Jaume Sanpera, Co-Founder and CEO of Sateliot, joins Jeff Dance to explore the future of internet access. They discuss the barriers to keeping developing countries from having internet access, how satellite communication can increase the diversity of internet users among people and businesses, and the role of AI and machine learning in interpreting large amounts of IoT data. Additionally, Nissa Van Meter, Senior Electrical Engineer at Fresh Consulting, shares her insights on the topic.

Jaume (Guest) – 00:00:01: Maybe I’m wrong. Okay.  But I believe that all the energies may have a good impact on humanity. All these technologies in the past, our history shows, okay, that all this technology may be used on a good way, on a bad way. We just have to focus on the good way to use it.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:00:19: Welcome to the Future of a podcast by Fresh Consulting where we discuss and learn about the future of different industries, markets and technology verticals. Together we’ll chat with leaders and experts in the field and discuss how we can shape the future human experience. I’m your host. Jeff Dance. Hello. Welcome to the future of satellite Internet access and just Internet access in general. This is another episode of the Future of Program. I’m here with the founder of Sateliot and Jaume Sanpera . Welcome from Barcelona.

 

Jaume (Guest) – 00:01:00: Thank you very much, Jeff. A pleasure to be here with you.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:01:04: Thank you for the audience to get to know you a little bit better. Can you tell us more about your background and your experience with telecommunications and satellites?

 

Jaume (Guest) – 00:01:13: Great. I have been for the last 20 years in the telecommunications sector. I started in brutal internet. We cooperate a company that we did an IPO. We take it to public market and we just expose it and make it available in more than 30 countries around the world. We did some amazing projects all around the world. In Morocco, for example, we connect 6000 schools in three months. This is one of the examples of what new technologies may do for these under developer or developing countries in order to bring access of the Internet in a very short time.

 

Jeff (Host)  – 00:01:55: Thank you. That’s fascinating. So you’ve been the founder of several companies in the telecom kind of space and satellite space. Recently you founded and are leading Sateliot. Tell us more about this company. I understand you guys recently launched one of your satellites on the Falcon Nine rocket just this month. Tell us more about that and more about your company.

 

Jaume (Guest) – 00:02:17: Yes, there is two very differentiated regions. 15% of the world has mobile connectivity. And inside the mobile connectivity you have the capability, you have the possibility of connecting something, a tracker, a sensor for a very low price. This means that in the middle of city you could have a tracker for $5 and 1$ a month. This is the 15% of the world that wear is mobile coverage. In the other 85% there is only satellite coverage and satellite coverage. Since today it means that you have to buy satellite device. Satellite device. The name itself. It sounds expensive. It is. It costs you $300, $400, $500 just a device. Okay. Plus $30, $40, $50 a month. This exactly is the reason why in this 15% of the world there are already 5 billion things connected. And the other 85%, there is only 5 million. This directed to 1 to 2000. It’s something that make us think about it and say that there must be one way to do exactly the same revolution that it has happened in cities in the rest of the world. We start looking at standard devices. And what we saw is that standard devices have the capability, the power to connect directly to a low earth satellite. This means a satellite that flies very close to Earth around 500 to 700 km altitude instead of the geostationary satellite that are at 30,000 km away. Then the software needed to be modified. But one huge expertise that we have on our company and with my colleagues is the Cgpp. The Cgpp, this strange name stands for the global organization that set up the standard for the mobile industry. Then we have been for the last few years contributing to the standard. And last year, June 2022 finally the new release of the standard was approved. That was at exactly the same $5 device that were explaining this 50% of the work  it will work in the other 85%. This change everything disrupts completely the ioT wall in those places with no coverage of the mobile operators today.

 

Jeff (Host)  – 00:04:58: Got it. So that’s what your company is focused on, that kind of very problem. And tell us more about the satellite. So is this like as I understand it, you launch a satellite that connects the cell towers sort of on earth and you’re just extending coverage by connecting it’s like another cell tower in space. Is that accurate?

