Strategic Satellite Visions Are About to be Put to the Test
A new era is approaching in the satellite industry. During the next two to three years, you will see key strategies start to come to fruition from some of the largest satellite players. Very soon, Iridium’s NEXT constellation will start to launch. O3b will see its first satellites launched next year. Intelsat’s EpicNG strategy will start to take shape. Inmarsat is quickly approaching the launch of its first Global Xpress satellites. While significant high-throughput satellites such as Ka-Sat and ViaSat-1 have already launched, we will see the competition really start to intensify in the next few years. Companies will try to make good on their ambitious strategies of selling capacity on these new satellites. Right now, it almost feels like we are pausing for breath as we await the next stage of competition in our industry.
The good news is that demand for capacity outside of broadcast and DTH appears to be stronger than ever. It is quite interesting how conversations at IBC were certainly all about verticals such as oil and gas, maritime and aeronautical. Don’t get me wrong, there will be still be plenty of activity in traditional DTH and broadcast, but it is the business in these other verticals that could have more of an effect. Intelsat and SES’s business with GoGo illustrates a clear trend emerging. Both SES and Intelsat have recently been very vocal about their potential to do business in these verticals. We could see some very creative deal making being executed by both MSS and FSS operators.
There are also fascinating new dynamics in the maritime sector at play. Companies such as Royal Caribbean in the cruise ship sector are making heavy investments in upgrading their on-board infrastructure and connectivity services that they are able to offer passengers. The same situation is happening with the airlines. The trend of customers wanting connectivity anytime, anywhere has never been more apparent.
The oil and gas market is also always a noteworthy one for our sector, given the communications needs of these companies and the decision-making process that often involves using the best of fiber and satellite technologies. We have our Oilcomm event coming up in early November, which presents a great opportunity to find out about the latest trends in this vertical and what oil companies are demanding from the satellite industry as they try to modernize their communications infrastructure.
Speaking of events, we have another Latin America-focused webinar coming in mid-October and we are delighted to have secured two great speakers from BT Global Services and Elara Comunicaciones to discuss the latest developments in the market from an end-user and service provider perspective. You can register for this and other webinars at SatelliteTODAY.com/Webinars. Latin America remains a hotbed of activity for the satellite industry and this webinar will give our industry a great opportunity to interact with two companies that are playing key roles in shaping the future for satellite in the region.
I hate to end on a sad note, but there was one press release I received in the last month that really made me think about our community. The terrible shootings of a family in the French Alps garnered global headlines and we were informed later that Saad Al-Hilli, a contractor working with Surrey Satellites Technology Ltd (SSTL), was among the victims. One of the great things about the satellite industry is that it really does have a sense of community and losing one of our own in such tragic circumstances is truly awful. I would like to pass on condolences to the Al-Hilli family from everyone at Via Satellite.