In the opening panel “What’s the Next Big Idea” at SATELLITE 2019, speakers from across the satellite and telecoms divide discussed the future of the industry. Terms such as “ambient connectivity,” “neural nets,” and “deep stacks of data” were mentioned.
Lockheed Martin VP Lisa Callahan spoke of “smart satellites” that could change their mission in orbit. “This could collapse the value chain. If you can re-program satellites, you need greater security. Our military and government customers have been asking for a lot of security capabilities. We are starting to see this in the commercial world.”
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IBM Watson Cloud CTO Jeb Linton said AI would be the biggest disruptor. “We have just entered the age of AI which will disrupt every area of technology. With that advent of AI, huge amounts of data from satellite constellations can be evaluated. You have to focus on the resilience, as you can’t keep the bad guys out today.”
Isotropic Systems CEO John Finney cited “smart farming” as an example — using sensors on cows to reduce 100,000 annual cattle deaths in labor in the UK alone. “Small, tiny devices can drive big revenue opportunities,” he said. He added that increasing intelligence in terminals will lead to spot pricing across satellite capacity.
Jean-Luc Vuillemin, EVP at Orange Business Services, said 5G could be the “end of the Internet as we know it today,” creating “ambient technology” all around users. “5G is an opening for satellite. From a standard point of view, it provides an access as well as a backhaul opportunity for satellite. It is not just backhaul. This is a big change.”
Planet Co-Founder Robbie Schingler noted: “With the decrease of costs, there is renaissance of new technologies, supply chains. AI is transforming every single business. New business models will emerge.” VS
