Next-Gen Globalstar: CEO Paul Jacobs Talks Growth in D2D, IoT, and Satellite/Cellular Convergence

Globalstar has been through a reinvigoration over the past few years through its deal with Apple to provide the satellite capacity for iPhone satellite messaging. After a few years of working together, Apple doubled down on the partnership in 2024, ordering a separate, new constellation from Globalstar in addition to the one already in the works with MDA Space.

Globalstar CEO Paul Jacobs spoke with Via Satellite after the company’s investor day in December as he wrapped up his first full calendar year leading the company. Jacobs digs into how Globalstar’s financial turnaround is fueling the next generation of the company, and where the company is looking to grow beyond its wholesale agreement with Apple, in areas like commercial IoT, government, and blending terrestrial and satellite technologies together.

VIA SATELLITE: In 2024 there was a lot of momentum with the general public understanding the importance of direct-to-device services, especially with the hurricanes in the fall. Globalstar has been enabling this service now for about two years. Do you see the company as a leader in this area?

Jacobs: I definitely see that we are a leader because we have the service running over our constellation. We have validated a particular business model which aligns with the cost-effectiveness and technology flexibility that we have because of the bent-pipe satellites. We validated a lot of things in this area and we can say, ‘We know this, and we can build from here.’

I was on a panel at the Deutsche Bank conference, and there were a lot of people talking about [direct-to-device] in a theoretical sense. But this isn’t theoretical — it’s out there now. We can talk about where we go from here, but there's a model that's validated and the technology works. People are being rescued. We know this works, it's of value now. The question is, where do we head from here? I feel like we have an opportunity to think about that earlier than some other people.

VIA SATELLITE: Globalstar is insulated from asking the end user customer to pay for the satellite messaging service as Apple is providing it to customers for free for now. Do you think that the business model of offering satellite-to-cell through a manufacturer is the easiest way to make it happen?

Jacobs: It’s a known model. Google is also doing the same thing with Pixel. If you have a large base of devices out there, getting people to buy their phone a little bit sooner with a new feature can generate a lot of value.

That model also says that the more effectively you can provide it, the less leverage you have to get off of that base of users. Being able to deliver this capability at low cost is super valuable, it allowed the experiment to happen in a way that was lower stakes. As it’s worked, you see us do another deal with another set of satellites.

Looking forward, I’m not sure that is the same case for broadband. It takes a lot of space resources to deliver higher bandwidth. The satellites often are much bigger, with bigger antennas. I'm not saying it won't happen.

VIA SATELLITE: Where are you in the decision process for manufacturing the second new constellation?

Jacobs: We haven't said anything about who, how many, where, when. At a certain point we will have to make regulatory filings and that’s the timeframe that people would start to see more of those details.

VIA SATELLITE: The service that Globalstar enables is proprietary to the iPhone. Others are looking at standards-based models, based on 3GPP. Is Globalstar interested in standards-based services?

Jacobs: We are definitely looking at it. My team has a lot of experience with 3GPP, we have put a lot of things through the standards. The thing about standards is sometimes they're there to create extra complexity. Or they're there to be backward-compatible with existing modems in the chips. Those are the kinds of things that we look at to decide the path we want to go on, or if there are other things we want to do that are more differentiated. We are in the process of testing and deciding what to do there.

There are some markets where the customer wants standards. It doesn’t have to be 3GPP, there are lots of other ways to standardize. I don't think we would go to a market that asks for standards and try to sell a proprietary system. That's not what people want. It's not like the Qualcomm days where we made our money off of licensing the technology. We're an operator of services. For us to have more chips and devices that support it, that's all good.

VIA SATELLITE: What is the future of Globalstar’s personal communications devices in a world where cell phones are connected?

Jacobs: On the consumer side, we don’t know exactly how that market is going to go. We are making the investments we need to stay in the business, but it's going to be opportunistic. There still exists an opportunity for the standalone devices, but it gets more and more niche. I would argue it's already been relatively niche. We sell satellite messengers to people who have a very specific use case for them, and that may continue to be the case. [There are] behind the scenes developments that we are working on. We'll be able to talk more about that [in 2025].

VIA SATELLITE: With the new constellation for your Apple wholesale agreement, 85 percent of the network capacity is allocated to Apple. What types of services are you exploring for the other 15 percent of the new constellation?

Jacobs: We're watching the consumer retail side. There’s opportunities on the commercial IoT side. At the investor day we showed opportunities like animal tracking that require very long battery life because you are not going to recharge a horse or cow device every day. It requires a small size, low-cost [device] with some degree of reliability, but it's not mission-critical to get every reading. That kind of tracking is clearly an opportunity. There are a lot of things spread out around the landscape that people want to keep track of — 90 percent of data packets over the network are location related. Once we have the two-way system which will go into beta in the first quarter of the new year, then we’ll have more control.

