Since December of last year, we’ve seen a lot of positive change at the company driven by our commitment to approach issues with a fresh sense of purpose. Not only did we emerge from restructuring, but we also worked tirelessly and collaboratively to find agreement on some of our most challenging spectrum issues.
These achievements represent an unbelievable amount of work by a lot of hard-working and dedicated individuals and team members. As a company, these are signs of tremendous progress, and we hope the commitments and spirit of the agreements we were able to achieve will help renew confidence in—and excitement for—our future.
But I don’t want to spend too much time talking about the past—the past is now past. Today, I want us to look forward, to the future of this company.
Our first step forward begins with the announcement of our new company brand. This announcement is not just a change of the name – we are not just replacing one sign with another sign, one business card for the next. It is about changing our narrative and reconnecting as a team, with our partners and within the entire industry.
This is an opportunity to signal our shared commitment to continue making improvements in the way we conduct our external business practices and also the internal ways we communicate and connect with each other.
That word, connect, perhaps best represents our new identity, and it’s why I’m excited to announce that from this day forward, we will be known as Ligado Networks.
Ligado means being connected and ready to go. The name reflects our commitment to delivering and accelerating next-generation connectivity through innovation and collaboration—again, with industry and with each other.
As all of our lives become more and more mobile in an increasingly connected world, the Ligado Networks brand underscores our vision moving forward—to provide the next-generation of mobile connections that are more and more crucial to so many different aspects of our daily lives, whether it’s in healthcare, education, transportation or any of the other many industries so tied to mobile broadband and the wireless sector.
It also represents the kind of culture we want to foster as a company. The more we collaborate, the more we innovate together, the more we connect as a team – then we’re sure to experience a much brighter future together.
As we continue to define our business and technology opportunities, we have been steadily adding to our distinguished management team, and I’m excited about the experience we’ve brought on board … people like Tamara Casey, our new chief technology officer; Scott Wiener, our chief strategy officer; and Ashley Durmer, our senior vice president for government relations and corporate communications.
In addition to the team members who’ve shown an unwavering commitment to our cause over the years, I’m genuinely excited to have these exceptional leaders join us to further develop our existing team, position the company as a recognized innovator, and help us define a truly different business strategy that is critical to success.
The new brand represents our future vision, but it’s also a shout-out to our heritage as a network service operator providing satellite connectivity throughout the U.S. and Canada. We remain committed to exploring new technologies and expanding next-generation satellite connectivity to offer partners and the overall industry greater options and solutions.
Across all businesses, we are all about connectivity. We are about bringing people together. We are about making stronger connections.
Over the next several months, you will continue to hear a lot about our spectrum—mid-band spectrum—which has tremendous potential to accelerate the delivery of advanced technology and next-generation mobile networks.
That term, “next-generation mobile networks,” captures a range of developments that are expected to come together in the coming years, but what it really means for us is that we want to utilize our spectrum to the benefit of increased mobile connections and advanced technologies which will support countless emerging industries and connect us in ways we cannot even imagine today.
When we talk about the Internet of Things, what we are focused on is the Internet of IMPORTANT Things. It’s not just about “Things,” it’s about finding ways to improve the connections between those things through new technologies, which can lead to improvements and advancements in important needs such as medicine and education.
In other words, it’s the connection between those things and the quality of that connectivity.
We can help accelerate those connections because we have a first-rate, innovative, and collaborative team that understands how we can use our spectrum assets and explore all the possibilities that exist across a number of these crucial industries.
We are very excited about all of these emerging opportunities, and we’re fully committed to engaging with the various industries to create differentiated connectivity and service offerings that will support increasing levels of innovation that have been the hallmark of U.S. global leadership in wireless.
Whether it’s enabling patients to receive quality care regardless of location, making automobiles safer for all of us, or helping to close the digital divide in America, we at Ligado Networks want to be a part of making lives better, and we look forward to connecting with you to help us make this collective vision a reality.