Just a week after that, geostationary operators Viasat of the U.S. and United Arab Emirates-based Space42 announced plans Sept. 16 to pool their Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) spectrum to take on SpaceX’s growing dominance. The second focused on satellite spectrum strategies. In its FCC request for 15,000 D2D satellites, SpaceX indicated it could also leverage ground-based equipment to boost coverage with the EchoStar frequencies. “It shows the true ability of Mobile Satellite Services spectrum and what it can do globally, quickly to provide enormous public benefits,” Ponder said. For Iridium, which is pursuing a standards-based D2D service on its existing LEO network, the race looks very different.