Over the course of 2025, I found myself in conversations with leaders across every corner of our industry—operators modernizing legacy networks, governments pursuing new sovereign capabilities, integrators navigating multi-orbit architectures, and mobile network operators looking to expand their reach.
Despite the differences in geography, mission, and market structure, the same core questions continually surfaced.
- When will the industry achieve true standards-based interoperability?
- Can multi-orbit integration work reliably and at scale?
- How will pricing evolve as competition intensifies, and new business models take hold?
What struck me was not just the frequency of these questions, but the seriousness with which they were asked. These are no longer speculative topics or future-state hypotheticals. They have become the defining issues of competitiveness, relevance, and resilience for every organization involved in satellite communications.
These conversations reinforce a truth that has been building over the last several years and is now impossible to ignore: the future of this industry depends on our ability to interoperate—no longer as isolated vendors or competitors, but as an ecosystem.
Standards will only emerge if we commit to them together. Multi-orbit integration will only work if we interoperate. Pricing stability will only come when efficiency is shared across the ecosystem.
In other words: we reach the future by pursuing it together—not by waiting for it to arrive. This is the only way to compete moving forward.
We Must Align Together
For much of the last two decades, our industry has operated in a relatively steady state, built around proprietary hardware, long refresh cycles, and clearly defined service niches.
A year ago, I spoke about this fragmentation as one of the biggest inhibitors of growth, and I introduced the concept of Diagonalization to describe the model we need to move toward.
Diagonalization is the strategic integration of vertical and horizontal business models to create a more open, cooperative, and interconnected ecosystem. The intention is to replace siloed programs with shared innovation—allowing networks, systems, and organizations to work together diagonally across orbits, waveforms, and business boundaries.
Take a look at mobile networks: devices, access, and core all function as a unified ecosystem – though fierce competition remains. The contrast with satellite is stark. While the mobile world is structurally integrated, our industry remains fragmented—and fragmentation has become a strategic liability.
Collective Alignment is the next step beyond diagonalization. If diagonalization describes how the industry must integrate—across layers, vendors, and architectures—Collective Alignment describes how the industry must operate to make that integration real.
It is the coordinated adoption of shared standards, interoperable systems, and multi-orbit frameworks that allow satellite and terrestrial networks to function as a unified ecosystem.
Collective Alignment is not philosophical alignment; it is practical, measurable progress—vendors agreeing on interfaces, operators participating in shared testing, governments adopting coalition-ready architectures, and partners modernizing together rather than in isolation.
It is the recognition that no single organization can answer the industry’s biggest questions alone – nor do we want to, and that the future will only emerge if we move forward as a cohesive, interoperable, standards-driven whole.
That is why our strategy at iDirect is to fully embrace 3GPP standards, both through native 5G NTN implementations within Intuition and through hybrid integration of satcom architectures with the 5G Core for operators who want to leverage their existing infrastructure. This dual approach gives our partners a clear on-ramp to 5G interoperability without requiring a rebuild of their networks.
By aligning with open standards, operators can accelerate global innovation, reduce total cost of ownership, accelerate time-to-market, and form deeper partnerships with Telco’s and mobile operators. They enable multi-vendor ecosystems, seamless roaming, and the interoperability that a unified communications fabric requires.
Intuition — The Industry’s Proving Ground
If Collective Alignment is the strategy, Intuition is where that strategy becomes a reality.
Intuition is not simply our next-generation platform. It has become the shared proving ground where operators, partners, and governments can test, validate, and build the future of their networks. In a time when the path forward can feel very complex, the Intuition system provides the practical environment to make progress tangible.
Across 2025, we saw Intuition tested by vendor-to-vendor integrations, where operators evaluated sovereign and coalition configurations, where multi-waveform and multi-orbit trials took shape, and where new concepts could be validated before they became commercial commitments.
Intuition Unbound — The Commercial Model That Enables Progress
Technology alone is not enough. Modernization also requires a business model that matches the rhythm of digital transformation. This is why we introduced Intuition Unbound—a consumption-based commercial model built to give operators maximum flexibility as they evolve their networks.
Intuition Unbound allows operators to scale capability rather than equipment. They pay for what they use, expand or contract as needed, and adopt new features without undertaking time-consuming upgrades. It transforms modernization from a capital-intensive event into a continuous, manageable journey.
A Year of Proof
2025 was not a year defined by theory or aspiration—it was a year defined by proof. Across commercial, government, and defense markets, we saw our strategy validated in real deployments, real integrations, and real results.
