Credit: Viasat November 2025 investor presentation
LA PLATA, Maryland — Viasat Inc. said it’s in discussions with multiple regional satellite operators with mobile satellite service (MSS) spectrum that want the advantages of a global constellation that they cannot afford on their own, with the guarantees of sovereignty that their governments demand.
The thesis of Viasat’s Equatys joint venture with Space42 of the United Arab is to offer these operators the efficiencies of a global network without surrendering national control of how the spectrum is used in their territories.
Viasat and Space42, which operates the Thuraya L-band mobile satellite service provider, whose coverage includes Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, announced in September that their would pool their combined 100 MHz of MSS spectrum into a low-orbit constellation they plan to build. The two companies want smaller MSS operators to join as part of a global direct-to-device (D2D) offer that they say offers advantages over SpaceX’s Starlink.
In a Nov. 7 investor call, Viasat Chief Executive Mark Dankberg gave what may be his clearest argument for enticing smaller MSS operators.
“Really influencing these [D2D networks] is being able to make connections to cell phones at the power levels and the gains in the space sentiment that enable closing those links” between the satellite and the standard smartphone or other device.
“Those are generally done by global constellations,” Dankberg said. “But a number of operators… are only regional. Having shared infrastructure is a natural way… to make that infrastructure available to regional players who otherwise would only be able to make use of that infrastructure a small fraction of the time.
“Operators would essentially pay fore the service that they can use in their region. They wouldn’t be paying for dead time over other places. By having a cooperative, those infrastructure costs are shared. There are regional operators who are really interested in having sovereignty in their area, at an economical cost… There is a growing global recognition of the importance of sovereign control over those space systems.”
Credit: Viasat November 2025 investor presentation
Viasat reported that on Sept. 30 it had $1.2 billion in cash and equivalents, $1.3 billion in working capital and a credit facility with $596.9 million available to it.
Since then, Viasat has received $420 million from Ligado Networks as part of a settlement with Ligado and MSS startup AST SpaceMobile, which purchased Ligado’s spectrum rights. The settlement, which coordinates the use of Viasat-L-band spectrum in the United States, includes $16 million in quarterly payments to Viasat.
Credit: Viasat November 2025 investor presentation
Viasat reported $837 million in revenue for the three months ending Sept. 30, up 1.3% from the same period a year ago. In-flight connectivity revenue was up, as was government satcom; maritime was slightly down and fixed services continued its slide as customers dropped Vista’s consumer broadband service and migrated to Starlink.
Viasat told investors that its Strategic Review Committee is still assessing whether separating the company’s commercial and government business would generate value.
Dankberg said one scenario is to somehow retain a connection between the two businesses to retain those advantages while separating them to create “what might be more attractive investment vehicles.”
Credit: Viasat November 2025 investor presentation
Viasat’s biggest business, in-flight connectivity, grew by 14.9% in the three months ending Sept. 30 compared to the previous year, to $301 million, with 4,370 commercial aircraft connected, a 12% increase over a year ago; and 2,080 business jets, up 8% year on year.
Dankberg said the success of in-flight connectivity to commercial airlines, with many offering it free throughout the plane, threatens commoditization of the service.
“Free Wi-Fi in an aero environment is a mixed blessing. If every airline has the same free service, all have extra costs and nobody has a competitive advantage. We have been working with the airlines on how to get competitive advantage and differentiation” in addition to free connectivity. “The monetization techniques we are developing will be increasingly important.”
Credit: Viasat November 2025 investor presentation
Viasat has long argued that high-capacity GEO-orbit satellites have an advantage over LEO constellation by being able to train capacity over high-demand areas such as seaports and airports. Whether that argument still holds given the capacity increases on Starlink is uncertain. Some maritime service providers say it’s not an issue.
Dankberg disagrees. “What happens in high-demand locations is going to be more and more evident,” he said.”That is the effect we have been seeing for quite awhile in major hub airports and combinations of airports and seaports. You’ll see that.”
The company continues to prioritize aviation for its available satellite capacity, resulting in a multi-year decline in consumer broadband revenue. The service reported a 15.7% decline in subscribers in the past year, ending at 156,000 at Sept. 30.
Dankberg suggested that when the second of three Viasat-3 terabit-per-second satellites is in service over the Americas in early 2026, the additional capacity might stem the losses in fixed broadband.
But he also said the company would continue to favor mobility services.
“Those are the ones where I think we compete the best,” Dankberg said. “We’re using things like fixed services as kind of a buffer to make sure we’re using all the bandwidth. Over time, we’re gradually migrating it to these higher-value services.”