Europe’s Satellite Direct-to-Device Market Takes Shape, Starting with Orange

The past 18 months have marked the beginning of mobile operators using satellites to extend their terrestrial coverage. At CCS Insight, we track early commercial launches in our quarterly Market Analysis reports, beginning with some operators in the Pacific Islands and One NZ in New Zealand in late 2024. In 2025, these were followed by wider roll-outs from T-Mobile and Verizon in the US, KDDI in Japan, Rogers in Canada and Telstra in Australia.

CCS Insight estimates that these services have already grown to more than 12 million connections, largely enabled through Starlink. Early commercial traction has been encouraging, particularly in New Zealand, where usage statistics indicate that more than 60,000 satellite text messages were sent per day during the holiday period.

By contrast, Europe has been characterized by announcements rather than live services. Most of these have centred on the UK, with more-limited continental activity in countries such as Germany, Switzerland and, this month, Spain. A notable exception is Kyivstar in Ukraine: the operator has launched satellite-enabled services amid the ongoing conflict, which has damaged parts of the country’s mobile network infrastructure.

This lack of activity is partly because European countries have much smaller land masses than the likes of Australia, the US and Canada, making nationwide mobile coverage easier to achieve. Population coverage in major European economies exceeds 99%, and land-mass coverage in countries such as Germany, France and the UK is also high, at over 95%.

Europe’s dense geography also creates regulatory complexity. Closely packed national borders increase the risk of satellite-beam interference, particularly for services that reuse operator’s terrestrial mobile spectrum.

However, Europe has started to move from announcements to execution. In December 2025, Orange became the first Western European operator to launch a commercial satellite direct-to-device service, edging competitors with the introduction of its Satellite Message.

Despite Orange Group operating in 26 markets, including less-developed regions in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the company chose its home market of France for the flagship launch.

At first glance, this appears counterintuitive, as mobile coverage in France is already strong. Based on data from the country’s regulator ARCEP, CCS Insight estimates that about 96% of France’s land mass has 4G coverage. Remaining “not spots” are largely confined to border areas and mountainous regions. However, the service also covers Australia, the US, Canada, Puerto Rico and more than 30 European countries, alongside maritime coverage extending up to 22 kilometres from coastlines. This reflects Orange’s intent to frame satellite messaging as a continuity-of-service feature rather than a niche rural solution.

Orange’s marketing positions Satellite Message as a premium feature to 5G+ subscribers, free for six months and then priced at €5 per month.

Time to market was clearly a critical objective, with Orange moving quickly to establish itself as an innovator and early mover in Europe. Its choice of Skylo as its non-terrestrial network (NTN) partner played a central role in enabling this speed.

Although regulators such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Ofcom have built new frameworks that support supplemental coverage from space (SCS) using terrestrial spectrum to enable solutions from companies like Starlink and AST SpaceMobile, ARCEP and many other European regulators don’t yet have definitive frameworks in place. This has slowed the deployment of services based on spectrum reuse.

By contrast, Skylo’s use of mobile-satellite services (MSS) spectrum benefits from long-established global regulatory frameworks. This enables faster deployment in multiple markets and avoids country-by-country regulatory delays. It also ensures there’s no impact on Orange’s terrestrial network and allows the operator to retain full control of its licensed spectrum while providing a seamless overlay for microholes in coverage and when cell sites are down.

The use of geostationary (GEO) satellites from Viasat and other regional partners also meant that Orange didn’t have to wait for a new constellation to be designed, manufactured and launched, unlike partnerships with emerging low-Earth-orbit (LEO) providers such as AST SpaceMobile or Lynk, which remain in earlier stages of development. The use of GEO satellites limits the current capabilities to SOS and text-based messaging, but Skylo is targeting the launch of voice services in 2026, which we believe could be a real tipping point for interest in Europe for consumers. In CCS Insight’s recent survey, 60% of UK respondents said that they would value voice calling in rural or remote areas the most compared with other satellite services.

Additionally, Skylo’s implementation is based on the 3GPP NTN mobile standards. NTN, defined in 3GPP Releases 17, 18 and 19, is expected to play a role in 5G-Advanced and later 6G, supporting the industry’s longer-term vision of ubiquitous connectivity. Importantly, Skylo’s architecture ensures an interoperable and future-proofed satellite network that complements Orange’s terrestrial infrastructure rather than competing with it.

This approach also enables Skylo to support uses beyond consumer messaging. The same network could be used for internet of things (IoT) services, an area Skylo has recently expanded through its partnership with Vodafone IoT, a globally leading IoT vendor. This capability is likely to be critical for global wholesale and enterprise customers.

There are, however, notable limitations. Support for 3GPP NTN standards remains limited at the device hardware level. In Europe, only Google Pixel 9 and Pixel 10 devices using Google Messages are compatible with Orange’s Satellite Message service. CCS Insight estimates this represents a low-single-digit share of the installed base in France.

Skylo attributes this constraint to the pace of adoption from phone-makers and expects device support to improve over time. European operators like Orange will play a role in encouraging wider ecosystem alignment. This will be particularly important for vendors such as Samsung, which has enabled satellite features on flagship devices, such as the Galaxy S25 family, Z Flip and Z Fold, but crucially only in the US.

We expect that other Western European operator groups will launch a satellite direct-to-device service in 2026, with more European operators moving from trials and announcements to commercial deployment.

Deutsche Telekom has already signalled its intent, announcing a partnership with Skylo at MWC 2025 and targeting a commercial launch in 2026, despite its US affiliate T-Mobile working with Starlink. The UK is also a burgeoning market: Telefonica-owned O2 is preparing to launch satellite services in partnership with Starlink, and Vodafone continues to advance its collaboration with AST SpaceMobile through its Luxembourg-based joint venture, SatCo.

Spain is a prime example. MasOrange began trials with Starlink this month, despite Orange France having already launched a commercial service using Skylo. This apparent divergence reflects the reality that large operator groups aren’t pursuing a single, monolithic satellite strategy. Instead, local market conditions, regulatory readiness and time-to-market considerations are driving different choices across operating companies.

These parallel approaches underline the diversity of partnership strategies emerging in Europe. Some operators are opting for rapid deployment using MSS spectrum and GEO satellites, and others are prepared to wait for LEO constellations that promise higher bandwidth and closer integration with terrestrial mobile spectrum. Spectrum availability and device ecosystem readiness will continue to shape these decisions. This is especially true regarding the 2 GHz MSS spectrum in Europe, currently held by Viasat and EchoStar, which is set to expire in 2027 and is likely to attract wider significant interest.

As satellite direct-to-device services become more widely available, operators will need to clarify their value propositions, address device compatibility constraints and test whether consumers and enterprises are willing to pay for satellite-enabled connectivity.

CCS Insight will continue to track these developments through its satellite research suite, including our quarterly Market Analysis reports and ongoing coverage of key industry announcements throughout the year. Find out more here.