European Telcos Orange, Telefonica, Liberty, Vodafone & Deutsche Telekom Have No Idea of D2D Market’s Size

By: Peter B. de Selding, Space Intel Report Oct 6, 2026

Originally published by Space Intel Report. Read the original article here.

European telcos Deutsche Telekom, Liberty Mobile, Orange, Telefonica and Vodafone agreed that while they believe in the potential of the satellite direct-to-device (D2D) market, they have no idea how big the market will be or whether it can be profitable.

Some have already teamed up with Starlink Mobile, AST SpaceMobile and Skylo. Vodafone has created Satellite Connect Europe with AST. But they all said they expect to deal with multiple providers and to keep control of their customers regardless of which D2D service they use.

The fact that five or six D2D companies are advancing, plus whatever’s coming from China and India, creates “a bit of oversupply, which is going to put power back into the MNOs’ hands,” said Graham Shaw, vice president of strategy at Liberty Mobile.

In Sept.16 remarks here at World Satellite Business Week (WSBW), organized by Novaspace, the European telcos echoed their US counterparts in saying it’s too soon to forecast whether the billions of dollars invested into D2D space networks is money well spent.

Here are excerpts:

Orange

“This is evolving and we see something coming, so it’s a strategic topic,” said Stéphane Cugnon de Sévricourt, senior vice president at Orange for international structures.

Orange has adopted Skylo’s narrowband D2D messaging service, which uses capacity leased on existing geostationary satellites. The Skylo service is offered to Orange customers free of charge until the end of this year, after which ti will be an option priced at 5 euros ($5.70) per month. For now it is limited to Google Pixel phones.

“Critical for us is to have local customer data. Some constellations have vertical solutions, but we need to have data localized in France and Europe.”

Telefonica

“We have to get to a sustainable business model, a partnership where each does its best,” said Jesús Millón Millán, Telefonica’s head of strategic alliances and business development. “The satellite operator provides satellite infrastructure and global coverage, the MNO does service management, local regulatory matters and the creation of the local business.”

Monetization of the business? “In the short term, it’s going to be complicated to think you can monetize it. We continue to have issues with coverage. The key is that the customer buys a service that is agnostic to the technology.”

Millón said it’s not clear how many D2D satellite providers can survive. “It’s like in-flight connectivity. The market is merging into two or three players. It will go in this direction.”

Liberty Mobile

Liberty has launched Starling Mobile in the United Kingdom, but given the terrestrial mobile coverage in the UK, Netherlands and Belgium, “D2D is nice to have, not a must-have,” said Graham Shaw, Liberty’s vice president of strategy.

“For us, the biggest stumbling block is the massive uncertainty about customers’ willingness to pay for these services. [Terrestrial mobile monthly service revenue] has been flat, and there is competition from” mobile virtual network operators.

“There will be a long list of D2D providers, five or six, and its still to be determined if they survive, so there is a bit of oversupply, which is going to put power back into the MNOs’ hands. Prices need to reflect the level of incremental coverage, and there is a lot less than in America or Africa.”

Vodafone Group

Tim Boddy, Vodafone’s director of ventures, said the company created Satellite Connect Europe with AST SpaceMobile to create the scale necessary for a viable D2D business.

He said public-sector uses including emergency services could be a big opportunity.

On the alliance with AST: “We don’t have just one supplier for anything. We are committed to our aST partnership but there will be multiple suppliers and[we are] not be locked in. Some sort of switching is possible.

“China will have a competitor, and in India we have seen Reliance [Jio]. Who is going to be the European operator in this game? How quickly this business develops, and how big it is, none of us knows. But I think it’s going to be extremely valuable.”

Deutsche Telekom

D2D is “a complement” to terrestrial service, not the manager of it, said Denis Chahabadi, Deutsche Telekom’s vice president for in-flight and satellite.

“Who owns the customer? For me, [the satellite operators] should integrate into our existing services for a seamless customer experience. We will keep the customer relatinoship as an MNO.

“The goal is to increase the pie,” Chahabadi said. “Cutting it into smaller slices will not work. We need to find use cases and a willingness to pay, maybe from the public sector. We really need to prove whether the markets there for customer to pay for it.”