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In sum, what to know:
–Taking NTN beyond consumers: Anterix, which owns 900 MHz spectrum and targets the utility and enterprise private wireless space, is testing space-based direct-to-device connectivity with the aim of providing utilities with NTN connectivity.
–Device line-up: Lynk Global and Anterix are testing a variety of devices for NTN capabilities, including Land Mobile Radio handsets, smartphones, laptops, routers and other edge devices.
–Testing underway: Anterix’s president and CEO told investors on the quarterly call that initial results are already coming back, and they are “terrific.”
Anterix, Lynk approved for NTN testing
While much of the interest and effort around space-based Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) services has so far focused on enabling services for consumers like emergency messaging, NTN provider Lynk Global and terrestrial spectrum holder Anterix have begun testing which could expand NTN services to utilities and other critical infrastructure operators.
Last month, the Federal Communication Commission approved an experimental license to allow Lynk and Anterix to test NTN with Anterix’s spectrum, using Lynk’s satellite network.
In an interview discussing the initiative, Anterix Chief Regulatory and Corporate Communications Officer Christopher Guttman-McCabe described the effort as an extension of the company’s broader strategy of monetizing its spectrum and offering utilities a broad portfolio of network services.
“We are investigating the use of our spectrum for satellite direct-to-device,” Guttman-McCabe said, adding that Anterix and Lynk are testing a representive range of sites and devices, and use the resulting data to help shape potential future services. “The idea of all these tests is to prove to the enterprise, to the utility, to the critical infrastructure sector that this can be a capability that could be used,” he said.
Testing representative locations and devices for NTN in critical comms
According to the experimental license grant, the seven test sites are in North Dakota, Oklahoma, Hawaii, Iowa, Arkansas, Oregon and Texas. Guttman-McCabe said that the locations were chosen to represent different operating environments where it makes sense that critical communications NTN devices might be used, such as in wooded areas; or in Hawaii, which represents special challenges due to its island geography and terrain.
Guttman-McCabe said that the devices that will be tested for NTN connectivity include Land Mobile Radio handsets, traditional smartphones, connected laptops, and a series of high-end, high-performance routers and edge devices.
On Anterix’s quarterly results call late last week, the company confirmed that initial testing had already begun.
“The first round of testing has gone extremely well … We’ve got some of the initial results already. They’re terrific,” said President and CEO Scott Lang. “Continuing to expand the number of devices and the number of tests is only going to increase now.”
Guttman-McCabe characterized the satellite initiative as part of a multi-year effort to increase the flexibility and value of the company’s spectrum holdings. Indeed, this is the latest in a number of moves that the company has made to expand Anterix’s service portfolio and its ability to utilize its spectrum holdings.
In 2020, the 900 MHz band—where Anterix is the primary license holder—was re-aligned by the FCC to allow both narrowband channels and paired 3×3 megahertz for broadband. Earlier this year, after being petitioned by Anterix, the FCC expanded the flexibility of the band even further, allowing all 10 megahertz to be used for broadband in a paired 5×5 megahertz configuration.
In April, Anterix officially announced its first planned 5×5 megahertz deployment, with Northwestern Energy, which serves Montana, Nebraska and South Dakota. While there is still clearing work to be done, Guttman-McCabe said, Anterix’s last two contracts have been for 5×5 megahertz deployments, and the company expects that 5×5 will be its standard deployment going forward.
On the company’s recent quarterly call, Lang commented that in the past year, the market “has crossed an important threshold. Utilities have validated the model. Private wireless broadband has moved from evaluation to deployment. Demand is accelerating,” he added. “The opportunity is expanding beyond utilities. And licensed low-band spectrum is increasingly being recognized for what it is: strategic infrastructure.”
Anterix expands services and eyes NTN
While Anterix has targeted the utility sector thus far, the company believes it has opportunities in private wireless beyond that market—particularly if it can offer NTN connectivity alongside 10 megahertz of spectrum rather than six.
“Testing the integration of 900 MHz-enabled devices with Lynk’s satellite capabilities will give us incredible insight into the products and services that could be developed, possibly opening the door to a new category of private, secure, resilient network services,” Guttman-McCabe said in Anterix’s announcement on the testing with Lynk Global. That announcement also indicated the company’s ambition to “enable nationwide intelligent and resilient connectivity that can support a wide range of sectors including electric and gas utilities, logistics companies, transportation providers, pipelines, military bases, and beyond.”