 

Jaume (Guest)  – 00:05:18: Exactly. It’s connect direct to device that we do not need basically if you want to what we are looking at it’s a way to have exponential growth then the only way to do that is to have different providers in different parts of the world that wanted to extend this coverage to this place. And these are the mobile operators. That’s why we are just an extension of coverage of the mobile operators. And when the customers of the mobile operators lose the coverage in a seamless way, exactly the same. Because at the end we are connecting with the mobile operators with a single roaming agreement. Exactly the same that happens when you travel to Canada, to Mexico than the mobile phones. It connects automatically to the new provider. Like the sense happens, too, with our cell towers in space that the IoT devices, when they use the connectivity of AT&T,  Verizon or whatever mobile operator, it connects directly with our satellites. And the satellite download information to our ground stations and we deliver it back to the single roaming agreement that we have with the mobile operators. More than 50 mobile operators and Vilter mobile operators all around the world have already signed. Although we don’t have already commercial service until beginning next year because we just have developed the technology. And now we are launching the first satellite that will be fully compatible. The first 5G IoT satellite of the world.

 

Jeff (Host)  – 00:06:54: That’s amazing. First 5G satellite of the world. I understand that your satellite was on the Falcon Nine rocket that launched this month  .

 

Jaume (Guest)  – 00:07:02: I agree the Transporter Seven. We launched the first one. And we are launching the second one, the second bunch of satellites because this number we launched our first satellite, March 2021. This was an experimental satellite. It’s the one that have give us all the capability of developing all these contributions to the standard. Then we have only second satellite, which is a demonstrator. With these satellites, we’re going to demonstrate the technology that have been already tested on our app that it works also from space. And in October, with Transport Nine. FalconNine again, we are launching four more satellites that are the one that will be the first commercial corporation in the world that work with fully standard devices.

 

Jeff (Host)  – 00:07:52: Amazing. Yeah. You’ve been the founder, like I said, of several companies, even the number one telecom satellite operator in Europe prior. So you’ve been doing a lot of things, leading a lot of companies, especially around this space. What’s a guy like you do for fun?

 

Jaume (Guest)  – 00:08:08: We need to have a working life and a non working life that’s compulsory. If not, it’s absolutely impossible to survive. Okay, then I do sports, I do a lot of biking, I do a lot of sailing, as you know. Okay. San Diego and Barcelona have something in common, which is the sea. Then I do sailing today. I go to see Bruce Springsteen that is coming to Barcelona just this afternoon in a couple of hours.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:08:41: Amazing. That sounds fun. Thanks for being with us on your Friday night. And definitely I saw that you guys have a location here in San Diego, here in the United States. So that’s great to hear that you like to sail and enjoy the sea. As we talk about the future, let’s start with the current state. You started off telling us about the problem that Sateliot is focused on, which is, hey, there’s a lot of space, a lot of people that don’t have Internet access. As I understand it, 5 billion people worldwide do have Internet access, but still there are people themselves who don’t have Internet access. And then, like you mentioned, there’s a lot of space and territory itself where there’s gaps. What are kind of the biggest barriers that have kept us from providing internet access to the world entirely in kind of the space? Has it been this lack of connection to satellites or have there been other issues?

 

Jaume (Guest) – 00:09:37: No, I think that the highest barrier to give Internet access to the rest of the world. I have not. Today we have the champion, which is Starlink with no doubt, that may deliver internet access wherever you are at a fiber quality connectivity, which is amazing. What he’s doing. The point is that the device that the starring is doing, it costs $500. And this means that just a few parts, most of the people in Europe and most of the people in US. May pay, but most of the people in Africa cannot afford 500 euro device for having internet access. And the only way to reduce that cost of the device, again, is a standardization. A standardization is the way, okay, to eliminate the lockdowns, increase competition, and decrease the cost of the device. For me, it’s an obsession, okay, to push for standard devices everywhere, because standard has, it has a war was to have a computer like this one in our pockets for a fraction of the cost that it may cost to make it in a non-standard way. And I know that today I’m with MNO, and if there is another mobile operator that gives me a much better offer, I will take it to the next one. Then all these advantages are the one that you have to bring the barriers down in order to deliver this internet access to this part of the world that does not come. And today, if you look at the United Nations charge, the internet access and the development status of a country is a linear line. It’s completely tied one to each other.

 

Jeff (Host)  – 00:11:29: So really, as we think about Starlink, you mentioned being now a leader in short form, in short order, right. They now have thousands of satellites and millions of customers. But I understand that there’s still only something like eight to 10 million customers that are on satellite internet access. When you compare that to the global population of billions, those numbers themselves show like, hey, they can’t afford it, right? And so the idea that you can connect your everyday device also to a satellite will can kind of broaden up the access overall. In addition to the conversation we had with our Guests on today’s episode, we asked another expert to provide their insights on the future.

