AccelerComm recently hosted a joint webinar with mobile industry analysts CCS Insight, looking at 5G NTN Direct-to-Device (D2D). The highly engaged audience of satellite industry attendees benefitted from a comprehensive overview from a user and industry perspective, of the key drivers that are shaping the market, and the state of the underlying technology across both user equipment and networks.
CCS Insight Principal Analyst Luke Pearce and Research Analyst Joe Gardiner covered the current state of satellite offerings from mobile operators around the globe, the market opportunity and how this is set to evolve over the coming years. AccelerComm’s Founder & CTO, Professor Rob Maunder, provided an in-depth briefing that both set out the state of 3GPP standards today and the future roadmap, as well as the various architecture options for mobile satellite.
The full webinar is available here. As a taster, here are 6 key takeaways from the presentation:
1. The market drivers for 5G Satellite are aligning
Operators and equipment vendors are looking for new features to drive competition, revenue and meet coverage requirements. The lower cost of both LEO satellites and launches, and the 3GPP standards both today and across the roadmap are well progressed. There are also increasingly more handsets in the market, due to the availability of chipsets that support NTN services.
2. There is a clear path from initial narrowband to wideband and broadband services
Initial services have been focused on delivering narrowband services such as SMS and SOS or emergency messaging. However, there is a clear evolutionary path to the delivery of wideband (up to 10 Mbps) and eventually broadband (over 10 Mbps), opening up a broad range of potential applications and use cases for both consumers and enterprises.
3. Satellite will deliver 100% outdoor cellular coverage
So-called “not-spots” and coverage dead zones have been a perennial challenge for the mobile industry. 5G satellites will solve this issue, ensuring connectivity even in rural and remote areas where delivering cellular today is not economically viable.
4. There are 330m D2D NTN connections globally, and this is forecast to rise to 925m by 2028
The sizeable number of satellite-enabled mobile devices in 2025 is set to grow rapidly over the coming years, from $2.7billion of revenue in 2025 to $16.8billion by 2028. This growth will be driven by more devices, increased capacity and faster speeds from new constellations opening up new services and applications.
5. Today’s smartphones are future-proofed for tomorrow’s satellite networks
Handsets from Apple, Google, Samsung and others that support 3GPP Release 17 began shipping in 2022 and will be compatible with non-terrestrial networks based on future iterations of the standards including Releases 18, 19 and 20. This backward compatibility ensures that when new constellations launch there will already be a massive user base of devices ready to access them.
6. 3GPP Standards have defined a clear roadmap for 5G NTN
Release 17 provides a baseline that addresses the key challenges of providing coverage from orbit, using 3GPP waveforms to deliver significant improvements over non-standardised NTN. Release 18 allows the network to be upgraded to provide further improvements in coverage and throughput. Whereas Release 19 upgrades will unlock the full power of NTN bringing additional enhancements to coverage and capacity, a seamless user experience will unlock new use cases and revenue streams for forward-thinking operators.
To watch the full webinar and Q&A session, follow this link: Beyond Emergency Messaging: The Road to Advanced Direct-to-Device NTN Services - CCS Insight
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