Meanwhile, the company’s increasing scale is putting it in position to offer an expanded range of services. Guttman-McCabe said Anterix has closed four contracts so far this calendar year, and that the company now serves 11 utility customers across 17 states. The collective footprint of those companies is “much larger than USCellular’s footprint ever was,” he said, and scale is important for Anterix’s ability to offer new services: a SIM management service, and a technology ecosystem of more than 150 vendors.
On the quarterly call last week, Lang said that interest in CatalyX, the SIM management service, had doubled since February—which he called “evidence that customers are not only evaluating spectrum, they are committing to action.” CatalyX, he continued, enables customers to “eliminate some of the friction, to move faster, to start getting value from the network when they’ve bought the network and stood up the infrastructure.”
Last fall, Anterix also announced a turnkey tower service in partnership with Crown Castle, called Anterix TowerX. The TowerX service enables utilities to access Crown Castle’s portfolio of sites, with streamlined deployment options for private wireless networks. While utilities often have their own infrastructure for siting network equipment—and, indeed, are often already running multiple legacy wireless networks—Guttman-McCabe said that when it comes to deploying a new mobile broadband network, sometimes there may not be room at existing sites for new equipment, or new site locations are needed. The Crown Castle partnership is meant to help utilities deploy private networks using Anterix’s spectrum, faster than if they had to make siting arrangements themselves.
Anterix also brought on a chief product officer this year to lead its ecosystem partnerships and product development and deployment strategy, as well as a new chief revenue officer, Kim Green-Kerr, who previously served as USCellular’s senior vice president of enterprise sales and services. Her task, Lang told investors, is to “scale our commercial execution for the next phase of growth.”
Utilities impacted by AI seek to increase their efficiency
As Anterix looks to both serving new sectors and expanding its utility customer base, it is seeing demand for private networks being driven by the need for secure, resilient communications infrastructure.
“These networks are going to become and really are an absolute necessity for managing enterprise operations going forward,” Guttman-McCabe said.
The utility sector specifically is dealing with a variety of challenged. It is being overwhelmed by power demands from data centers, in addition to more frequent extreme weather events and increased cybersecurity risks, as well as the need to integrate evolving sources of distributed energy, such as solar panels and batteries. “Utilities have to deal with the reality of the load growth impact of AI, and so to some extent, they absolutely need to squeeze more performance out of what they have,” Guttman-McCabe said. “And that’s where some of what we are enabling and empowering becomes helpful.”
Anterix also sees AI as a major driver of future network requirements, as utilities seek to integrate AI into their own operations. As utilities deploy more sensors, meters and intelligent grid technologies, communications infrastructure will need to handle growing volumes of data.
“What they are learning, and what we are learning is, you need high-speed connectivity,” Guttman-McCabe said. “You need your own connectivity.”
On a broader basis, Anterix has said, it expects the convergence of cellular and satellite connectivity, combined with AI and edge computing, to “enable nationwide intelligent and resilient connectivity” for critical communications. And while Anterix plans to grow, Lang also made it clear to investors that it will be disciplined about it.
“We could chase a lot of rabbits right now. We’re not going to do that,” he said on the call. “We are singularly focused on building products and reducing friction that helps us sell spectrum and helps utilities get the value of spectrum faster.” The first two products were CatalyX, and the nationwide tower access agreement with Crown Castle; others are in the works. “There are a couple of early-stage things we’re looking at. But we also want to deliver on some of the ones we’ve already launched.”
Guttman-McCabe followed up on Lang’s comment to point out that during a recent DistribuTech panel, four Anterix customers discussed that in the next few years, they each expected to cross the point of 1 million devices on their network. “We can all, I think, envision a future where what these networks are being used for, and the products that are being developed, will evolve,” he said, adding, “Six months ago, we weren’t talking at all about a product being satellite connectivity direct-to-device, right? And no one was in the private-network utility space. So the reality of connectivity opportunities is changing, and we’re excited to be where we are.”
