Asian Satellite Market Highlight 5G, AI, IoT

by Virgil Labrador and Peter I. Galace

Singapore, July 3, 2019 — ConnecTechAsia 2019, which concluded on June 20 in Singapore, continued to live up to expectations of priming Asia for the digital future with over three exciting days of networking and discussions on the latest innovations and trends in 5G, AI, IoT, Smart Cities, and Future of Connectivity.

ConnecTechAsia 2019 was held during a frenzied week of various satellite-related events such as the Satellite Industry Forum organized by the Asian Video Industry Asscoiation (AVIA)-formerly known as CASBAA, held the day before ConnectTech Asia on June 17. ConnecTechAsia, comprising BroadcastAsia, CommunicAsia and NXTAsia drew 38,000 attendees and 1,700 exhibitors over two venues.

The event unfolded over three exciting days of networking, announcements, thought leadership keynotes and discussions, showcases on the latest innovations and trends including 5G, AI, IoT, Smart Cities, next-generation broadcasting and more.

5G emerged as the show stealer. At ConnecTechAsia Showcases and discussions around 5G throughout the event shone the spotlight on how the technology will create value and deliver benefits to businesses and societies, and how 5G will accelerate the adoption of emerging technologies as Asia’s digital future beckons.

KT, formerly known as Korea Telecom, launched the world’s first nationwide commercial 5G wireless network in South Korea in April. Following the launch, the company showcase included an AI Hotel Zone demonstrating an AI-assisted hotel room, controlled by KT’s AI service platform – GiGA Genie – and a 5G-powered AI robot cafe ‘beat2E’, with a smart robot barista that autonomously provides 47 tailored drinks.

In addition, KT’s SKYSHIP Zone demonstrated how 5G can enable drones and robots to carry out search and rescue operations, enhancing disaster relief efforts. It also featured KT’s 5G journey at its 5G history zone, and allowed visitors to experience and understand history, in Augmented Reality, that showed how the company has been able to break new barriers throughout Korea’s technological journey.

“In the new 5G era, KT will transform from the largest national network operator into the world’s leading global intelligence platform by collaborating with innovative partners around the globe,” beamed Yoon Jong-Jin, KT’s senior executive vice president.
At the ConnecTechAsia Summit, Seizo Onoe, president of DOCOMO Technology and chief technology architect, delivered the 5G keynote highlighting the possibilities unlocked by 5G in a digitalized space, and why cross-industry collaboration will be key to 5G’s success.

The CXO Roundtable on 5G that followed, brought together key executives from Bridge Alliance, Facebook, Huawei, VMware, among others as they discussed ongoing 5G projects, used cases and lessons learnt from 3G/4G in shaping the development of 5G globally.
Challenges for the Asian Satellite Industry

The AVIA Satellite Industry  Forum (SIF) brought together many of the most influential leaders of the industry this year to discuss critical issues including regulatory discussions at WRC19, the raging spectrum wars among satellite operators, pricing, demand & supply, and the latest in “Newspace” activities.

The need for innovation in order to stay relevant was a main point for keynote speaker, Steve Collar, CEO of SES. In his opening address, Steve said that “customers demand high quality video everywhere, anytime and on any screen. Satellite operators can play key roles in the digital era especially in integrating satellite with the Cloud and supporting applications that will create more experience and value for the customers.”

Pricing is still a challenge for the industry with overcapacity and increasing pressure on costs and this therefore increases the pressing need for innovation.  Mitsutoshi Akao, Group President of Global Business Group of SKY Perfect JSAT noted that the “Asia region is a very tough market, so in order to survive, we need more cost-effective satellites and that is one of the reasons we have launched a new high-throughput satellite.”

The other prominent discussion at SIF centred around spectrum wars. “Spectrum should be allocated to services that make highest and best use of it”, said Steve Collar. Chen Xun, EVP of APT Satellite added that a “C-band frequency war is inevitable. The industry has to fight harder to protect it especially in Asia where C-band is most viable.”  In the closing C-Suite panel, Lon Levin, President & CEO of GEOshare predicted that “5G and the Internet ofThings will happen faster than we are planning for.  This will be a great opportunity fo satellite operators, many of which are already seeing an increase in data transmission business.  To take full advantage of the future flood of 5G needs, the satellite industry must develop ground segments that facilitate the transmission of 5G such that the choice between terrestrial and satellite becomes irrelevant.”

Jim Simpson, CEO of Saturn Satellite Networks, advised that “in this era of dynamic change, the satellite industry needs to evaluate what it does best – delivering large amounts of capacity into areas without substantial terrestrial infrastructure, leveraging commercial electronics and taking advantage of economics and advancements, and focusing on market needs.”

Future of Connectivity Satellite Forum

Across three summit days at ConnecTech Asia, industry experts discussed how 5G will revolutionize connectivity, the issues that hinder deployment, debunk myths and promises, commercialization opportunities, and the ways consumers and businesses are set to evolve in a hyperconnected future.