 

Nissa (Sound Bite) – 00:12:18: Hi, my name is Nissa Van Meter, and I’m a Senior Electrical Engineer with Fresh Consulting. I think geographical diversity is probably the biggest barrier for getting reliable global internet access. You know, we’re really spread out, and it’s not practical to run millions of miles of cables to reach all these small pockets of rural communities. That’s where we really need an alternative.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:12:45: We’re seeing movement along that front. You know, the iPhone 14 from Apple also announced, you know, they put in 500, I think they announced 400, $450,000,000 investment with a partner company to try to get access, you know, emergency access to those that had the iPhone 14 device. But that’s just emergency access, right? Like, if there’s a true emergency, not the ability to kind of communicate in general. So it’s your belief that that’s going to broaden essentially with companies like yours being able to connect with mobile carriers that that’s going to broaden the access kind of worldwide in the future.

 

Jaume (Guest)- 00:13:21: Listen, to have broadband connectivity direct to a mobile phone, it’s expensive. It’s expensive because it requires huge satellites with a lot of, a huge cell tower in the space that delivers back to these small mobile phones everywhere to deliver two way messaging. This is much more affordable and sustainable. Our vision today is that broadband connectivity to the mobile phone direct to satellite will be working in developed countries, but not in developing countries. Okay? This will be a problem there because at the same time, the density population is much, much lower and the satellite does not understand if they are over Texas or over an African country. It has the same capacity in both of them. This means that the return of your satellites is very high when you fly over a well populated area of United States, but it’s zero when you fight over Rwanda because they cannot afford it, then what we are looking at, and this is something that is going to happen in the short term. In the short term, it’s 80 months. What we are looking at is that with the chipsets manufacturer of the mobile phones to include a very simple protocol like the one of the IoT, 5G IoT inside the mobile phones, which is this useful form. This means, okay, that you have two way messaging everywhere in the world for a very low  cost. And when I say very low cost, it means one dollars a month. And this is not emergency. This is everyday use everywhere. And this honesty is the way that we see that we will be disrupting the world in general. Because when you’re in middle of nowhere, of course we love to see Netflix in the middle of the mountain, but with messaging, we have more than enough 95% of applications that are needed on those places.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:15:37: Got it. So what Apple is doing is interesting. It’s helpful. But the future is that we can do broader messaging everywhere with where technology is going. And you’re at the forefront of that. I noticed also that Starlink was collaborating with T Mobile, and it seemed to be something kind of similar. Is that your understanding that Starlink will also provide a satellite connection to mobile carriers to try to bridge more coverage area?

 

Jaume (Guest) – 00:16:05: Sure, they will do it. Okay. The problem here is that the use of spectrum, okay? When you want to connect direct to mobile phone and deliver some kind of broadband connectivity, one of the problems is that you need to use a lot of spectrum in United States. FCC, it’s one of the most adventurous, I would say no, not one. It’s the most adventurous regulator in the world. Okay? One of the things that I love in United States is that nothing is forever. Okay? If we just need to change, we change it. Okay? And why not? Because in the past but it doesn’t make any sense, okay, to change it for the future. If it’s there for us, for all of us, then FCC has moved super fast in changing the regulation in order that the same spectrum the spectrum, as you know, is a scarce resource. There is not all the spectrum in the world. The spectrum is the one that we have, and there is no more. Then in order to optimize the use of a spectrum, it’s opening the possibility of using the spectrum of the mobile operator from a satellite. From a satellite. Okay. This will allow this connectivity from a satellite direct to a mobile phone. This is not going to happen in all the countries in the world. And then to have 10, 20 megawatts of a spectrum, which is the minimum that you will need in order to connect mobile phones directly to satellite with a certain speed. Okay. It will take a long way in most of the countries outside US.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:17:44: Thank you. Thanks for that detailed explanation. Tell us more about so there’s an impact to users. There’s also an impact to businesses. As we think about having more access globally to two way communication universally with coverage. Tell us more about kind of the impact to businesses. And then I want to talk about what’s going on in Ukraine as well, since I think what’s happened with Starlink has been sort of something that hasn’t really ever happened before. But to start off, tell us more about the impact to businesses, sort of the problems today and how these future changes will enable commerce.

