Q&A: Terrestar’s CEO has big ambitions for low earth orbit satellites

Terrestar Solutions Inc. is forging ahead in its aspirations to launch a low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation, called CaStar. In October, Terrestar signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with United Arab Emirates-based company Equatys, to develop an open, standards-based interoperability framework between the companies’ constellations. Terrestar CEO Jacques Leduc sat down for an exclusive interview with The Wire Report to talk about the company’s future in LEO, the health of Canada’s satellite industry and digital sovereignty, and the government’s licensing moratorium on Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) spectrum. Tell me about your LEO constellation ambitions At Terrestar we currently have geostationary satellites and we’ve understood for many years that the new technology will be on the LEO side, given reduced latency and the ability to deliver what we call cellular-like service. We would offer the satellite connectivity not only to work as an extension of the coverage of the existing cellular network, but also work within the footprint of that existing network. The division we see with that is really where the satellite is becoming the third access to your everyday device. It started with a big tower on North Royale Air and a big tower in Toronto, a few of those big cities in the mid 80s. Then Wi-Fi became our second mode of access to our device, and now satellite is becoming our third access. That’s why we have incorporated our frequency into the cellular ecosystem in order to have chipset handsets work with the satellite technology, and then being built and developed accordingly. The current phones are not being built to work with satellites, even though some companies using cellular spectrums are delivering some satellite service, but I say some because it’s not a cellular-like service yet. You recently signed an MoU with Equatys. What does that agreement mean for Terrestar? We’ve understood for a while that building a constellation just for Canada doesn’t make sense. It’s not economic and it’s not viable because 98 per cent of the time, the assets fly outside of the country. So, in order to have a viable and sustainable model, you need to work in partnership with other countries who have spectrum in order to make sure when the assets fly over a certain geography, they can be put to work. The joint venture with Equatys and the L-band spectrum, and when you bring that with Space42, the other partner, together they probably have the most spectrum on the planet. So, they made one of the critical success factors in that regard. The other one is they have a technology that is cellular-like, which is another one of our objectives. In order to have satellite that will give you voice, email, and SMS, it’s very important, and even some video conference capability. In the future, our goal is to bring in commonality in the number of satellites. Because Equatys will have a certain number of satellites, we will have a certain number, and there’s other parties we’re in discussions with that we want to bring into the group. So if we all put hundreds and hundreds of satellites up in the sky, this forms constellations of thousands of satellites, which makes these constellations more economic. It brings not only additional coverage, but it brings additional capacity within a certain geography and that’s how we will be able to compete with those large hyper scale players. The other factor we’re doing is standardizing all of the technology. We want to have different constellations working as one network, even though each of these constellations will be sovereign in nature and they will manage their own ground infrastructure in their country and keep data within their country. So, this is a way to meet the requirements of sovereignty competitions and large access to existing devices that will be out there in the market. Will your LEO constellation expand on your business-to-business (B2B) wholesale model, or will you hive off a direct-to-consumer model? No, we really want to be an open network on a B2B model. We built Fido in Canada from scratch, so we understand pretty well what the cost is to build the customer care, distribution channels, all the publicity that needs to be done for direct-to-consumer, and the billing system to the consumer. All that is activity that when you start costs you millions and millions of dollars for your first customer. And you need a lot of customers before you get to a competitive position. So, it’s all activity that does not create value, and we don’t want to compete with the mobile network operators. We want to be a partner with them where we will improve the quality of their network and we will improve the service they can deliver to their customers. We’re having a lot of conversations lately about digital sovereignty. How would you diagnose the health of the satellite industry as a whole in this country? I think in Canada we have a good understanding of what it takes. At Terrestar we have been in the business since the end of 2008. As a Canadian operator we have a very good understanding of this industry overall from the cellular side, from the satellite side, and from an ecosystem development side. When you look overall into the different parts of the value chain, manufacturing satellites, rockets, and launchpads, the different components that go into the space industry, we have a lot of good companies here in Canada. I think the challenge is not, do we have the expertise, it’s can we work together? And can we each stay in our lane and try to avoid saying ‘I will expand my business to do A, B, and C,’ when A and B already exist elsewhere and they’re very good at it. This is more our vision, to work with every actor in the value chain and make sure we leverage the expertise that is already there. Prime Minister Mark Carney (Nepean, Ont.) recently said he wants to diversify away from Starlink and towards more domestic solutions. Obviously, your LEO constellation won’t be exactly the same business model as Starlink, but does this mindset open up a lane for Terrestar in the marketplace? Of course. In order to have quality service in Canada you need MSS spectrum. Terrestar is the holder of 40 megahertz of S-band spectrum. We’re the only Canadians, all the others are Americans who hold that spectrum. So, on that note, we want to build constellations that will serve the operators, which indirectly will serve the consumer. So, our approach to the market is different, but I think our approach is more friendly and less confusing for the end user, because the end user doesn’t really understand how cellular phones work. So if you have to explain to them that you might need another package from another company to get a service, I mean that’s more complicated for them. I feel the approach we have is the best for the Canadian industry. It allows our Canadian mobile operators to be able to support the service that their customers are looking for. At the same time, it gives them less dependence on the U.S. players. And it creates jobs, it creates developments into the country, and I think it’s in their best interest, as well as in our best interest, to work that way. Anything else you want to add? Obviously, the project we have is an ambitious one. I won’t say this is a small project. It’s very ambitious, but it’s one where I feel we have our hands on the steering wheel. We know where we’re going; the vision is clear. It’s something we have started for many years. We have the right partners around us, we have the ability to build satellites in Canada. The challenges we have are twofold. One is with regards to the ability to launch the satellites. The weight of our satellites, we don’t yet have in Canada the capacity to launch them. So we will have to work outside the country to have them launched into space. The other one is the moratorium right now in Canada. It was required to do that, but I think that the key message is we need to move on. The race has started. We need to be able to catch up. As such, we need to move fast in the deployment of our constellation. We just need the go ahead from the Minister of Industry to be able to move forward, and that’s the moratorium. We hope that clarity will come on that side pretty quickly. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. mcollins@thewirereport.ca

Q&A: Terrestar’s CEO has big ambitions for low earth orbit satellites

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By Maria Collins
|November 13, 2026

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