Media

Rivada’s transition to a new spectrum under its German ITU filing is more than a regulatory footnote; it is a structural reset that transforms spectrum from a looming constraint into a huge, durable advantage for the Outernet.

Rivada Networks’ COO Francis O’Flaherty discusses the way that enterprises connect, the desire for private sovereign networks, and key industry trends emerging from one of the world’s biggest tech events, MWC in Barcelona.

The digital landscape is under siege. Cybercrime is no longer a technical nuisance—it’s a strategic threat. With global damages projected to reach $10.5 trillion USD by 2025, cyberattacks now represent what some call the largest transfer of wealth in human history. If cybercrime were an economy, it would rank third after the U.S. and China. This shift elevates digital infrastructure from a technical asset to a pillar of national security and economic resilience.

Space is supposed to be used peacefully. However, this does not apply to military satellite communications. At the Munich Cyber Security Conference 2026, it became clear that the Starlink system is also vulnerable. An independent network is needed.

For decades, space was imagined as a kind of neutral commons — a quiet layer of infrastructure floating serenely above earthly conflict. At the Munich Cyber Security Conference this week, that idea sounded less like policy and more like nostalgia.

The digital world is under siege. Hackers, organized crime, and rogue nation-states relentlessly probe for vulnerabilities, exploiting any weakness to compromise sensitive data. If the best-prepared and best-equipped organizations in the world can fall prey to these attacks, how can others hope to defend themselves using the same vulnerable infrastructure?

Digital transformation has pushed enterprise and government operations into the cloud, across borders, and into mission-critical, latency-sensitive domains. At the same time, cyberattacks have grown in frequency and sophistication, targeting the soft underbelly of existing infrastructure—its exposure, complexity, and overdependence on terrestrial intermediaries.

Planning for business continuity has never been more important. Today, a network outage doesn’t just cause inconvenience—it halts production, severs access to systems, and breaks continuity. And as dependence on cloud-based tools and remote access intensifies, the cost of downtime keeps climbing.

The global telecommunications infrastructure we rely on today was built and optimized to deliver the internet—now essential to modern social and business life. But networks designed for maximum reach and cost efficiency are not always the best fit for secure, mission-critical operations. A foundational shift is required: a network built from the ground up for secure, deterministic, and sovereign operations.