Commercial Strategy · 3 min read · Daria Boiko
The UAE Proves Connectivity Convergence Is Already Here
Fibre, 5G and satellite no longer compete for a single budget line. The commercial opportunity is in assembling the stack.
Last Friday, people with zero connection to satcom sent me congratulatory messages after the TDRA news broke: Starlink had received a 10-year licence to run satellite broadband in the UAE. It felt like my own achievement, briefly. But it also showed me how tied my work has become to this shift.
Since Starlink launched its authorised reseller network, it has been part of my daily conversations. Coming from more than 15 years in satcom, one thing was clear from day one: convergence was inevitable.
Fibre, 5G and satellite used to compete for the same budget line. They are one stack now.
The UAE proves it. With all the terrestrial and space-based coverage, the regulator still licensed another satellite layer on top of it. Not as backup, but as infrastructure.
Most integrators already pitch convergence. The real gap is between architecting it and repackaging separate contracts under one proposal. The infrastructure is real now. Whether you are selling a stack or assembling one is what makes the difference.