 

Jaume (Guest) – 00:18:21: In IoT. The impact is huge in all the different sector of the economy. Okay. We may have started with logistics. Logistics stand for 13% of the world GDP. It’s amazing. All the different companies in the world, they have from 10 to 25% of the GDP depend on logistics. And in logistics, the supply chain problems that we have seen ourselves directly during the Pandemic, when we realized that without knowing, okay, there was a lot of things around us that were coming from very far away, it could be solved measuring optimizing and taking prevention before it happened. Okay, then if you know that the boat will right away, if that truck it’s not on the right time, if your packet, you will not be there. Most of the things are assumable. Okay, you may stop it then.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:19:28: Just to pause you there for a second, we’ve experienced massive global supply chain problems in the last few years, right? And you’re saying, hey, if we have more coverage from IoT, where we can have IoT devices versus just some periodic satellite communication, we can really understand that supply chain better and solve the problems faster. Is that what I’m hearing?

 

Jaume (Guest) – 00:19:50: Oh, yes, with no doubt. Okay. A couple of months ago, we were with one of the biggest logistic company in the world. The largest logistic company in the world. They have around half a million refrigerated containers. All of them. They have 5g IoT connectivity to know the temperature, the humidity, the doors open, and the geolocalization. But what they say is that once it’s on the boat, we will see. Once it’s on the nowhere, we will see, we don’t know anything else, okay? And there is a lot of food in this case that is transported with these containers that are just lost because waste, because refrigeration there is thousands, hundreds of thousands of containers. They are lost every year in the middle of nowhere. We have another application that is that it’s a company that just control if the container doors are opened or closed. And they control because they don’t want that nobody puts inside the container things that they have not to be there in order to use the same. Then there is finally, okay, that we are working with a company in San Diego that has tagged that attached to a packet and it has a printed MBIoT device. Then you may know exactly where your packet is in all the moments. Then if you live in New York, what we are doing will have no impact because of course there is coverage everywhere. But if you live in a house outside the city, we all have experience that our mobile phone stops working once we go a little bit away from the big cities.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:21:52: Got it? So basically, the connectivity of all these devices, this one example, hey, tens of thousands of refrigerated containers kind of losing access to those where those are, if they’re kept refrigerated, if someone’s opened something and kind of put something else inside the container, there’s kind of a black box there. And so that example is huge given how big the supply chain is and logistics is for the GDP of the world, given the world commerce that’s happened and what are some other industries that have massive problems like this? Can you speak to just broadly some other industries? Maybe agriculture or others?

 

Jaume (Guest) – 00:22:36: The amazing part of everything that we are doing is that it’s not something that we need to develop of the ecosystem. There is people that is already using the same sensors, the same devices, when there is connectivity. And what they have experienced is that they use 40% less water, which is wow. Because there is a world problem with water consumption, the much less fertilizers and at the same time they increase the yield of agriculture. Why? Because you know when your crop is going to get used, okay? Much before it happened, then all this combined it creates a huge impact on agriculture as is today. The problem today is that in most of the places there are countries like Brazil. We were with Rivet in Brazil. Brazil has 25% of the GDP depends on agriculture. US also has an agriculture industry which is huge in cattle management. Cattle management. It’s amazing what we don’t have because we don’t manufacture devices, okay? But there is around 50 companies in the world that already manufacture devices for cattle management. It’s a collar that it measures all the constant vitamins of the cow. Okay? They know if they eat, if they don’t eat, if they move, they move where it is if it gets pregnant it’s not all this is the different industries that well there is a huge impact. All these industries that there are outside the coverage of the mobile operators because they are already digitalized. These ones that need to be digitalized fishing industry and all the maritime just think on life jackets that may be geolocalized. Okay know the number of hours that our army or our safeguards spend trying to localize where there is somebody that have fall down from a boat. It’s awesome. Okay then with a five dollar device you may know where exactly is the people that has falled down in the middle of nowhere.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:24:55: You mentioned some really big statistics about how major macro industries could be affected. If I were to give kind of an analogy, is this more like as you think about the human being and healthcare, there’s a big push for preventative medicine where it’s like you can monitor things before they happen, so you don’t get in the end and all of a sudden you need a massive surgery because you have cancer or whatever it is. You have a major heart condition. It sounds like a lot of these use cases you’re describing are like hey, if we have more intel, more connectivity to these disparate areas then we can prevent a lot of waste and improve a lot of the outcomes because we have the intelligence to monitor things more real time. Is that a kind of a good macro analogy?

