LEO Boom Won't End, May Dent GSO Broadband, Experts Say

The satellite broadband subscriber base will likely reach about 4.6 million in the next two to three years, with the launch of very high throughput satellites enabling GEO services to support higher bandwidth at lower cost, emailed ABI Research analyst Khin Sandi Lynn. She said some consumers in Europe or North America might switch from GEO to LEO service based on available service offerings and their bandwidth requirements, but it's less likely in emerging markets due to high service fees and LEO terminal costs. LEO and GSO services "are likely to coexist to serve different needs across different regions," she said. She said new geostationary operators getting into broadband is unlikely because satellite broadband's market is limited to low-density regions.

The sizable amount of NGSO capacity coming online will affect prices, but there's room for GSO particularly in applications such as mobile traffic backhaul and consumer broadband, said Northern Sky Research's Lluc Palerm. He said latency is a hurdle for GSO in some applications, such as gaming and enterprise-grade communications, but most uses and even 4G and 5G backhaul can be done with GSO. It has some advantages over LEO, such as more ability to move capacity around, the analyst said. Palerm said having an NGSO component will be important for global GSO operators.

For interactive applications needing low latency, LEOs will offer a better user experience, said Larry Press, California State University-Dominguez Hills information systems professor. Capacity initially could be a LEO challenge, but more satellites and better tech should make that less a hurdle, he said.

LEO, medium earth orbit and GSO have specific benefits and attributes, said Mark Wymer, senior vice president-Hughes' HughesNet service. Geostationary can deliver the most bandwidth into a region, but LEO can tackle latency. Those networks meshed together can support consumer and enterprise needs, he said. He said with Hughes' investment in OneWeb announced early this year, "we have dipped our toe [into LEO], got a leg or two." Even with hybrid networks, there are areas where GSO will be most efficient in reaching some customers, Wymer said. He doesn't anticipate ceding particular markets to LEO, and Hughes might partner with LEO to augment particular applications.

Some satellite operators see LEO taking over the airline connectivity market. Telesat Director-Commercial and Product Development Manik Vinnakota at a Connected Aviation event last month (see 2106090014) said Telesat considers LEO architecture "a perfect fit" for in-flight cabin and cockpit connectivity and "came to the same conclusion" as a GSO operator. His company plans to start launches of its Lightspeed LEO broadband constellation in 2023 (see 2102090015).

For Alaska carrier GCI, GSO is "a bridge to completion of terrestrial projects" and wider availability of LEO services, said Senior Vice President-Corporate Development Billy Wailand. GCI announced a $150 million deal with Intelsat earlier this month for more C-, Ka- and Ku-band capacity for satellite-based communications services (see 2107130002). Wailand said GCI's rural connectivity strategy "includes all the tools in the toolkit," including satellite and microwave, though fiber is the first choice whenever possible. LEOs are an "exciting new development [and] will become an important part of our satellite toolkit," Wailand said. LEO needs to prove its performance and capacity and sustainability as an ongoing operation before the broad transition to primarily LEO use, he said.

GSO operators are watching what's happening in LEO, Wailand said, noting investments by GSO operators in LEO space such as Eutelsat and Intelsat in OneWeb. "If you're selling two services for the same price and one has 25 millisecond latency and the other has 30 millisecond latency, there's really no reason to choose the GEO satellite."