Saudis seek growth in space
May 9, 2025
Saudi Arabia’s multi-billion sovereign wealth fund created Neo Space a year ago, and while it is keen on developing space-based technology for Earth observation and other applications it does not see direct-to-cellular from space as being economic – at least for the time being.
However, according to an interview in Space Intel Report, Neo Space looking at Internet of Things messaging and which could be a rival to the services being offered by Apple, Globalstar and Iridium.
Neo’s CTO Mark Dickinson, who joined from London-based Inmarsat, is cautious about the prospects of mobile satellite-dedicated spectrum or with shared use of spectrum in use by terrestrial operators.
“On the broadband side, I think the physics are very hard, with the [satellite] base stations moving very fast in orbit and maybe 1,000 times further away than terrestrial base stations. I am speaking here about connecting the unmodified smartphone,” he stated.
Neo Space is working with Luxembourg’s satellite operator SES and also operates Ka-band spectrum on Arabsat-owned HellasSat-4.
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