Mar 31, 2022 datapoint is -0.21%.

They do make a good profit in the years they do, but my point is they also have quite a bit of volatility. I would not touch that business without the 10%+ profit margin opportunities.

Definitely agree, I probably wouldn't touch them at this point any more at all.

Was just replying to the notion that this couldn't be artificial highway robbery just because their net margin isn't great. I believe it definitely still can be, because apparently the only way these companies are even in business right now is exactly by highway robbery.

Iridium (and to some extent Inmarsat) are currently in an almost completely different market than Starlink is: They provide safety-of-life certified solutions for maritime, aviation and military customers.

I wouldn't be surprised if equipment and certification costs would dwarf the actual fee charged per month and user in these applications, and the market entry barrier in such highly regulated industries is usually enormous. (It took Iridium a long time to get SOLAS-certified, for example; before that, Inmarsat was the only solution besides HF radio.)

In the market of providing fast, non-safety-critical internet access to remote places however, my guess is that Starlink is going to shake up things significantly.

Large and serious budget offshore applications these days will of course have an Iridium terminal live and on the network, and also a geostationary based VSAT of some sort. Something such as Starlink is meant to take market share from the VSAT.

In some cases it might pay for itself in less than 1 month of service compared to the $/Mbps from the VSAT, using antenna hardware such as this and various vendors' choices of modems (and 3rd party VSAT ISPs that resell transponder kHz and operate teleports).

https://orbit-cs.com/maritime-satcom

Go price what it would cost for 1:1 dedicated monthly recurring billing to have 5 Mbps down x 1 Mbps up DIA service assigned to a medium sized maritime VSAT terminal that roams around the Gulf of Texas... Or even in a 5:1 or worse contended network.

What you'll see is the Iridium of course remains live and on the network and is used for critical voice calls and message and such, while the data network on the ship/offshore oil rig/whatever has a new better DIA path via starlink.

the price looks like highway robbery from the POV of an end user purchaser of "internet by satellite" from a geostationary company, but they do also have extreme operating costs. a company like eutelsat or ses has extreme amounts of funds going out for purchasing satellites and launch services.

it is not like they have an extreme profit margin between their actual operating cost and the cost that a chunk of dedicated 1:1 transponder kHz/MHz (or a whole 36 MHz transponder) can be sold to the end user.

I cannot agree with that characterization. How can a business be a suboptimal or undesirable investment because it does not earn enough profit relative to risk, and simultaneously be committing highway robbery (i.e. charging too high a price for its products/services)?

If anything, it seems like the customers should feel lucky the investors are risking their money on this product/service, and it is being offered at all.

I think there's a misunderstanding. I noted that I wouldn't see these businesses as a good investment any more because of SpaceX and further developments.

I believe they can still commit highway robbery even without their net margins being dramatically high, since highway robbery is exactly what you stated - charging too high a price for its products/services.

Charging "too high a price" is only possible in a monopoly position. Would you argue that any satellite provider has one, at the moment?

For high-bandwidth large-terminal, you have Inmarsat GX, Viasat and various other Ka and Ku band based providers; for safety of life you have Inmarsat and Iridium (except at the poles, where it's Iridium and HF); for land-based tracking, you have Globalstar and Iridium; for handheld telephony, you have Iridium, Inmarsat and Globalstar.

Notably, Starlink also does not look like it will be competing in any of these fields.

> Iridium (except at the poles, where it's Iridium and HF)

a note that part of the DoD iridium market where Iridium was previously the only ultra-high-latitude/polar coverage part is served by the DoD's own molniya orbit satellites which provide full polar coverage. the orbits of these are designed to be at apogee and long dwell time directly above high latitudes.

the DoD is still a big part of iridium's revenue stream in general of course.