Opening panels at SATELLITE 2023 offered bold predictions on consolidation and growth, with direct-to-device and sovereign government connectivity emerging as top themes.
NSR analyst Jose Del Rosario forecast the “Big Four” operators — Intelsat, SES, Eutelsat, and Telesat — could consolidate into a “Big Three” or even a “Big Two” within the year. Iridium COO Suzi McBride predicted Iridium will be a household name by end of 2023: “Being embedded in phones is going to be a huge growth opportunity. I think this will open up a big new market.”
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SES Chief Strategy and Product Officer John-Paul Hemingway noted the shift in how telcos view satellite: “All the telcos I speak to are saying we now need a space strategy. Satellite is now mainstream — part of telecoms and cloud companies. Satellite is not a last resort anymore.” He highlighted sovereign government demand as the next major growth segment: “I think there is now this notion of governments wanting sovereign access to space. I think we will see every major government announce their sovereign space plans over the course of the year.”
Hughes COO Paul Gaske said the company is capacity constrained ahead of Jupiter-3’s launch, and facing competitive pressure from Starlink. He noted growing demand for the HughesNet Fusion hybrid GEO+terrestrial service: “We think this blended service will be quite popular.”
Boeing’s Ryan Reid reported a changing U.S. government attitude toward commercial satcom, with the recent National Defense Strategy reflecting much greater value placed on commercial satellite capabilities. VS
