Between Feb 13 and Feb 20, the industry kept loudly declaring it’s building the future while quietly negotiating the paperwork that allows the future to legally exist. The result was a week where LEO kept grabbing the spotlight, but MEO and GEO still did the grown-up work in the background, paying the bills and absorbing the blame.
And yes, Direct-to-Device (D2D) continued its transformation from “cool demo” to “please don’t call it roaming, we’re begging you” policy project. The tone shifted: less breathless futurism, more sober governance. Which is how you know it’s getting real. Or at least getting funded.
Europe’s LEO “counterweight” more serious, more maritime
On Feb 13, Eutelsat published its second quarter and first half FY 2025–26 results, and the subtext was basically: “Yes, the old video world is fading; no, we are not going quietly; also, please look at the LEO line items.”
If you’ve followed Eutelsat’s arc since the OneWeb combination, LEO is the strategic identity. Reuters’ Feb 13 coverage captured the political-economic framing plainly. France-backed Eutelsat positioned as Europe’s meaningful LEO rival as OneWeb revenue growth offsets legacy headwinds. That story matters because the market is starting to price sovereignty as a product feature rather than a patriotic donation.
Then, as if on cue, the maritime channel showed up with hardware schedules and fleet counts. While the Financial Times on Feb 20 talked about CMA CGM testing Starlink against Eutelsat/OneWeb, the more “originating-company” version of the story was already sitting in plain sight as a joint announcement. CMA CGM and Marlink and Eutelsat’s ecosystem publicly described rolling out OneWeb LEO connectivity across more than 300 vessels, framed as a multi-orbit, multi-technology architecture integrated by Marlink’s platform.
The satcom implication is deliciously practical. Maritime VSAT buyers are buying resilience, coverage, and commercial leverage. A two-year competitive evaluation between Starlink and OneWeb on a global container fleet is about negotiating power. This is the part of the movie where the empire discovers the rebels aren’t just scrappy; they have procurement departments. The winner isn’t necessarily the network with the best median throughput, but the one that integrates cleanly into hybrid architectures, plays nicely with cybersecurity requirements, and doesn’t turn into a geopolitical headache the moment a headline breaks.
D2D grows up in the UK: Ofcom turns “someday” into “25 February”
The week’s most concrete D2D step was regulatory rather than orbital. Ofcom’s final regulations for authorising satellite direct-to-device services in mobile spectrum bands landed with the kind of dry certainty that makes innovators twitch and lawyers exhale. The document states the Wireless Telegraphy (Direct to Device satellite communications) (Exemptions) Regulations 2026 will come into force on Feb 25, 2026, and it explains the mechanism for varying mobile licences to include the relevant schedule for D2D operation.
The real shift is that Ofcom is building an operational pathway for MNOs to add satellite components in specific frequency contexts, rather than treating D2D as a one-off stunt. The Ofcom consultation page (which references approval of a licence variation request from Telefónica UK / VMO2 and the making of the regulations) ties it together
This is an early signal of how European regulators may thread the needle between enabling innovation and avoiding a spectrum free-for-all before WRC-27 resolves deeper harmonisation questions. In other words, Ofcom is trying to be the calm adult at the table while everyone else is doing the “but my constellation is special” dance. That’s why this kind of regulation can end up influencing device makers, payload integrators, and NTN partners who need clarity on what “allowed” looks like in the real world, not in marketing.
And the risk angle is real. Regulatory green lights can also create a false sense of readiness. D2D is still constrained by link budgets, device antenna limitations, network orchestration complexity, emergency-service expectations, and the uncomfortable fact that “it worked in a demo” is not the same as “it works in a winter storm when everyone’s trying at once.” But as a policy milestone inside your window, this is one of the week’s clearest moments.
Spectrum diplomacy week
From Feb 16 to Feb 20, Athens hosted the ITU Regional Radiocommunication Seminar for Europe (RRS-26-Europe). If that sounds like the least exciting thing imaginable, congratulations: you’ve identified the exact machinery that makes the exciting things possible.
Here’s the subtle industry insight: as LEO/NGSO systems scale, “coordination competence” becomes a competitive differentiator. The winners are those who can file spectrum positions in ways that survive interference disputes and the rising administrative load of mega-constellations. Seminars like this are where regulators, operators, and national administrations align on the common language of compliance. It’s also where smaller players can either learn the rules of the game or get quietly written out of it by complexity.