 

Jaume (Guest) – 00:25:40: That’s perfect. It’s the digitalization of this 85% of the world that today it cannot be done. Okay. Today satellite communications are just used for critical IoT application. You have a $12 million track in open air mining resource that’s perfect because you don’t care about the cost of the satellite device. But when you have millions or hundreds of millions of cows it’s impossible to control all them with this cost.

 

Nissa (Sound Bite)  – 00:26:12: I think one of the often overlooked industries that will really benefit from a more broad coverage internet access is the utilities industry, specifically the electrical grid. In the United States we have millions of miles of power lines much of which are running in unpopulated areas through the mountains, the deserts and the forests. Having a widespread and also low cost connectivity option is going to open up all kinds of logistics, maintenance, sustainability technologies to support and hopefully to improve one of our critical national infrastructures.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:26:50: Going back to the war we’ve been experiencing between Russia and Ukraine really interesting to see how an entire country could kind of almost go dark and lose serious connectivity but then within short order you could bring in a satellite provider and set up thousands of terminals. As I understand it, there’s as many as 20,000 terminals now, Starlink terminals in Ukraine providing internet access where they otherwise were in the dark. And even just normal human beings couldn’t connect and say hey, I’m safe or critical strategy kind of operations, couldn’t communicate one with another. Do you have any comments on that? Because I think that’s sort of a groundbreaking thing that happened in the last twelve months.

 

Jaume (Guest) – 00:27:39: Yes. Our technology, okay, that is the Internet of Things. It has a special application on the battlefield. Okay. The Internet of battlefield things. As you’ve seen, one of the main polls in Russia army was logistics to move all these assets to a new country. It requires a huge amount of intelligence on the field. And of course, when you are not in your country, you cannot rely on the telecommunications of other countries. Then Internet of whatever things is something that we are looking at, is something that we are super prepared because what we are doing, we have several projects in order to securitize the communications. Because of course, this is part of the key point. We are involved in several projects about 2KD, about quantum K distribution in order to securitize three GPP or 5G telecommunications in order to be used to just track all these assets. Doesn’t matter if it’s a refrigerator, if it’s a tank, or with a soldier. All this part of the logistics and there is a lot, much more than just a soldier. It’s all the food that you need, all the fuel that you need to fuel the tanks. All this part, it’s one of the part that I think that Russia is missing. And it’s one of the big problems that they have found that they will not prepare logistically to afford it.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:29:16: If your convoy goes dark and you don’t have fuel or food. Right. There is serious issues. And so the battlefield of kind of IoT connectivity and then the satellite being a part of that is a big part of would be a big part of any country strategy if they’re in war.

 

Jaume (Guest) – 00:29:33: Yes, for sure. The connected soldier, it’s one part of the equation. Okay. But having connectivity, having secure connectivity there, it’s a huge important one.

 

Nissa (Sound Bite) – 00:29:47: So we can’t talk about changes to Internet accessibility and not talk about low Earth orbit satellite Internet. Here in the United States, for the first time, we have a consumer Internet service that’s delivering high speed, reliable internet to rural communities. Starlink has essentially kick started a new race to tap into the rural market. I’m really excited to see more competitors in this space, pun intended.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:30:14: Certainly Russia probably didn’t anticipate Elon sending thousands of satellites over in short order, and then the rest of the US and Europe kind of supporting Adding even more. But that seems to be a critical kind of aspect to their ability to defend themselves.

 

Jaume (Guest) – 00:30:33: Oh, yes, communication is vital. Okay. And when you know that knowledge in the field is something that is super valuable in these cases. And I think that Russia here have fell themselves okay, completely in the dark compared to the light that all the Starlink communication has given to the Ukranian people.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:30:56: Yeah, certainly this is a stark example, where we’re talking probably tens of thousands of lives have been at stake as a result of this type of connectivity, or at least their well being at a minimum. Right. Let’s shift to the future a little bit. So there’s a lot of groundbreaking things happening right now. We’ve seen what’s happened with Starlink in the last few years. You guys have just launched your second major satellite, and you have many more coming to try to bring cheap Internet access and IoT access to 85% of the rest of the world. There’s other telecom providers that are trying to connect with satellites, given that there’s so much to gain from this sort of connectivity, especially if you can do it low cost. You mentioned countries like Africa and the barrier for them accessing. What’s going on with the rest of the satellite providers. But if we have the sort of groundbreaking things happening now, if we were to look to the future 15 to 20 years from now, what do you envision? Obviously, access would be a big part of that. But tell us more about your vision for the future, because you’re a pioneer, and you’re someone who is creating the future right now. Tell us more about what you envision.

