[Satellite Today – 8-25-08] Revenues from consumer satellite broadband services will overtake enterprise class broadband VSAT network services by 2013, according to a study from NSR LLC.
    By the end of 2008, total subscribers to single site satellite broadband Internet access services, mainly but not exclusively found in North America, will surpass the global installed base of broadband VSAT sites in the corporate and government market, according to "Broadband Satellite Markets, 7th Edition," released June 24. Also by the end of 2008, satellite capacity dedicated to single site satellite broadband Internet access services will exceed that used by corporate and governmental VSAT networks. By 2017, NSR anticipates that global satellite broadband Internet access revenues will hit $3.9 billion, up from $823 million in 2007.
    "It is NSR’s view that the promises first made for satellite broadband Internet access services in the late 1990s dot.com heyday are now finally on the verge of being fulfilled,” Patrick French, senior analyst for NSR and the report’s author, said in a statement. "NSR fully expects that in late 2008 or early 2009, subscribers to satellite broadband Internet access services in North America alone will break the psychological 1 million mark and global subscribers should easily exceed four million by 2016.”
    The VSAT market will continue to prosper, as “the two markets are intimately linked, especially on the technology development level, and gains made in one area are often easily transferred to the other," said French. Revenues from the global broadband VSAT networking market will climb from an estimated $1.5 billion in 2007 to more than $2.6 billion in 2017, the study said. Government-backed projects for rural Internet connectivity, educational network  and universal telephony service obligation programs are a strong force behind forecasted growth in developing markets like Latin America, Asia and Central and Eastern Europe.