High Stakes in High Ground: Can Innovation and Defense Investment Help GEO Compete With LEO?

In The Art of War, Sun Tzu emphasized the value of high ground as a cornerstone of military strategy, “He who occupies the high ground will gain the victory.” A powerful example of this principle is the Battle of Gettysburg. Union forces seized the strategic advantages of defensive high points to repel relentless Confederate assaults. Consequently, securing the high ground shifted the war's trajectory in favor of the Union.

While perceived as outdated, Geostationary Orbit (GEO) is the cosmic high ground. Like the Union strongholds of Gettysburg, GEO represents critical territory, a sovereign domain in space. Anchored to a continuous coverage area, GEO satellites can provide continuous regional coverage in a cost-efficient communications regime.

Unfortunately, the traditional GEO satellite industry has recently faced several significant setbacks: ViaSat-3, the Astranis Arcturus satellite, Intelsat-33e, while Boeing and Airbus could divest their space businesses entirely. Furthermore, the Intelsat/SES and Viasat/Inmarsat mergers are clear markers of market contraction.

Meanwhile, Starlink's revenue has rapidly increased. According to independent estimates, in 2023, Starlink surpassed the annual revenues of SES and Intelsat combined. Compounding the challenge, both SES and Intelsat have begun reselling Starlink services, a troubling development that signals the erosion of GEO operators’ market shares and struggle to remain relevant. These developments led to the question: why does the GEO industry struggle to remain competitive against emerging Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) networks?

Initially, GEO operators dismissed the potential of LEO systems, confidently asserting that "there is no LEO business case that closes." Many assumed Starlink would follow the fate of Iridium, whose ambitious plans ultimately faltered. However, Starlink shattered these expectations by raising over $10 billion in capital funding, enabling it to overcome financial hurdles and scale rapidly. Elon Musk’s cult of personality further fueled Starlink’s meteoric rise, attracting widespread attention and user adoption.

Fueled with that capital, Starlink launched into full vertical integration, resulting in a lower-cost architecture and rapid expansion. Its strategic partnership with T-Mobile positioned Starlink to lead in direct-to-device connectivity, edging closer to becoming the de facto standard and even outpacing the deployment of 5G NTN standards.

For decades, the GEO industry operated in an oligopolistic environment where customers had few alternatives. Trapped in their own cultural orbit, GEO operators, accustomed to slow-moving deployment cycles, watched as SpaceX rocketed ahead. With little hesitation, customers swiftly transitioned to LEO solutions when a viable, cheaper alternative emerged.

The GEO industry’s early success directly stifled innovation. Most advancements in satcom, until recently, have been incremental rather than transformative, in addition to the industry moving according to its own slower orbit. The absence of groundbreaking innovations — 10X performance improvements or cost reductions — has left GEO systems vulnerable to Starlink’s aggressive pricing. It’s a textbook example of Andrew Grove’s strategic inflection point, where survival hinges on the ability to quickly and decisively adapt to market changes.

However, while LEO boasts over 9,200 active satellites with many thousands more planned, LEO's rapid expansion exposes significant challenges that demand attention. This congestion has led to an alarming number of collision-avoidance maneuvers, with Starlink satellites alone performing nearly 50,000 maneuvers over six months in 2023. The growing density of LEO, with around 28,000 cataloged objects, makes the Kessler Syndrome — a cascade of space debris collisions annihilating LEO — an increasingly imminent threat, transforming it from a theoretical possibility to a tangible "when" rather than "if" problem.

Therefore, a weak GEO industry is more than just a professional concern — it is a national security risk for the United States. As GEO satellites exceed their usable life and move into junk orbits and operators flounder, foreign adversaries will happily ascend the cosmic high ground. Erosion of this stronghold threatens both commercial and defense interests, emphasizing the urgent need for transformative innovation in the GEO sector.

To avoid being maneuvered into junk orbit, the GEO industry must prioritize advancements that yield 10X or greater system improvements, specifically those that increase spectrum efficiency, enabling operators to support more users and/or higher throughputs than competitors. Free space optical communication systems — promising to deliver terabit-level throughputs — would be a huge leap forward in ground-to-space and space-to-ground throughputs for GEO.

Additionally, GEO must differentiate by providing flexible services. Unlike Starlink, which thrives on vertical integration to deliver low-cost, uniform products at scale, GEO operators can distinguish themselves by offering flexibility. For example, operators can provide the Department of Defense with unique capabilities, such as LPI/LPD (Low Probability of Intercept/Detection) waveforms or other diverse services.

Fortunately, other transformative technologies are emerging to support this evolution at the ground segment. The Digital IF Interoperability (DIFI) standard provides a protocol for digitized IF signal transport, significantly reducing operational costs, enhancing ground flexibility and opening various new applications. Building on DIFI, the Waveform Architecture for Virtualized Ecosystems (WAVE) consortium’s efforts to standardize architectures that enable waveform virtualization across common hardware platforms or cloud-based instances like AWS’s F2 can drive major efficiencies, scalability, and flexibility.

Last year, the Department of Defense published its "Commercial Space Integration Strategy," emphasizing the critical need for hybrid commercial satcom and military satcom capabilities. The strategy outlines three key benefits: cost savings through shared infrastructure, enhanced resilience from highly adaptable, diversified networks with expanded global coverage, and rapid innovation enabled by leveraging commercial satellites for faster integration and deployment of new technologies. In 2020, the DoD’s Fighting Satcom Vision shared the need for agile terminals and flexible ground segments capable of adapting to evolving mission requirements.

To support this vision for satcom, the Department of Defense must continue to be the catalyst for the GEO industry to avoid irrelevancy. Under the current financial pressures and captivity of cultural orbits, the GEO industry is, unfortunately, risk-averse. With proper funding directed toward companies interested in developing transformational technologies, such as those previously mentioned, the industry will quickly respond. A clear example of this responsiveness is the rapid progress of the Enterprise Digital IF Multi-carrier modem program, the DoD's first DIFI modem, which has significantly advanced the adoption of the DIFI standard.

Similarly, targeted funding for innovations that enhance spectral efficiency and network flexibility — such as through the WAVE standard — is essential. By investing in these areas, the DoD can shape the GEO industry toward a competitive and relevant future, meeting commercial and military needs with cutting-edge technologies and robust operational capabilities.

The Department of Defense has a unique opportunity to shape and revitalize the GEO industry by supporting research and development in these core technologies. With targeted investments, the DoD can ensure that the GEO sector not only regains its competitive edge but also secures its role as a critical component of national security and the global satcom market.

Dr. Juan Deaton is the WAVE Consortium's Executive Director, providing strategic technical guidance to the board while championing industry partnerships to drive satcom standards forward. He also serves as Chief Alignment Officer at Alignment Consulting and Engineering, helping clients with business and technology development strategies. With a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Virginia Tech, Juan has extensive experience in satcom, including roles on the DIFI Consortium as a board director and contributor to the DIFI V1.1 specification. When not at work, Juan focuses on raising his four children and spending time with his wife in Moscow, Idaho, USA.