From left: Moderator Paul Dykewicz; SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen; Intelsat CFO Toby O’Brien; Iridium CFO Vincent O’Neill; and Speedcast CFO Clint Stewart. Photo: Steven David for Access Intelligence

For years, enterprise customers of Starlink have complained that the company doesn’t offer a conventional enterprise contract, with the traditional guarantees of bandwidth, uptime, and availability, known as “service level agreements” or SLAs. Starlink has still landed enterprise customers without the traditional SLAs, but a lack of SLAs has been part of the conversation with maritime and aviation customers in particular.

That could be set to change. SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen told a panel at SATELLITE last week that he is pushing for Starlink to add guarantees to the service.

“Our offering right now is really compelling and the uptime has been amazing,” Johnsen said. He added that he had been “personally harassing my sales team about not just publishing that, but making some guarantees to that.”

Johnsen said he sees the current level of service as enterprise-grade. “We have an amazing service that’s enterprise-quality right now, I think it’s just a matter of communicating it differently to the enterprise folks,” Johnsen told Via Satellite.

The SpaceX CFO also addressed the question of going public, telling the panel he is “not working on any near-term IPO efforts.”

“We’re laser-focused on operations right now,” he added.

[Read more from SATELLITE 2025 in the Via Satellite SATShow Content Hub]

Speaking less than a week after SpaceX’s second high-profile Starship test failure in a row, Johnsen acknowledged there are a “a lot of eyes on Starship right now.” He called Starship “a transformative capability for not only SpaceX, but for the whole industry.”

The Starship developments aside, Johnsen highlighted SpaceX’s 134 successful launches and the growth of Starlink. “Right now, almost 7,000 satellites in space,” he said, “We have over 5 million customers on that network, in 125 countries around the globe.”

He called SpaceX’s go-to-market strategy “diversified.” “Not only do we come from a very diversified background on the launch side – launching civil space and Space Force and all the commercial and private passenger [launches]. …  But now also being a satellite business and also being very diversified. Consumer is a huge piece. [There are] 5 million customers on the network, not impacting or impacted by defense spending,” he said.

The panel also heard from CFOs from Intelsat, Iridium, and Speedcast.

Up and down the value chain of satellite services, companies are searching for ways to grow revenue to satisfy investors. While SpaceX and Starlink may be grabbing headlines, long-standing market players have a lot to offer investors.

“We’re throwing off cash,” boasted Iridium CFO Vincent O’Neill, saying the company had paid out $1.2 billion to shareholders since 2021, mainly through stock buybacks, but also through dividends in 2023 and 2024. He said the company would pay out another $300 million this year.

“If we’re talking about returns, that’s pretty compelling. I think it’s pretty unique in the industry,” said O’Neill.

He highlighted Iridium’s high reliability and global availability through its L-band services, and the company’s multi-year contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense. The combination of longevity, global availability and high reliability makes the company ideal for safety or other critical services. “We’re one of only two providers certified for safety for both maritime and aviation,” he said.

Iridium is focused on the unique services it provides, but for other operators and providers in an increasingly commodified satellite communications marketplace, the key is adding value and combining services.

Intelsat CFO Toby O’Brien said the company had last year “certified a new multi-orbit antenna for our commercial aviation business, and started deliveries of those antennas,” improving its offering to the aviation market.

He said as the merger with SES moves forward, “The entire management team has spent a lot of time refocusing the company, pivoting the strategy, focusing more on managed services, not just selling bandwidth, getting it in better shape financially,” he said.

For a technology-agnostic service provider like Speedcast, CFO Clint Stewart said the key is knowing the particular demands of the verticals you operate in and sell to. “We are everywhere, we have boots on the ground,” he said.