The last decade has been a roller coaster ride in the Latin American FSS market with numerous peaks and valleys in both supply and demand. The decade started out with a mass of satellite launches that drove up supply, but transponder demand lagged leading to a buyer’s market with very low pricing. Then starting in about 2008, demand for capacity, most especially Ku-band transponders, grew very rapidly driven by DTH, video distribution and VSAT networking services for a plethora of rural connectivity, e-governance and USO projects.

There has been solid growth in the Earth Observation (EO) market in the past few years due to a strengthening of demand for civil government and military EO satellites and associated data. However, this reliance on government and military organizations distorts true market economics, as only a few large users such as the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) provide the majority of revenues for U.S.-based operators according to NSR.

In January U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced plans to cut $78 billion in defense spending over five years, including a reduction of up to 47,000 troops. These cuts are in addition to last year’s $100 billion cost-savings drive in efforts to eliminate waste, cut poorly performing weapons programs and redirect funds to other priorities. These announcements certainly appear ominous for industries such as commercial satcoms, which has seen increasing demand since 2001.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held in Las Vegas, Nevada from January 6-9 was a dazzling, one can say  “over the top” way to start the new year (more on that later) for the broadcasting industry. The world’s largest consumer technology trade show, the CES was attended by over 140,000 industry professionals from over 80 countries.  No other industry show demonstrates the pulse of consumer demand for information and entertainment devices than the CES show. 

It seems like a natural progression to bring the Internet to every possible consumer electronics device available today, and the television set is no exception. Not to be left behind, many a DTH provider has provisioned Ethernet ports in the next generation of STBs, although the software and strategy to provide enhanced services may still be a few years away. As expected, North America and Western Europe are leading this market as viewers in these regions become more particular about what content they want as well as where and when they want it.

As noted in my column last month, the program for the recent GVF Oil & Gas Communications conference in Kuala Lumpur included a session entitled Cloud Computing and Future Oil & Gas Industry Networking.  This was the first time the topic of the Cloud had been introduced to any of the GVF-EMP vertical market-focused series of conferences, though not the first time that a Cloud-related topic had been included in one of the GVF’s horizontal-market events – specifically the MENASAT Summit held at the time of the Satellite MENA exhibiti

2010 has been another bumper year for the satellite operators, including the European operators. This is all good news in times where many other sectors are still struggling. However, there is a risk that good times breed complacency. 

IEEE GLOBECOM 2010 recently held its most successful meeting in the conference’s 53-year history with more than 2,500 scientists, researchers and academia attending nearly 2,000 presentations dedicated to the advancement of global communications designed to increase the quality of life worldwide.

Satellite Markets and Research are media partners for the following events where we will be participating as either exhibitors, speakers or session moderators. To book a meeting with Satellite Markets and Research in any of the shows below, e-mail: virgil@satellitemarkets.com 

If follow the communications and technology press, you know that the world as you know it is speeding through massive change.  Market shifts, disruptive technologies: it's like driving fast through a small town.  Blink at the wrong moment and you will miss it.