 

Jaume (Guest) – 00:32:14: The digitalization of the war is something that is going to happen with a super low cost connectivity, which means that when you turn Apple down a light, okay, you will think about how much does it cost, this light to invite you? Okay, we are going to have around 20 IoT devices connected for each mobile phone. And this means that all these health problems that when I’m visioning, the personal IoT will be part of our life and anything will be connected. There is a lot of intelligence, a lot of things to win if all the different objects around us, it’s perfectly coordinated. And this will be thanks to the communication, to the mobile communications and satellite communications. There was something that is super curious that for the last 20 years, we have had a Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and a satellite in Washington. This is not happening anymore. Okay. Satellite and mobile connectivity will be just one measuring seamlessly in one transparent network that will cover all the world.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:33:29: Wow. That’s amazing. Any other thoughts on the future? As we anticipate, we try to forecast what’s coming.

 

Jaume (Guest) – 00:33:36: What’s coming? Okay. What’s coming is the satellite industry is transforming super fast. Newer space. There is already the hundreds, well, not hundreds of thousands, but tens of thousands of satellites flying around us. This will be increasingly, the newer starship will decrease again in a disruptive way. The cause of putting things in space, the Moon. It’s the first okay, that for sure will be living there. We’ll have a permanent vase on the Moon and in the telecommunications on the Earth. Observing you’ll be amazing changes when you may have 2 meters vision anywhere in the world in real time. This. Change. Again, a lot of the way that we react this will impact with no doubt on the environmental. One of the things that all of us, when you start a new disruptive business like the one that we are doing, you have to think of both ways, okay? How to be a sustainable, a super profitable business. But at the same time, we all have to be aware that our planet has a lot of challenges and we may be part of the solution. Our technology per se, the roles to save energy, water, optimize for production, that introduce CO2. But at the same time, what we are doing when you have a global conservation, you have global coverage and a lot of capacity everywhere. Okay? And there are some places where the best way to use this capacity is to offer it to NGOs. That’s exactly what we are doing. We are signing with NGOs all around the world. We have already signed with NGOs, amazing NGOs like SOS, Amazonia, that it take care of the Forestry, Worldwide Fund that it does tracking of engagement spaces in order to offer them free of charge connectivity in these spaces. And again, it’s disrupting. And it’s something that it will change completely the way when we may track the 100% of the engagement spaces that are out there. Because it will be, of course, for them, we expect okay, that have a huge impact on the future of our planet.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:36:02: That’s incredible. One of the things that’s been trending a lot this year worldwide has been AI and generative AI. And as we think about IoT, we talk about things being smart because they’re connected. But I would say just because they’re connected doesn’t mean they’re smart. It enables us to have the data so we can get smarter. But it seems like this confluence of AI, generative AI is on kind of another rapid rise where it’s really picking up traction. How have you guys thought about AI and these two kind of things converging as we think about the future?

 

Jaume (Guest) – 00:36:44: Without AI, massive IoT, connectivity is useless. When you have a weather station in the middle of your crops, it’s easy, okay? Because you could look at it every hour. Okay, I know if it drains, if not but when you have 10,000 sensors, is it possible? Okay, you need AI with all the algorithms that detects when you need to fertilize  when you need to waterize, and when you need to do something in your field. Okay? Then AI and massive IoT, it goes hand by hand because without the sensor, you don’t know what’s happening. And without AI, you don’t know which the result of what you are measuring all these tens of thousands of sensors that you are putting on the field.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:37:36: Got it. So the AI and machine learning will make all this data more usable. I think that’s one of the key things we saw with Chat GPT recently. Just a small sliver of AI, but the generative AI aspect of putting a conversational interface over a large language model, it just made all that information a lot more user friendly. So if we take that analogy and say, okay, hey, we’re going to create similar sort of conversational AI user friendly information over these large data sets, then I could envision that also making things progress a lot quicker. Because like you said, it’s one thing to have all that data, but it’s useless unless you’re really interpreting it and making it actionable. Right.

 

Jaume (Guest) – 00:38:22: That’s exactly what’s happening. Okay. With all this data, we may start learning a lot. We may react much faster, and we may get conclusions for the results. And this is a virtual circle that fits itself and makes things much better every day.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:38:44: Got it. You mentioned billions of IoT devices, and I think I heard somewhere you mentioned maybe 5 billion IoT devices. I’ve read somewhere there’s as many as 10 billion IoT devices. It might depend on what’s described as an IoT device. But given that we have this proliferation of access coming and the notion that you will need devices to kind of connect and to monitor, do you have any forecasts of how many IoT devices we’ll have in ten years or 20 years? Is it going to be an exponential curve?

