News Analysis

by Virgil Labrador

Editor-in-Chief

Los Angeles, Calif. April 30, 2010--During the most recent broadcasting trade shows since the IBC in Amsterdam last fall, 3D technology has been the buzz including the NAB show in Las Vegas early this month. The blockbuster success of 3D movies such as Avatar help fuel interest in 3D technology among tech-savvy consumers, but will 3D—essentially a recycled technology that was first introduced in the 50s and became a passing fad—deliver the goods this time around? 

by Elisabeth Tweedie

Los Angeles,Calif.  April 30, 2010. When I think about 3D the British expression "two swallows don’t make a summer" keeps coming to mind. In the last few months we’ve indeed seen two "swallows": "Avatar" and "Alice in Wonderland", both of which generated the vast majority of their significant revenue (they were respectively the 1st and 22nd highest grossing films ever) from the theaters showing the movies in 3D. "Call of the Wild" also in 3D was released six months before "Avatar" but only managed to produce box office revenues of around $30,000 in the US.

by Chris Frith 

President, AUSPresence

A telco PR executive once remarked to me that satellite was like a solution always looking for a problem.  Given that he was looking to represent my satellite consultancy firm, I thought this was an odd way to earn my business!  Dents to my ego aside, what this guy was reflecting is simply the wider telecommunications industry and a great many potential customers’ perception of satellite – VSAT communications in particular.  How things have changed! Now, not only do the problems exist – let’s refer to them as needs (it’s more marketing friendly) but also customers are willing and have the means to pay for them. Today, we have broadband satellite providing internet access not just in the remote areas but right up close to population centres; innovative service providers are marketing hybrid satellite networks on the basis of their increased reliability and quick deploy systems which provide large scale connectivity to those first on the ground when disaster strikes. So let’s take a closer look at what needs are emerging and how leading VSAT service providers are rising to the challenge. Then we’ll take a look into the crystal ball to see where this is heading.

by Roxana Dunnette

 by Virgil Labrador, Editor-in-Chief

The satellite industry responded again admirably in the wake of the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti. The response to a crisis can highlight  the unique advantages of satellite technology as well as its limitations.

by Lou Zacharilla

In a forum on "Integrating Satellite Services into the Cloud" at the PTC 2010 in Hawaii earlier this month more game-changing ideas were put forward than at any other time in an industry forum.

by Bruce Elbert

Much attention is being paid to consumer broadband service via satellite as this has the potential to match the US penetration of DTH TV and Satellite Radio (DARS). However, there is still a very substantial ongoing business using various types of VSATs to serve commercial and govern-ment needs in developed and developing regions of the world. After all, satellite communications is the best alternative if modern terrestrial infrastructure is not available.

by Martin Jarrold

In a previous article I referred to the operational deployment of naval and naval auxiliary forces in "non-conflict" roles and within "non-conflict" environments – across multiple and varied geographic theatres – particularly during times, and against a general backdrop, of "international peace." Specifically, such deployments include fisheries and oil/gas installation protection; human trafficking and narcotics trade interdiction in home waters; international sea lanes security; emergency food aid distribution in drought/famine-struck regions; and, similar types of task for which naval resources are particularly suited. It is in the context of such deployments that, once again, the fundamentally mission critical role of satellite-based communications – as characterized by some of its most crucial features of flexibility, reliability, rapidity of deployment, footprint ubiquity, and cost-effectiveness – becomes evidently clear.

by Virgil Labrador, Editor-in-Chief

The satellite industry, or at least the overwhelming majority that were still in business or were still employed at the start of the new year, breathed a collective sigh of relief for having survived 2009--one of the worst years since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The industry can take heart that not only has it survived 2009--it has gone through an entire decade in a better position than it started.

by Elisabeth Tweedie

At the beginning of 2008 Carlsbad, CA-based equipment manufacturer ViaSat startled the world with the announcement of ViaSat-1. Startling not only because of the capacity of the satellite, announced at 100Gbps, (but now increased to 125Gbps) represented a ten fold increase on existing Ka-Band satellites, but also because ViaSat with no operating experience was planning to enter a market dominated by two major players: WildBlue and Hughes. These two operators currently have just under one million subscribers between them.