Ookla Analysts Say D2D Is Seeing Commercial Interest Beyond U.S.
Providers worldwide are starting to move to direct-to-device (D2D) satellite communications, said Mark Giles, director of industry research and analysis at Ookla, during the company's webinar Thursday. Industry has moved past the “science project phase” into commercialization, he added.
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While most focus has been on D2D in the U.S., “it’s truly a global race,” Giles said. “There’s real commercial momentum and demand.”
D2D will be “the hot topic” of 2026, predicted Mike Dano, Ookla's lead industry analyst. Consumers are using the service in Yellowstone National Park and other places where there “really is no cellular coverage whatsoever,” he said. “We’re really still in the early days of the rollout.”
The most important players so far have been Apple and Globalstar, Dano said, noting that every iPhone since the iPhone 14 has been able to connect to Globalstar satellites. Industry is eliminating dead zones everywhere, he added.
Giles said 100% coverage removes a major driver of churn between carriers. Providers may also look to satellite coverage as a less costly alternative to installing towers in some areas, he said.
As for spectrum, Dano said the most important development in recent months was the Trump administration’s focus on the 7.125-7.4 GHz band for use by carriers, as laid out in a presidential memo in December (see 2512220048). The memo created a target spectrum band, which will be released as 6G launches in 2030, and that “informs the discussion as to what 6G is going to look like,” Dano said.
Ookla industry analyst Affandy Johan also predicted that AI will reshape networks, moving the focus from just optimizing downlink connections to addressing uplink as well. Consumers are moving from text prompts to “multimodel interaction, utilizing cameras on phones [and] smart glasses to stream video for real-time inference.” Johan cited Ericsson estimates that if consumer adoption of AI devices reaches 30%, network uplink demand could increase by as much as 47%.
In addition, 5G stand-alone (SA) networks are demonstrating much faster speeds than non-SA networks, Ookla analysts said during the webinar. The U.S. is falling behind after leading the world in mobile wireless speeds in 2024. In Q3, the United Arab Emirates was the world leader, with a median download speed of 1.2 Gbps, while the U.S. saw average speeds of about 318 Mbps, they said.
Karim Yaici, who's also a lead industry analyst for Ookla, said SA has huge advantages over non-SA on multi-server latency, with SA delivering globally a 23% reduction in median latency, "which is considerable."
Yaici also suggested a shift in focus for carriers. While fixed-wireless access has been the biggest revenue driver for 5G, the focus should be moving toward business customers, he said. SA features, including reduced latency and network slicing, “are really more applicable to industrial use cases.” Yaici predicted that carriers will continue to invest in their networks in 2026 to support SA, but without any spikes in capital expenditure, as providers are still waiting for returns on their initial investments.