Spectrum Marketplace Methodology

Vega's Spectrum Marketplace transforms idle satellite bandwidth into tradable assets through automated micro-leases. Built on advanced spectrum intelligence and forecasting, our platform enables operators to buy and sell capacity safely and predictably.

Table of Contents

Purpose & Scope

Vega’s Spectrum Marketplace is the trading layer—built on top of our spectrum intelligence and management platform—turning idle satellite bandwidth into a tradable asset through short-term micro-leases. With knowledge of how the radio spectrum will behave in the coming hours or days, the Vega platform determines how to price spectrum, run dynamic spectrum coordination via rolling auctions, and enforce trust so operators can buy and sell capacity safely and predictably.

Hourly Auction Flow

The marketplace follows an hourly cycle. On the hour, in rapid succession, Vega's automated marketplace completes a Rolling Batched Micro-Auction:

  1. Data Collection - Takes congestion and interference forecasts from our platform as well as our customers' buy and sell intents, converting them into forward-looking supply and demand estimates

  2. Pricing Algorithm - Aggregates all buy and sell orders in the batch simultaneously, determining the price where the maximum amount of spectrum can be exchanged—often the intersection of aggregated supply and demand curves

  3. Clearing Process - Issues trade confirmations for each lease, settling the debits and credits to the respective participants' margin accounts

User-Defined Preferences

User onboarding includes establishing rules that govern marketplace behavior—when they wish to sell or purchase additional spectrum, especially with regard to price. Because this is an automated second-price auction, participation needs to be rapid and automated, necessitating predetermined behaviors or rules:

  • Market Price - The customer chooses to use Vega's provided price as is

  • Market Multiple - The customer chooses to apply a multiple to the market price; for example, Buy Price × 110% improving coverage, or Sell Price × 99% improving liquidity*

  • Customer in the Loop - The customer chooses to receive a time-sensitive ping through Vega's API of the offer, to which they can determine the price they are willing to transact**

Customers can also choose to set price limits to avoid excessive prices.

Notes: * Multiples are rounded and stored to the nearest percent—i.e., 100%, not 100.00001%; ** The Customer in the Loop method incurs additional API Access Fees

Pricing Algorithm

Pricing algorithms dynamically determine fair market values for spectrum leases based on expected demand, market uncertainty, and user-defined preferences. Current forecasting results and historical transaction data estimate demand curves for different frequencies, regions, and times. For example, if numerous interference events of the Ku-band are expected that day, or if numerous satellites need to downlink information to Hawaii at roughly the same time, then the price would increase.

Pricing also conservatively adjusts price based on both historic and potential user behavior—how likely the demand model is to be wrong because certain users refuse either to buy or to sell spectrum, thus affecting the market price. This safety factor ensures that the initial price quoted to buyers and sellers serves as a bound for the actual price. As the marketplace continues to mature and becomes more liquid, this uncertainty will continue to shrink.

Trust & Verification Framework

A structured trust and verification framework ensures that only legitimate, authorized operators participate and that all marketplace activity is auditable. During onboarding, Vega verifies organizational identity and confirms that each participant holds the rights necessary to operate in the bands and regions they wish to trade.

Once onboarded, participants operate under clearly defined rules covering acceptable behavior, order submission, and SLA expectations. All activity—orders, modifications, cancellations, trades, and settlements—is recorded in a tamper-evident log. This historical record underpins confidence in the marketplace, supports internal and regulatory audits, and provides the raw data needed to refine pricing and risk models over time.

Margin & Risk Management

Margin requirements and exposure limits are used to reduce default risk and keep participants within safe operating bounds. Buyers post collateral against the notional value of intended leases; sellers post performance collateral tied to their ability to deliver interference-safe, SLA-compliant service throughout the lease window.

Vega tracks per-participant exposure in real time across open orders and active leases. When exposure approaches configured thresholds, the system can automatically reduce order sizes, require additional margin, or temporarily restrict new trading until risk returns to acceptable levels. In the event of a default, predefined procedures govern how trades are unwound or reallocated and how losses are absorbed between counterparties and the marketplace.

SLA Monitoring & Disputes

Each executed lease is associated with measurable service expectations for availability, throughput, and interference behavior. During the lease, Vega monitors telemetry and, where available, external sensing data to verify that the leased spectrum behaves as promised.

Potential SLA breaches or anomalous interference patterns trigger alerts and may open a formal dispute record. The dispute process defines how issues are reported, what evidence is required, and how investigations and resolutions proceed. The goal is to resolve conflicts in a consistent, documented way that preserves trust while minimizing operational disruption for all parties involved.

Transparency & Reporting

Vega emphasizes transparency while maintaining commercial confidentiality. Aggregated and anonymized market data—such as traded volume by band, price ranges, and utilization ratios—can be shared with participants to inform strategy and with regulators to support oversight.

At a finer level, Vega maintains reconstructable audit trails for all orders and trades. These logs enable post-event analysis, compliance checks, and model backtesting. The same data feeds directly into future iterations of the pricing and demand models, allowing the marketplace to become more accurate and robust as more activity flows through it.

Governance & Safeguards

Marketplace governance is structured around fair, non-discriminatory access and active prevention of abusive practices. Surveillance logic monitors for patterns such as spoofing, wash trades, and other forms of market manipulation that could distort perceived demand or supply.

When suspicious behavior is detected, Vega can escalate through a defined set of responses—from additional monitoring and temporary limits on activity to suspension or removal in severe cases. Governance rules and potential sanctions are documented and communicated in advance so that participants understand the operating environment and consequences of non-compliance.

Regulatory Alignment

All trading within Vega’s marketplace is constrained by existing spectrum rights and regional regulations. Participants may only trade spectrum they are authorized to use, and every order is validated against band, region, and license constraints before entering an auction. Trades that would result in non-compliant behavior are rejected.

As regulatory frameworks evolve, Vega updates its constraint engine and internal policies so that future auctions and leases remain aligned with current rules and filings. This alignment reduces regulatory risk for operators and ensures that dynamic spectrum trading supports broader spectrum management objectives rather than undermining them.

Integration & Implementation

Participants typically integrate with Vega via APIs that expose order submission, status queries, and event notifications. Their chosen pricing modes and rule sets are encoded in configuration and used to automatically generate and adjust orders in response to changing conditions and auction cycles.

To reduce integration risk, Vega can provide a sandbox environment that mirrors real auction and pricing behavior without financial or operational consequences. Operators can use this environment to test strategies, user-defined preferences, and automation flows before enabling them in production, ensuring their systems behave as expected under realistic market conditions.

Metrics & Continuous Improvement

Vega tracks marketplace health and model performance through a set of quantitative metrics, including liquidity, spread, fill rate, and time-to-match, as well as forecast-versus-realized congestion and pricing error. These metrics are routinely reviewed to identify persistent inefficiencies, biases, or failure modes.

Where issues are identified—for example, systematic underpricing in certain bands or recurring SLA disputes—Vega can adjust model parameters, auction cadence, margin policies, or governance rules. This feedback loop ensures that, as participation and data volume grow, the marketplace becomes more accurate, efficient, and resilient in coordinating spectrum across a crowded orbit.

Get Started with the Vega Marketplace

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