Tie this back to D2D and to “NGSO-as-infrastructure.” D2D service models drag mobile-spectrum assumptions into satellite coordination reality. That means the ITU’s radiocommunication literacy is becoming relevant not just to traditional satellite regulatory teams, but increasingly to mobile operators and national telecom authorities who historically lived in a terrestrial universe. The industry risk is that policymaking lags technical deployment and creates mismatches that get litigated via interference fights. The opportunity is that mature coordination norms reduce the chance that space becomes the wireless equivalent of everyone shouting in the same crowded room.
Starlink’s drumbeat, Vietnam’s “yes,”
and the quiet globalization of LEO.
On the “LEO is inevitable” front, SpaceX’s public-facing launch tempo continued to look like a metronome. SpaceX’s upcoming launches page listed Starlink missions on Feb 19, 2026 and Feb 20, 2026 (Pacific Time windows), which in itself is a signal that the brand treats frequent deployment as normal, almost boring.
But the deeper story inside your window is market access and national licensing. Reuters reported on Feb 14 that Vietnam granted approvals/licenses for Starlink to provide fixed and mobile satellite internet services and to use radio frequencies/equipment, referencing state media and the Ministry of Science and Technology licensing posture.
Why does that matter beyond the obvious “new country”? Because it shows how LEO operators are increasingly negotiating geopolitical context. Market entry is becoming a blend of spectrum dynamics and the local government’s appetite for foreign critical infrastructure. In some regions, licensing is basically a technical formality. In others, it’s a strategic alignment decision. The satcom industry is sliding into infrastructure that nations want, but also want to control.
There’s also a competitive implication for every other LEO/NGSO player. When Starlink gets a regulatory nod, it raises the bar for service expectations and compresses the time window for rivals to position alternatives. That means they need sharper differentiation, typically via sovereign assurances or vertical specialization. Starlink can be the default. Defaults are powerful. The rest of the industry has to sell reasons to not accept the default, which is harder than selling “internet, but from space.”
The “not just operators” week
While the megaconstellation soap opera dominates attention, the non-mega players quietly did the things that keep balance sheets alive. On Feb 17, Iridium announced it would participate in investor conferences, with webcasts and recordings accessible through its investor channels.
This may look like routine IR choreography, but Iridium’s value proposition sits in that increasingly important “reliable global L-band + safety + PNT-adjacent” space, which becomes more valuable as everyone remembers that Ku/Ka throughput doesn’t automatically equal resilience. Where maritime, aviation, defense, and critical infrastructure customers are building multi-orbit architectures, Iridium often plays the role of the dependable secondary link that becomes the primary link the moment something weird happens.
Globalstar, meanwhile, published a Feb 19 notice that it will announce Q4 and full-year 2025 results on Feb 27, 2026, including call details. It’s not a product announcement, but it’s an official marker of where investor attention is going next, especially with D2D narratives swirling.
Then there’s defense ground segment demand, which refuses to cool off. Gilat posted a Feb 17 press release about receiving an order valued over $16 million to supply SATCOM systems to a European Ministry of Defense, explicitly framed as expanding presence in European sovereign defense programs.
As LEO gets commoditized for broadband, differentiation increasingly shifts to integration, security, deployability, and mission tailoring. That’s why ground segment primes and modem/terminal vendors are doing so well. When everyone can buy capacity, the competitive edge becomes how fast you can operationalize it under constraints. The defense market, especially in Europe right now, is paying for “sovereign-ish” capability stacks, which often means a mixture of trusted vendors and controlled networks. GEO, MEO, and LEO all play roles, but the procurement logic is converging on hybrid systems designed to degrade gracefully under stress. This is the industry learning, in real time, that resilience is a design requirement.
the future is slightly less smug than the brochures
By Feb 20, the week’s pattern was clear. The satcom industry is moving from orbit-centric bragging to system-centric reality. LEO is still the star of the show, but it’s increasingly being cast into ensembles where MEO provides high-quality middle-ground performance, GEO provides scale and broadcast stability (and in many regions, the practical backbone), and D2D is being shaped more by regulators and mobile operators than by satellite press releases.
Regulators are building pathways, operators are signing fleet-scale deployments, and the ecosystem is learning to talk about resilience like adults. The sarcastic part is that we’ll still see plenty of announcements that sound like “we have reinvented connectivity” when what they actually mean is “we successfully completed the paperwork and did not crash into anyone.”
But honestly, in 2026, that’s progress.
