News Analysis

by NSR

Cambridge, Mass. April 26, 2011--Inmarsat recently announced that it is working with partner SkyWave Mobile Communications to develop a new low data rate (LDR) tracking, monitoring and messaging service that is planned for launch in Q3 2011. The new device dubbed the IsatData Pro promises to deliver up to 37x data capability of current global M2M services. The announcement stated that compared to typical global M2M offerings that provide data connectivity rates of about 270-340 bytes, the new service aims to deliver near real-time messages of up to 10,000 bytes to the device, and up to 6,400 bytes from the device.

by Elisabeth Tweedie

Los Angeles, March 1, 2011-- The demand for mobile backhaul is growing at an unprecedented rate. Smart phones on ave-rage consume five times as much bandwidth as a regular cell phone and the number of smart phones is projected to increase by 300% to  two billion units in 2015.  This has prompted the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to call for an increase in both fiber and spectrum in order to avoid network bottlenecks.  In July 2010 NSR projected that the satellite portion of this market should be worth just under  US$ 600 million by 2015. 

Washington, D.C., February 17, 2011--The Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) today unveiled the National Broadband Map -- the first public, searchable nationwide map of broadband Internet availability -- and the results of a new nationwide survey on broadband adoption.  The data will support efforts to expand broadband access and adoption in communities at risk of being left behind in the 21st century economy and help businesses and consumers seeking information on their high-speed Internet options.

“A state-of-the-art communications infrastructure is essential to America’s competitiveness in the global digital economy,” said Acting Commerce Deputy Secretary Rebecca Blank.

by NSR

Cambridge, Mass., February 14, 2011-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.

by NSR

Cambridge, Mass., February 7, 2011--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. Little new supply was available at the time, and capacity pricing therefore went up and the tightness in the market in 2009 was evident. NSR estimates that regional average fill rates of commercialized supply were nearly at 80% in 2009 and much higher on the most popular satellites.

by Michelle Elbert

Los Angeles, Calif., February 8, 2011--VSAT technology today offers a solid platform for medium to high bandwidth applications in the enterprise domain.  However many potential users harbor concerns the medium might be too costly and unreliable.  How these concerns are addressed varies greatly based on the application and location.  The satellite industry is dropping its old boiler plate about ease of use and speed to deploy and moving towards being something that can handle applications which require more bandwidth with a truly independent and private network.