Podcast: Regulations can determine ‘winners and losers’

The Dish

The satellite industry is marked by innovation and understanding the regulatory environment is a plus for connectivity providers.

“Many new technologies just don’t conform to existing regulations,” Katherine Gizinski, chief executive at Douglas, Isle of Mann-based spectrum consultancy firm River Advisers, tells Connectivity Business News in this episode of “The Dish” podcast.

River Advisers helps connectivity providers with innovative tech understand international spectrum regulations and views itself as enabling them to tap into lucrative markets.

“Successfully navigating the regulation and market access considerations will determine the winners and losers in this new paradigm,” Gizinski says. “That’s how you unlock value. That’s how you access those markets.”

For example, limited spectrum and market access could play a role in mergers and acquisitions among connectivity providers, particularly in emerging markets such as satellite direct-to-device.

“Spectrum is prime real estate. You can't build a beachfront hotel without a little bit of beach to build it on,” she says.

But securing spectrum and regulatory approval for a new technology or service could take time, says Gizinski.

While it’s sometimes assumed that regulations must anticipate new technologies entering a market, that’s not the case, Gizinski says.

“Regulation is inherently backward-looking,” she says. “You don't want regulators proactively regulating something that doesn't yet exist or that they or the technologists themselves don't fully understand yet.”

Gizinski says that the regulations in place for satellite operators and telecommunications providers don’t need to be thrown out but it’s important for regulators to have a sense of the “bigger picture” in the connectivity industry and develop mechanisms enabling them to be responsive to industry changes.

“We, as investors, as an industry, need to acknowledge the limitations of the existing frameworks and work within them to bring the regulations along with us,” she says.

Tune into this episode of “The Dish” to hear the full conversation with Gizinski.