Verizon — Intuition Selected to Power Next-Gen Emergency Comms System
One of the most significant demonstrations of our strategy in action this year came through our work with Verizon. By upgrading to Intuition infrastructure—built on a fully virtualized, cloud-native architecture—Verizon is set to transform the way satellite resources are deployed and managed across its network.
The modernization sharply reduces the physical footprint at the teleport while enabling mission-critical connectivity to be activated, scaled, and redirected far more quickly during emergencies such as hurricanes, wildfires, and natural disasters.
Q-KON — AI-Driven Operations and the Economics of Efficiency
Our work with Q-KON showed how AI and predictive analytics can materially change the economics of satellite operations. Together, we developed and validated an AI-powered analytics platform that gives operators real-time insight into network behavior, enabling them to identify anomalies, predict faults, and intervene before customers experience service degradation. Leveraging actual customer data from Africa, the platform identified a subtle installation issue before it could impact users—allowing Q-KON to take corrective action immediately.
Interworking Gateway Function — Making Interoperability Real
Perhaps the most strategically important proof point of the year came through our Satellite Interworking Gateway demonstration. For the first time, we showed a non-3GPP satellite network operating seamlessly with a 5G Core while appearing fully 3GPP-compliant.
This demonstration validates our hybrid 5G NTN strategy and highlights how operators can leverage the operational efficiencies of the 5G Core—automation, orchestration, slicing—while continuing to use proven satellite-specific waveforms such as DVB-S2X and Mx-DMA MRC. Equally importantly, the demonstration proved inter-provider roaming across satellite networks, a critical capability for extending coverage, accelerating time-to-market, and unlocking entirely new revenue streams.
This marks a significant first step in our 5G NTN strategy, as we simultaneously work on building native 5G NTN network architectures.
Another milestone is our collaboration with a 5G NTN base station provider to integrate their proven gNodeB software into our cloud-native Intuition ground system, further strengthening our vision of creating a native 5G NTN solution uniquely optimized for seamless interoperability and global standards.
iDirectGov 450SDM — A Milestone in Multi-Orbit, Multi-Waveform Defense Capability
On the government and defense front, a major milestone came with the successful integration and testing of iDirect Government’s 450 Software Defined Modem (SDM) into Airbus DS Government Solutions’ Ranger Flyaway Terminal.
This is a breakthrough achievement: the 450SDM is the first modem of its kind capable of supporting multiple orbits and multiple waveforms within a modular, secure, and resilient architecture. It delivers advanced anti-jam capabilities, protected communications, and the flexibility to adapt to evolving mission requirements—capabilities that are essential for modern MILSATCOM operations.
Sovereign Networks — A Global Inflection Point
One of the clearest signals from 2025 is that sovereign satellite communications are no longer a niche requirement—they are becoming a defining force in the future of global connectivity. Across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Indo-Pacific, nations are moving quickly to secure greater control over their communications infrastructure.
But sovereignty does not mean isolation. Few nations can—or should—build a fully sovereign system from end to end. The reality is more complex. Some elements are developed domestically, others are procured commercially, and many are assembled through coalition partners.
With Intuition, nations can build, test, and evolve sovereign capabilities safely and incrementally, while tailoring them to meet their unique requirements and needs. They can adopt what they need today, expand as demands change, and ensure interoperability with allies to build resiliency.
What You Can Expect from iDirect in 2026
In 2025, the right questions were asked. The path forward is clear and the pressure to evolve is increasing – as it should be in order to compete.
The work ahead is well-defined, and we are ready to lead. In the coming year, we will bring our AI-driven analytics platform to full operational maturity, expanding the intelligent automation that operators need to reduce OPEX and increase reliability.
We will continue to grow Intuition’s orchestration capabilities and deliver a unified “single pane of glass” that simplifies operations across both modern and legacy systems.
We will deepen our integration with 5G NTN, support greenfield deployments, and accelerate multi-orbit operations across commercial, government, and sovereign networks.
We remain fully committed to open standards, vendor interoperability, and the Collective Alignment this industry needs to thrive.
And through Intuition Unbound, we will give operators an alternative flexible consumption-based pathway to modernization—one that reflects real budgets, real timelines, and real operational pressures.
Yes, our industry is experiencing disruption, but it is also entering one of the most promising periods of opportunity in its history.
The organizations that succeed will not be the ones who try to navigate this moment alone. They will be the ones who lean into collaboration—who move as a unified ecosystem toward a more open, interoperable future.