By 2020, 20 to 30 billion devices will be connected through the Internet of Things (IoT). Leaders in the satellite industry are moving to ensure they will have a seat at the table once the IoT revenue stream begins to flow.
Tim Last, vice president and general manager of M2M business at Iridium, said: “IoT has been last on the agenda. The change we’ll see over the next few years is the satellite community will be talking about IoT right up front, rather than as an emerging technology.”
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Jassem Nasser, chief strategy officer at Thuraya, sees the “diversity in devices and locations” as playing right to the strengths of satellite, which offers ubiquitous coverage.
Max Kamenetsky, vice president of business development at SSL, said: “We need to think very hard about the specific verticals where satellite has a unique value proposition.”
Jennifer Manner, senior vice president of regulatory affairs for Echostar, stressed that policy must be technology neutral. “Regulators tend to have a bias toward terrestrial wireless operators … [Policy] should not privilege one technology over another.”
Last concluded: “We have to be part of a hybrid network because the mass of competing technologies makes it difficult and challenging to provide a single solution. It’s important we embrace that hybrid mode in order to retain the value satellite can bring.” VS