 

Jaume (Guest) – 00:39:18: Yes. The measurements or the forecast that we have been seeing is that by 2013 will be 200 billion IoT devices.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:39:27: 200 billion.

 

Jaume (Guest) – 00:39:28: 200 billion. Okay. And these are all kind of small ones for your dog and your cat and your belt and your refrigerator and your bicycle and your boat and your windsurfing everything. Your light jacket, of course, your watch. Everything will be measured. Everything will be everything. It’s at the same time. Okay. Privacy, it’s a concern. All this data, we have to take care of it, and we have to be aware of all this risk with countries not so friendly with the data. For us, it’s really something that we have to think that this has no important that nothing happens. It happens. Okay. And the government here have to take a hard role on it.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:40:24: That’s interesting. So just high level, if we’re at 5 billion or 10 billion now, we’re talking a 20 to 40 x increase by 2030 in roughly seven years, it’s going to be a massive increase in IoT devices.

 

Jaume (Guest) – 00:40:39: Massive increase. IoT devices everywhere. Because the IoT devices are getting cheaper and cheaper. When I was talking about the tag, they want to have a tag for 2$ a 2$ tag that you may track everything, doesn’t matter, whatever you want.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:40:58: Why not put that on 100 of your things and have your own digital twin home, right? Or the digital twin of your business? If you can track everything, then that’s huge.

 

Jaume (Guest) – 00:41:08: That’s huge. Temperature. Monitor the temperature of the different rooms. Okay. It would be that easy. Then all your different plants at home for $2 you know, when you have to water ice, then all these small things that today seems to be incredibly easy to do. Okay? But it will be much, much easier when we digitalize.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:41:34: Manage your ecosystem at home, manage the digital twin, maybe, of your business, especially if you’re in a business that has any environmental aspects or material aspects. Material handling alone in construction is huge. Tracking people as it relates to safety, the future of robots. But materials in construction, yes. If you could track materials at small ones and all the large ones, then one of the biggest problems in construction is just moving things around and how disorganized that is. So, yeah, it seems like the widescale benefits are just astronomical here. Who are the big companies that will be involved in providing these IoT devices? Do any companies come to mind or is that just the typical big kind of chip makers?

 

Jaume (Guest) – 00:42:22: The chip makers are two in the world. Okay? One of the reasons why in San Diego is because we are part of the Qualcomm accelerator. And that’s what Qualcomm is doing in the world. It’s amazing. Okay? Without them, we are losing a big part of this abandonment. The other, it’s Mediatek. And there are some models involved, but not much.  Okay. There are very few companies that they are on the forefront of the communications technology. And apart from that, the chips are few. Then the Eric models, which is the one that use the chips. Okay, a little bit more, but not that much. Maybe 50 companies. Bandan, which is the nice part of the standard. You have thousands of companies that does different things for different applications. And this is the point that when you have a $10 device modem that could communicate anything you want and you may integrate, because if fully a standard with your idea, we have seen not just in cows, but also for beasts, for monitorizing big homes, for monitorizing, small votes, for the networks of the fishers, for everything. Okay? Then you start thinking and you say, wow, why not?

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:43:53: All you need to do is think. And then you can think about, okay, why not track this if it’s truly affordable and it can provide me more intel that makes sense. It’s been fun to kind of pontificate a little bit about where the future is going, but I think it’s grounded in what’s happening now. There’s serious movements with, like you said, these chip manufacturers, with the standards providers, with the satellite companies, with AI, with the server companies. And it’s a compilation of things that’s really coming together at scale as we think about kind of wrapping up. I want to go back to you personally a little bit. You founded a few serious businesses. What drives you, what keeps you driving towards all this next level innovation? Tell me more about your drive.