Analyzing the satellite communications industry, Christopher Baugh, president of Norther Sky Research, said the four biggest satellite operators (SES, Intelsat, Eutelsat and Telesat) reported a combined 1.3% negative growth from 2013–2018 while the five biggest satellite service providers posted a 14.5% positive revenue growth. However, in 2018, the biggest 4 satellite operators posted an average of 74.8% EBITDA growth. Baugh observed a changing satcom dynamics of managing demand, supply, and pricing to reach an equilibrium. NSR also observed that Enterprise Data, Broadband Access, Commercial Mobility and Government/Military are driving the supply of satellite capacity in space, which is estimated to generate $14 billion in new revenues. NSR estimates global satellite capacity at 3.3Tbps today, from 360Gbps in 2005, to 19.1 Tbps in 2024, to 48Tbps in 2028. NSR is also observing considerable price reductions by 29% of video pricing and 52% of HTS pricing from 2017–2020.

Baugh said that in 2013, there were 148 emerging space companies with cumulative investment of US$2 billion. By 2018, new space companies numbered 362 with cumulative investment of US$14.6 billion. He said large constellations are entering the industry with OneWeb and SpaceX alone enjoying a US$4.4 billion funding, although the profitability of LEO constellations remains a big question mark with non-GEO HTS revenues versus expenses hitting a revenue gap of US$6 billion from 2018-2019. Baugh concluded that there are three certainties emerging in the satellite industry as follows: supply will rise with LEOS launch, prices will fall, and demand remains uncertain because there is no clear legitimate target market.

Sunil Gupta of the Hewlett Packard Enterprise said the path to unlocking the full potential of 5G remains strewn with many challenges. He said, 5G requires accelerating the transformation of current technology infrastructure that would require — ultra-low latency, high availability, high bandwidth, dynamic scalability and advanced security. But these would require big challenges such as — evolving standards and technology, resource pooling, distributed networks, multi-vendor stacks and infrastructure manageability. Thus, the new for software defined structure is essential.

Ali Ebadi of Measat shared some of the strategies and outcome from the World Radiocommunication Conferences (WRC) 2019, organized by the International Telecoms Union. He said two significant trends are driving the wireless industry to develop 5G as follows: 1) Increase in demand for wireless broadband services needing faster, higher capacity network and 2) Internet of Things (IoT/M2M) that fuel massive connectivity devices. Thus, he said, there is a need for choices of different bands or range of spectrum to be made available to address every region needs. ConnecTechAsia, comprising BroadcastAsia, CommunicAsia and NXTAsia, wrapped up last Thursday drawing 38,000 attendees and 1,700 exhibitors over two venues.

Based on projections, Ebadi explained, by 2020, video traffic will account for around 75% of mobile data traffic and M2M/IoT connections will be more than half of the global connected devices and connections by 2022. This means that there will be 14.6 billion M2M/IoT connections by 2022 and that 5G devices and connections will be over 3% of global mobile devices and connections by 2022. Out of 12.3 billion mobile devices, this 3% or 422 million of those will be 5G capable and globally, the average 5G connection will generate 21GB of traffic per month by 2022 (per device per month).

Ebadi said satellites can help to fill the gaps in ground-based networks to enable ubiquitous 5G coverage such as: 1) Trunking – satellites can link central 5G stations to small cell stations in rural communities; 2) Backhaul – satellites can also “backhaul” connections directly to local cell stations for extremely remote locations like islands; 3) Provide communication for airplanes, trains, boats and other vehicles in places beyond the reach of terrestrial networks.

He said that while latency is the major disadvantage of satellites over 5G, not all applications are latency sensitive. Thus satellites can play a role in application that is not latency sensitive like agriculture, video streaming where it can be cached and etc. He added that typical latency for GEO is around 500-700ms, MEO less than 200ms and LEO is targeted 50ms or less. Combination of these constellation can cover a lot of applications, even some latency sensitive applications, Ebadi added.

Conclusion

“This year’s show has seen much more vibrance in the many networking opportunities and activities throughout the event. This includes CXO Forums, workshops, tech tours, engaging conference sessions, shared knowledge at the several stages on the showfloor and new partnerships forged among attendees who also had the opportunity to witness ground-breaking technologies that are changing Asia’s future landscape. We achieved this through the new and strong support of our many knowledge partners, in particular Informa’s Ovum, Light Reading, Tractica alongside Accenture, Deloitte, McKinsey and KPMG,” said Ivan Ferrari, event director for ConnecTechAsia, from organiser Informa Market.
Commenting on and new exciting plans for the future of the event, Ferrari adds, “Going forward, by strengthening our partnership with key stakeholders such as the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), ConnecTechAsia2020 is set on its course to be the landmark infocomm, media and technology event in Asia. It will encompass top brands and speakers from across the globe, the latest content and technology showcases, and lively activities and networking events, aimed at delivering an ever increasing value to attendees.

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Virgil Labrador is the Editor-in-Chief of Los Angeles, California-based Satellite Markets and Research which publishes a web portal on the satellite industry www.satellitemarkets. com, the monthly Satellite Executive Briefing magazine and occasional industry reports called MarketBriefs.  Virgil is one of the few trade journalists who has a proven track record working in the commercial satellite industry. He worked as a senior executive for a teleport in Singapore, the Asia Broadcast Center, then-owned by the US broadcasting company CBS.  He has co-authored two books on the history of satellite communications and satellite technology. He holds a Master’s in Communications Management from the University of Southern California (USC). He can be reached at virgil@satellitemarkets.com.

Peter I. Galace is the Associate Editor of Satellite Markets and Research. He writes extensively on telecommunications and satellite developments in Asia and other regions for numerous publications and research firms. He can be reached at: peter@satellitemarkets.com.