There’s the idea of AI on the edge — monitoring remote assets and alerting when something needs to be looked at more carefully or if you need to get more data back to the center.

Automotive is interesting. We have some longstanding relationships in the industry. It’s the question — does the auto industry see broadband as what they need? How much voice, how much data?

And there’s the government side too. We announced a deal with Parsons and there’s so much interest on the government side because of all of the things going on in the different hotspots of the world and how important drones have become.

VIA SATELLITE: You mentioned auto, and it’s something I am hearing more about in the industry lately. What type of service would you like to see Globalstar enable for car companies?

Jacobs: We have global spectrum and service. Anywhere the car goes, it can be tracked. You don't have to worry that you went from one mobile network operator to another mobile network operator. Simplicity is first and foremost. It's a relatively inexpensive, small device, and it gives you global connectivity.

Now, what do you use connectivity for? Safety and security to start off with. Tracking telemetry, telling people if there's a recall or there's something that needs to be serviced, the car can send information back. You can imagine keys being sent to unlock additional functionality on the car. There are all sorts of things where you create value by having connectivity, even though it’s a relatively small amount of data.

VIA SATELLITE: What do you think it will take for automakers to more widely adopt satellite connectivity?

Jacobs: It’s coming. It takes a while for cars to come to market with their design processes. It’s already clear that there's a benefit. Even when a person has a smartphone that can alert to when there’s a crash — we’ve seen stories of people crashing and the phone connecting to satellite for the SOS message and saving somebody’s life. Maybe the car can have a better antenna. There are a lot of opportunities where having guaranteed connectivity on the car will help.

VIA SATELLITE: Your investor presentation talked about targeting growth in commercial IoT. How do you plan to grow the IoT business?

Jacobs: We've only been selling one-way systems for most of the life of the company. The first thing is to get two-way out there so we'll be at parity with the capabilities that others have had for a long time. We have a lot of capacity on the system. We generally sell through value added resellers. IoT is about selling into various vertical markets. I learned early on in my career that even though you think you know this vertical market and another seems very adjacent, it has its own set of things. The stuff that you think is obvious — somebody already fixed it. It's the things that aren't that obvious that are the problem. You have to really dive in and find the non-obvious thing. We are in the process of doing that with value-added resellers. We will build off of some of the relationships that we have and build new ones.

VIA SATELLITE: Is there an opportunity to bring Globalstar’s terrestrial technologies with band 53 spectrum and XCOM RAN together with the satellite connectivity?

Jacobs: Yes. I would say we have the ingredients for the recipe but we haven’t made the cake yet. This idea of supply chain visibility is really cool. The terrestrial network stuff is applicable to mines and ports and factories and warehouses — places where goods and materials might aggregate. Then the satellite can be used to track it in between. To know where things are in the warehouse, and know where things are when they leave the warehouse. That's a vision of what is possible. Whether we will find a really good business and business partner there remains to be seen. There's some software and partnerships needed to knit it all together. I like to use ideas like that to motivate ourselves to think — If this will be possible, what else do we have to do for the fundamental underpinnings of it?

I did that at Qualcomm, too. We did not invent a lot of the applications but we thought about what might be required by applications and built the fundamental underlying technology for it. That’s what we are doing now. There will be times when we'll be able to climb up the stack a little bit higher and do more of the solution, or we'll stay where we are and we'll work with a partner.

VIA SATELLITE: Do you think Globalstar is a very different company from a couple of years ago? And what can we expect from Globalstar in 2025?

Jacobs: Once the first wholesale deal was done, the company went from having a constellation where the business model wasn't necessarily paying for refreshing that constellation, to being very financially stable and strong. We have not just one new set of satellites, but another constellation beyond that. That puts us in a much stronger position. When you go to an IoT customer, they want to know you're going to be around for the long haul. Our constellation is going to be around for the long haul. We're financially stable. Those things are very important for that kind of a business.

2025 is going to be a lot of execution for our wholesale customer. There's a lot of work to be done there. You’ll see us make progress on the government side. And on the commercial IoT side, we're going to roll out the two-way technology with products showing up toward the end of the year. Consumer retail, we’re still opportunistic. We’ll continue to sell what we have and look at opportunities to do something else beyond that. With XCOM RAN, we expect another order from our big customer.

There are opportunities in 2025 around the wheel of different businesses of the company. Let’s continue to execute and build on what we have done and get our products to market. But also think about what are the innovations for the future to differentiate ourselves? I want to get us into the position of innovator and differentiator. VS