Startup Skylo is forging ahead with its satellite Internet of Things (IoT) projects and launching a direct to device (D2D) service in North America, after pulling in $37 million in venture funding from BMW, Intel and Samsung in February this year. Key to its plan for the future is 3GPP’s 5G non-terrestrial network (NTN) specification in Release 17.
About 90% of the chipset manufacturers are now implementing Release 17, Skylo co-founder Tarun Gupta claimed on a phone call with Fierce. “We’re starting to see devices come out in Q4 of this year, ramping up in the first quarter of next year,” Gupta said.
Chipmakers like MediaTek, Sony Semiconductor and Qualcomm have developed Release 17 compliant chipsets. Release 17 was initially frozen in March 2022, and it was followed by Release 18 earlier this year.
Qualcomm is spending on 4G IoT technology, as well as 5G, having just acquired IoT chip designer Sequans’ 4G technology for an undisclosed sum. Qualcomm is thinking about IoT – and satellite enabled IoT – as a major market sector, Skylo’s Gupta noted.
I spy a cow
The Skylo co-founder tells us that the firm is already supporting cellular IoT projects, such as cow tracking. He said that the company is working with three or four different cattle tracking ventures.
Tracking is one of the most promising satellite IoT projects currently. “Where’s my cow, and that’s obviously what it is,” commented Gupta. He noted that Skylo is starting to see other features added to the tracking ventures. This includes tracking what the cows are eating and whether they are in estrus.
Gupta said that other IoT areas that will be served by Skylo are in the maritime and energy sector. He claimed that the 5G NTN system needs less money, weight and power than traditional satellite or ultra high frequency (UHF) systems.
The co-founder said that the cellular satellite IoT and D2D infrastructure is just starting to pick up speed now. He compares this with five generations of terrestrial cellular technology being in place.
TMF Associates analyst Tim Farrar notes that several other companies have struggled with providing cellular satellite services. That’s because to be successful, such ventures require a large number of users who have a use for low bandwidth connections that transmit data infrequently.
Farrar notes that Swiss satellite firm Astrocast just took the company private again – and is looking for investors, according to the CEO. Meanwhile SpaceX-owned Swarm has stopped its IoT service to focus on a D2D strategy, although the analyst noted the latter could also be used for IoT.
Skylo said that it uses satellites from Viasat, Ligado Networks, TerreStar and Echostar to provide its services. And according to Farrar, that could prove key for the company. The fact that Skylo doesn’t have the expense of putting up its own satellite constellation – unlike Astrocast, Sateliot and others – could be a boon, he said.
“IoT is a very niche market in terms of what grows and what doesn’t,” he noted. “We’ve seen lots of success in personal tracking, not so much in other applications. Globalstar has been talking about tracking cattle for 10 years!”
Chris Gray, VP of emerging technologies at Globalstar, said in 2020 that cattle tracking and agriculture would become a important area for Globalstar over the next few years. At an investor conference in May, Globalstar indicated the connected agriculture segment (which, yes, includes its livestock tracking offering) represents a $1-$2 billion total addressable market between 2025 and 2035.
So no doubt, we’ll soon be seeing more about standard satellite technology, along with 4G/5G IoT cellular satellite services going forward.
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