Economics of Modern Broadband Over Satellite Still Unclear, Says Executive
ANAHEIM, Calif. -- While satellite manufacturers have the technical ability to provide modern broadband speeds, it isn’t clear yet if the economics are right for mass satellite broadband offerings, said Christopher Hoeber, Space Systems/Loral senior vice president of program management and systems engineering during the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics conference. Broadband satellites require about three times as much equipment as most other satellites, adding to their costs and power needs, he said on a panel. The difficulty of designing Internet protocols to deal with the inherent latency of the satellite broadband and the expense of modems also make satellite broadband a difficult business, he said.
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Hughes Network Systems and WildBlue are still trying to find the right balance of high-speed offerings and enough subscribers that their networks can support so the subscribers essentially pay for the satellite costs, said Hoeber. While the next generation of high-throughput satellites for each will offer around 100 Gbps, efforts toward producing a 400 Gbps satellite are already “on the drawing board,” he said.
Current satellites are already proving that broadband by satellite is possible, said Jim Simpson, Boeing vice president of business development. For instance, two Boeing-built satellite series -- the Spaceway satellites, used by Hughes; and the Wideband Global SATCOM System -- each provide broadband services, he said. Increased flexibility making civil and military satellite systems interoperable will be another important development, something that’s being approached by Inmarsat with its recently ordered Ka-band satellites, said Simpson.
Satellite broadband is still far from being able to provide the Internet speeds most Americans have become accustomed to, said Rick Skinner, vice president of strategy and business development at Lockheed Martin Space Systems. Most user experience over satellite broadband isn’t very fulfilling and the increased reliance on cloud computing can make the experience even worse, he said. While the industry can deliver broadband, it isn’t modern broadband, he said. Still, there’s a huge population out there that can only receive broadband using satellite, said Ali Atia, a former senior vice president at Orbital Sciences. Even if satellite broadband can’t compete with terrestrial services, it’s sometimes the only choice for rural regions, he said.