 

Jaume (Guest)  – 00:44:41: Passion for innovation, for disrupting new businesses. At the end, when you start, you have nothing. Okay. To the start of IoT. We started in 2018. This was four years ago now. We just launched the first 5G IoT satellite in four years. A little bit more than four years. Then this is the creation on the most pure essential. You start with nothing, with an idea that which never is the final one. Don’t think that ideas come just sweeping, okay? And you wake up and you have seen the 5G IoT satellite flying, okay? That you start saying that this is a problem, that let’s look at different solutions. You start with one, it’s not exactly the one that you wanted, but all these process of creation a company and to see real impact and real results on the final users is what passionates me to see that we may change the world with ideas. It’s amazing. And it’s something that when I left my last company, I say, okay, let’s take a rest. Maybe it’s time to retire . And it lasts me a couple of months. Wanted to be on the field.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:46:08: Got it.  Well, I think yeah, when you see a country like you mentioned, the early example of Morocco, bringing access to all those people in Morocco, I think you could kind of go from there to like, okay, what if I could change the EU? Or what if I could change the world? And I could see how that the ability to impact people and make a difference could be a key driver, especially when we’re talking about worldwide impact, which is where all these satellite providers are, right. They’re making major impact that is making major improvements in short order. So it must be fun to be part of. You sound like a serious entrepreneur. A lot of entrepreneurs, even like me, struggle with staying healthy. So do you have any tips for yourself maybe 20 years ago or any tips for other entrepreneurs about how do you stay healthy as an entrepreneur? It’s hard to kind of keep a good balance, no?

 

Jaume (Guest) – 00:47:00: Yes. A sport is the only thing, okay, that helps. The only way that I have discovered that I could wake up on Monday and I have all the energy, it’s during Saturday and Sunday to break it to do a break, that’s important. Okay? We all have been working for Sundays and Saturdays and night. Okay? And if you have to do it, you do it. But you have to trade to make a break and to do a lot of sport. The sport cleans up your head and allows you to start thinking with a white sheet of paper again and affording all these points. Because the entrepreneur world has a lot of nice moment, but has a lot of hard moments for all of us okay. That we all have passed through this. And if you are not mentally sun Incorporated, okay, it’s something that for sure is a real truth.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:47:58: Thanks for that advice about taking breaks and getting involved in athletics and sports, and that’s one thing that keeps me grounded. I recently, I tore my calf muscle and I realized, in the, in the the three or four weeks that I wasn’t able to get out and exercise, like, my stress levels went up quite a bit. So getting that break, taking a break and getting that stress release is really important, especially as an entrepreneur where you’re often working nights and weekends or you’re working really heavy hours. As we think about the future, technology kind of has a life of its own a little bit. We talked about how fast things were moving across a few different spaces, not to mention what’s happening with telecom and satellite. Even though it takes a lot of work with government agencies sometimes to change a standard technology, it moves so quickly. As we think about designing the future of Internet access with intent and make sure that we’re doing good for humanity. Do you have any other final thoughts as relate to doing good? You mentioned some examples here where we’re providing good, but sometimes we launch technology so fast we don’t contemplate also the bad and the things that we got to be mindful from an ethical perspective. Any thoughts to round off from that angle?

 

Jaume (Guest) – 00:49:11: I think that the technology is per se, that it’s not good or bad. Okay. I believe okay, maybe I’m wrong, okay? But I believe that all the energies may have a good impact on humanity. It’s only the use of this energy, of this technology that sometimes it’s doing wrong. Everything is scary. Everybody is scared about AI. Everybody just scared about telecommunications, having new robots, robots, all these technologies that in the past. Our history shows that all this technology may be used on a good way, on a bad way. We just have to focus on the good way to use it, because all this will help us. We are living much better than our grandfathers, our parents, okay? And I am sure that our grandson will believe much better than we do.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:50:09: Thank you. Appreciate that advice. And I agree with you that technology can be good or bad, and it’s our prerogative and our imperative to focus on the good and shape it. As pioneers in the Space Jaume, it’s been a pleasure to have you on the show to learn from you, and thank you for being a pioneer and an innovator. And we’re looking forward to watching Sateliot and watching it grow and seeing how you can change the future.

 

Jaume (Guest)  – 00:50:37: I’m sure that we’ll talk again soon, okay? Since we keep launching more satellites, it has been a pleasure to have this time with you. Thanks, Jeff.

 

Jeff (Host) – 00:50:49: The future of podcast is brought to you by Fresh Consulting. To find out more about how we pair design and technology together to shape the future, visit us freshconsulting.com. Make sure to search for the future of an Apple podcast spotify, Google podcast, or anywhere else. Podcasts are found. Make sure to click subscribe so you don’t miss any of our future episodes. And on behalf of our team here at Fresh, thank you for listening.