Intelsat used to be the global satcom landlord, the one outfit every broadcaster, airline, and government had to pay rent to if they wanted to move bits through space. Born in 1964 as an intergovernmental monopoly, it had the easiest business model imaginable: own the sky, print money. Somehow it still managed to get crushed under its own debt, declare bankruptcy not once but twice, and limp into the 2020s as a kind of orbital retirement home.

The fleet was sprawling but uninspired, a patchwork of GEO assets with a few bright spots like the Epic series that promised high throughput and delivered… just enough to keep the bankers calm. Wholesale video distribution kept the cash flow alive longer than it should have, but cord-cutting was a bullet Intelsat couldn’t dodge. Mobility looked like a savior for a minute, until Starlink showed up with better bandwidth and the marketing subtlety of a jackhammer.

The C-band spectrum auction in the U.S. was a temporary miracle, billions in compensation for clearing spectrum the FCC wanted for 5G. For Intelsat, that was less “growth capital” and more “please the creditors.” It gave them breathing room, but no real future plan. Their pitch was always some version of “hybrid connectivity” and “partnerships,” but it was really just keeping the lights on while waiting for a suitor.

And the suitor finally arrived. SES, long the slightly more disciplined Luxembourg cousin, scooped up Intelsat in 2025 for about $3.1 billion. After years of rumors, half-started merger talks, and the occasional courtroom drama, Intelsat is now officially a SES brand extension. The two companies together now control the largest non-LEO satcom fleet on Earth, a GEO/MEO behemoth that looks formidable on a PowerPoint slide but still has to defend against a pack of low-latency LEO newcomers.

So Intelsat’s legacy is sealed: the company that started as the uncontested king of global space telecom, squandered its monopoly, survived on regulatory scraps and inertia, and finally got absorbed by its closest peer. If history remembers it kindly, it’ll be for being the scaffolding that built the modern satcom industry. If not, it’ll be remembered as a debt-fueled zombie that SES finally put to work.