New WTA Report Examines How Satellite and Teleport Operators are Both Driving and Adapting to Change
New York, NY, January 9, 2024 – The World Teleport Association (WTA) today released The Teleport Business Model in a Software-Driven World, a new research report that examines how new technologies and market trends are disrupting the industry and how satellite and teleport operators, along with ground-segment technology providers, are simultaneously driving and adapting to the changes now taking place.
“In less than two years,” said executive director Robert Bell, “Starlink has transformed from space startup to The Elephant in the Room – the disrupter that is forcing rapid change on satellite communications. As the global trade association for teleport operators, WTA is helping its members revisit their fundamental business models, identify new paths to growth and take action today to build tomorrow’s business.”
WTA members can access the report by signing into their accounts on the WTA website. The report is free for WTA Members and available for purchase by others. Members may directly download the report by following this link and logging in with their user name and password.
Quotes from the Report
“The ground has to be able to match software-defined satellite capabilities,” an executive with a satellite and teleport operator says in the report. “The traditional way of managing the ground is not flexible enough for the new HTS satellites. Ground segment operators must adapt by leveraging virtualization, orchestration and SD-WAN technologies to become as flexible as the satellites.”
An interviewee with a teleport and service provider summed it up: “The themes here are agility, flexibility and adaptability – those are the words that keep coming up from clients. Customers want the ability to enable channels and services quickly, in a matter of days, which means being ready to onboard and have the right processes in place to spring into action.”
More on The Teleport Business Model in a Software-Driven World
Successful teleport operators are masters of the pivot: adapting their business models to the needs of changing markets. The bare-bones uplinks of the Eighties evolved into outsourced broadcast centers and providers of cruise and maritime services, business networks, secure military satcom and internet trunking. Today, explosive growth in the space business is confronting the industry with its biggest pivot yet. Competition from Starlink is already driving down pricing for core transmission services, and three more LEO constellations will be launching service in the next three years. They will bring new demand for gateways but also challenge the economics and the core value-add of many teleport operations. Meanwhile, as orbits multiply and satellites are increasingly software-defined, the demands on the ground segment for capacity, flexibility and seamless integration with terrestrial networks are overwhelming legacy analog technology. As technology vendors are rethinking their entire product lines to meet the new needs, teleport operators are being confronted with the need to rethink and renew their core value proposition, and to make strategic investments without investing too far ahead of market demand.
In this report, teleport, satellite and technology decision-makers share their forecasts for the industry, their identification of customer value and the moves they are making today to prepare for a new future.
About World Teleport Association
The World Teleport Association (www.worldteleport.org) has been helping its members aim higher since our founding in 1985. Today, WTA is the leading partner in growth for teleport operators, advocating for their commercial interests and promoting excellence in their business practices, technology and operations. The association publishes best-practice reports and presents webinars on technology changes and their business and market impacts. It also presents events and awards and provides global certification and assessment programs to validate excellence and drive improvement. Aiming higher creates opportunity. Aiming higher brings risk. WTA is dedicated to helping its members seize the opportunities and manage the risks to find the paths to growth in a massively changing market.
