Facing competition from NewSpace entrants, satellite operators are moving to mixed-orbit models, executives said during the General Session at SATELLITE 2020 on Tuesday.
SES President and CEO Steve Collar said: “Satellite has to play in a much bigger sandpit. The days of niche and expensive are long gone. We need to move to broad-based and affordable.” He said SES is building an integrated cloud-scale network using multi-orbit — combining legacy GEO satellites with its MEO constellation. “What multi-orbit does is it allows you to put the right customer in the right place in the network at the right time. For us, it will be a mix, it will be integrated and most of the time the customers won’t know what they’re on.”
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Hughes President Pradman Kaul agreed: “We think all three orbits are important.” On 5G: “Obviously, with 5G, because the number of base stations will increase dramatically, that should result in the backhaul business growing significantly. In the next five years or so, the investments in 5G are going to be in high-density areas — those markets we have never really thought about.”
Eutelsat Deputy CEO Michel Azibert shared skepticism about large LEO constellations: “We think it will probably not work. The cost structures are not there. We think it’s going to be an expensive solution for consumers. The tracking antennas are going to be expensive for quite some time. And the go-to-market strategy is completely vague.” Eutelsat’s LEO strategy focuses narrowly on IoT: “It’s not really expensive — just a small constellation of 25 to 50 satellites.”
On C-band, all three executives expressed satisfaction with the FCC’s public auction plan. Collar called it “a win across the board for customers, operators, and the whole industry.” VS
