Customers buy outcomes, not orbits

It's been quite a fortnight for anyone who cares about connectivity.

First, SpaceX agreed to acquire low-band spectrum in the US so it can pair its satellites with a terrestrial network. Then this week Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone announced a different approach: exploring a joint bid for satellite spectrum, with open access for MNOs and a satellite partner providing the space capability. Their model explicitly combines satellite innovation with existing networks, customer reach, security, resilience and European sovereignty.

Let's be clear about what's happening. SpaceX doesn't just want to fill gaps in carrier coverage. It wants to be a carrier, and it has said so openly. That's disruption, and the markets reacted accordingly. The timing of the European operator ‘s response is not co-incidental – it is a measured response clearly signaling a need to remain in control of their own destiny.

Disruption is a symptom, not the cause

Disruptors succeed where incumbents leave gaps. And Starlink is betting on not just current but also future gaps.

Customers want connectivity that just works, everywhere. For years, combining satellite and terrestrial networks has been slow, bespoke and expensive. Every partnership needs custom integration. Every new service needs months of work across incompatible systems.

A company that owns both terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks doesn't face those barriers. They can offer an integrated, seamless end-to end experience for customers. In the final analysis, it is about the end-customer experience, and there are other ways to secure it.

Nobody buys an access technology

The rancher checking livestock sensors miles beyond the last tower doesn't care whether the signal comes from a satellite or ground station. Neither does the drone operator inspecting a power line, the port running autonomous cranes, or the utility protecting critical infrastructure through a storm.

They care about outcomes. When we talk to customers, especially enterprises, the same six come up again and again:

• Coverage: connectivity, everywhere
• Performance: guaranteed when it matters most
• Reliability: proven, every time
• Sensing: the network sees it first
• Intelligence: AI where the decision happens
• Protection: safe, sovereign, secure.

Whoever delivers those outcomes most seamlessly wins the customer. It doesn't matter who owns which spectrum, or indeed the end-to-end technology infrastructure.

The AI era raises the stakes

Companies like Starlink are betting that physical AI is arriving fast: autonomous vehicles, drones, robots, smart infrastructure. All of it needs connectivity that is assured, protected and proven, wherever the machine happens to be. The assumption is that soon AI agents will buy connectivity themselves, as guaranteed outcomes, machine to machine.

That's a far bigger market than today's mobile subscriptions. It will go to whoever can deliver outcomes seamlessly across every domain, on the ground and in orbit. An open ecosystem of carriers and satellite providers can grow that market faster than any single player. But only if the ecosystem moves at the speed of the disruptor.

The best defense is openness

Carriers have strengths no newcomer can easily copy: dense terrestrial networks, deep spectrum holdings, operational scale, and trusted relationships with consumers, enterprises and governments. But those strengths only count if carriers can combine them with satellite as easily as a vertically integrated player can.

That means breaking down the barriers carriers control:

• Make satellite part of the product. Build it into core offers, not side promotions for dead zones.
• Make partnering fast. Integrating a satellite partner should take weeks, not years of bespoke work.
• Work with multiple partners. Open, standard interfaces let carriers work with several satellite providers and avoid dependence on any one of them.
• Run it as one network. Assure, bill and settle across space and ground as a single service, so the customer sees one experience.

Carriers that do this will turn satellite from a threat into an extension of their own proposition. Carriers that wait will find the outcome customers want delivered by someone else.

Protection has to be built in

Governments, emergency services and regulated industries need security, resilience and sovereignty they can verify, whoever owns the spectrum or the satellites. Open, standards-based integration makes that possible across multiple providers and markets. A single closed platform, however capable, can't offer that choice.

What we're doing about it

At TM Forum our goal is to help the industry become AI-native and move from selling access to delivering outcomes. We have a long history of members building common reference architectures, standards, open API and components. We can apply the exact same approach to the integration challenge between satellite and terrestrial operators.

Through our Missions, members are building Autonomous Flows: end-to-end processes that take a customer's intent and deliver an assured outcome without manual intervention. AI-Native ODA is the open architecture underneath, so those flows work across companies and domains rather than inside one company's walls.

We have launched the Satellite Open Digital Architecture (ODA), member-led collaboration initiative to develop these architectures. It sets common APIs, data models and operational processes so carriers and satellite providers can order, assure, bill and settle services together, with each free to compete on technology and service.

Our members have already proven key pieces in Catalyst projects, from orchestrating hybrid satellite and ground networks to AI-driven switching between them. The aim is simple: make combining satellite and terrestrial services as easy for an open ecosystem as it is for a vertically integrated player.

An open challenge

Disruption is coming either way. The question for operators is whether they sit back or set the pace.

To operators: break down the barriers, and make satellite part of what you deliver. To satellite providers: an open ecosystem gives you access to customers, markets and use cases you could never reach alone. To both: come and build the shared foundations with us.

The customer will reward whoever delivers the outcome. Let's make sure the whole industry is in a position to do that.