Commissioned Research
Independent satellite communications research, built for a decision you are about to make.
40 years
In satellite communications, on the buying side and the selling side
2 sources
Minimum on any specific factual claim; single-sourced claims are flagged in the text
60 min
With the author on delivery, for the questions the document did not anticipate
1 section
In every report on what would change the view, stating where the conclusion fails
Commissioned research answers what a market-sizing report leaves open: whether the contract in front of you is priced correctly, whether the constellation you are underwriting will hit its milestones, and which of your suppliers is one refinancing away from a problem.
A commission is usually a decision with dependencies attached: a thesis that rests on three assumptions, a procurement where the technical answer and the commercial answer point different directions, or a diligence file with a gap nobody wants to name. I work out the scope with you before anything begins, and it follows the decision you are making.
Who commissions this work
- Investors and credit teams
Underwriting an operator, a supplier or a constellation, and needing the operating reality behind the filings rather than a recap of them.
- Corporate development and strategy teams
At operators and suppliers, sizing an acquisition, a market entry or a partnership, where the internal view is well informed but not independent.
- Enterprise and vertical buyers
Outside satellite communications, in rail, energy, utilities and logistics, being sold a solution with nobody in-house who can tell them what the vendor is leaving out.
- Vendors and integrators
Without a strategy function, needing a defensible outside read before a board discussion.
Who writes it
I have spent forty years in satellite communications, military and commercial, on the buying side and the selling side. I was Senior Director of Enterprise Broadband Services at Viasat; before that I worked at Spacenet (acquired by SageNet in 2013), iDirect Technologies, and PanAmSat and Intelsat; and before that I spent ten years at A.G. Edwards designing and running the firm’s 700-node satellite network, plus a United States Air Force communications supervisor role. Ground segment, service economics and multi-orbit tradeoffs are the working lens because I bought, sold and delivered those services.
When an operator says a service is available, I check whether that means paying customers, a launch in one market, or a beta.
How the work is verified
- Every figure is pulled live at the time of use
Market capitalizations, share prices, fleet counts, valuations and market-size estimates come from a fresh source when the sentence is written, never from a prior report or a remembered number.
- Two sources minimum on any specific factual claim
Anything that survives on a single source is flagged as single-sourced in the text, where you can see it.
- Designed capability and demonstrated capability are held apart
A throughput figure from a datasheet and a throughput figure from an operating network are different claims, and they are labeled differently throughout.
- Primary filings, not aggregators
Regulatory and financial claims are sourced from the filing itself. Wire services and third-party mirrors are used to find documents, never to establish their status.
- Market-size figures are named, dated and treated skeptically
If a research firm’s number appears, you will see whose it is, when it was published, and what it does and does not count.
- Every report carries a falsification section
Titled “What would change this view,” it states the conditions under which the conclusion fails.
What you receive
Length follows the scope, including expected length and exhibit count, which is agreed in writing before any work starts.
- The same structure at any length: an executive summary with individually extractable findings, numbered sections each opening with a direct answer in the first sentence, exhibits interleaved with sources carried in the captions, the falsification section, and a methodology in which every assumption is named as an assumption.
- A structured dataset where the question supports one: a normalized comparison across the relevant entities, with every cell sourced and dated.
- A defined data-as-of date and refresh window. You will know exactly how old the numbers are and what a refresh costs.
- Sixty minutes with the author on delivery of a commissioned report, so your team can ask the questions the document did not anticipate.
- A portable document format (PDF) file under a named license: single reader, team, or enterprise.
Recent work
Satellites Are the Cheap Part: Sizing SpaceX’s Mobile Network (August 2026)
An end-to-end sizing of the proposed satellite-plus-femtocell mobile network. It finds that the constellation is the affordable half of the problem and that the terrestrial site layer is the binding constraint, with the result resting on spatial frequency reuse rather than spectrum holdings.
The report is published in full, so you can see the method described above at work, including the falsification section. Read the report
What it costs
Every commission is priced against a written scope.
The first step is twenty minutes on the decision you are trying to make. I come back with a scope document that names the question, the sections, the exhibits, the structured dataset if the question supports one, the data-as-of date, the delivery date, and the license breadth. That document carries the fee, and nothing begins until you have signed it.
What moves the number: the depth of primary research, whether a dataset is built and across how many entities, how much of the source material sits behind filings rather than published summaries, the turnaround you need, and how many people in your organization will read the result.
A tightly bounded assessment delivered in a few weeks and a multi-month build across dozens of entities are both quoted this way, and terms, invoicing format and delivery are settled in the same document.
Tell me what you are trying to decide.
If it is something I can settle in twenty minutes, I will tell you that instead of selling you a report.