Germany’s Deutsche Telekom, France’s Orange, Spain’s Telefonica and UK’s Vodafone said the bid would ensure ‘responsible European governance of key space infrastructure’.
Four of Europe’s largest telecommunications companies are exploring a joint bid to provide satellite mobile services to the region, in a partnership that could rival Starlink’s dominance over bloc’s satellite spectrum.
Germany’s Deutsche Telekom, France’s Orange, Spain’s Telefonica and the UK-headquartered Vodafone said that the bid would ensure “responsible European governance of key space infrastructure”.
The initiative supports the European Commission’s “ambition to strengthen Europe’s sovereignty, security and resilience in critical connectivity infrastructure,” a joint statement issued yesterday (19 October) read.
Network operators will be offered “open and non-discriminatory access” to sell their services, which would, in turn, “expand consumer choice” across the region, it added. Talks of a joint bid were first reported by Bloomberg in September.
The letter of intent comes after the EU, earlier this year, adopted a new proposal to select mobile satellite services providers who will be authorised to use the 2GHz frequency band beyond 2027, when the current licences expire. These licences are currently held by two US companies – Viasat and EchoStar.
The companies are planning to bid for a share of airwaves that the EU has planned to reserve for local operators in order to strengthen home-grown satellite communication capabilities.
As part of the initiative, the operators said they would coordinate functions and establish ground network infrastructure, while a third-party satellite provider will be chosen for the constellation. As noted by the Financial Times (FT), this could become an issue for the bid, with most satellites in the region being operated by US or Chinese companies.
SpaceX – which currently provides its satellite broadband to much of Europe with Starlink – has pushed back on the Commission’s plans to boost satellite sovereignty in the region. The company already has a partnership with Deutsche Telekom to provide direct-to-device services in the EU – something it cannot do independently.
In June, it said that the proposal could create “global interference problems, including to emergency services like those in Ukraine”.
The EU’s proposal, meanwhile, has also drawn a sharp response from the US. In an interview with the FT earlier this month, US ambassador to the EU, Andrew Puzder said that European companies would face “devastating” retaliation if the bloc continued to restrict US rivals.
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