LIVE FROM MWL UNWRAPPED: Tarun Gupta, co-founder of non-terrestrial network (NTN) player Skylo Technologies (pictured), revealed the company will announce partnerships with more tier-1 operators “shortly”, adding to a Verizon deal scheduled to see initial services launch in Q1 2025.

On the partnership with Verizon, announced in August this year, Gupta said the US operator recognised it needed a complementary consumer service to its network mix, and it had now completed integration work to introduce a location-sharing and an emergency message offering.

“We’re doing our testing now and my understanding is they will be launching live in Q1 of next year with flagship phones that are launching, as well as those phones that are already in the market,” revealed Gupta.

Verizon said when striking the deal it would be the first operator in the world to commercially launch supplemental smartphone connectivity, using Skylo Technologies’ NTN and the first to launch a commercial direct-to-device (D2D) offering.

Gupta hinted that more deals are on the horizon, stating other tier-1 operators would be added to its roster of partners in the short-term.

On the wider D2D market, Gupta said more devices which are NTN compatible will launch imminently, allowing users to access mobile and satellite networks.

He also expects more partnerships on the ecosystem side.

“You’ll see us continue to expand in all directions,” Gupta stated.

The company has already struck chipset deals with Qualcomm and MediaTek, and Google for the Pixel 9 smartphone.

Competition
Addressing the company’s broader business model, Gupta said Skylo Technologies operates as a wholesale service provider to operators and it wants to be complementary to what is already on offer.

“We recognise that going directly to consumer is probably not what we want to do. We recognise that consumers have deep, long, lasting relationships with their mobile operator and we want to add an NTN plan to that.”

During the interview, Gupta also maintained there is still a lot of growth potential in satellite and NTN despite the vast competition that exists in the space, with Skylo Technologies competing with players including SpaceX, Lynk Global, AST SpaceMobile and more.

Interestingly, Skylo Technologies does not own or operate any of its own satellites and instead has opted to partner with established players in the space to launch (including satellite providers such as Viasat and Ligado Networks for spectrum).

“We recognised we could take advantage of existing infrastructure and existing expertise, which made a lot of sense.”