{"id":50540,"date":"2024-09-17T00:23:33","date_gmt":"2024-09-16T16:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/operator-ceos-take-stock-of-the-opportunities-for-an-industry-in-flux\/"},"modified":"2024-09-17T00:23:33","modified_gmt":"2024-09-16T16:23:33","slug":"operator-ceos-take-stock-of-the-opportunities-for-an-industry-in-flux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/operator-ceos-take-stock-of-the-opportunities-for-an-industry-in-flux\/","title":{"rendered":"Operator CEOs Take Stock of the Opportunities for an Industry in Flux"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

PARIS \u2014<\/i> The satellite industry is undergoing massive change as many of the largest satellite operators consolidate to deal with competition from SpaceX<\/strong>\u2019s Starlink constellation. <\/p>\n

During the operator panel in Paris at World Space Business Week on Sept. 16, Viasat<\/strong> CEO Mark Dankberg described the current environment as a \u201cquantum period of change\u201d unlike anything he has seen in the industry in 40 years. Viasat is one of the leaders of the industry consolidation after acquiring Inmarsat last year. <\/p>\n

Dankberg said there has been \u201cgood progress\u201d integrating the two companies. He highlighted the importance of access to L-band spectrum and the benefits that could be derived from that. \u201cWe see this as a powerful tool for the D2D market,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dankberg reported that demand on the commercial side remains strong, citing 20 to 30 percent user demand growth every year. \u201cSome of the traditional supply chain players are having a difficult time keeping up with that pace,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is definitely a need for multi-orbit, multi-band. There is a lot to keep up with. <\/p>\n

Addressing defense concerns, Dankberg said that nation-states are taking greater note of the importance of space, Dankberg said, especially in terms of how space impacts border control and other internal issues. <\/p>\n

\u201cSpace is a shared domain, but a fairly fragile domain,\u201d Dankberg said. \u201cNations are seeing the need for space and want to participate in it and control it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Intelsat<\/strong> CEO David Wajsgras acknowledged that while it is an \u201cincreasingly competitive\u201d environment for operators, it\u2019s an opportunity for the industry to focus on what its customers and end users want. Wajsgras said Intelsat is seeing increased demand for bandwidth across all of its verticals. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe demand equation is getting more and more compelling,\u201d Wajsgras said. \u201cWe see land mobility as an untapped opportunity. We are continuing to see increased demand from the government space, the defense and security space, with the U.S. and our key allies. We want to offer a multi-orbit solution to customers around the world. Scale is important. I am very optimistic about the industry.\u201d <\/p>\n

Wajsgras also previewed an upcoming multi-year Intelsat deal with a telco that comes with the opportunity to work across different verticals. Intelsat is currently going through a deal to be acquired by fellow operator SES, a company that was not on the panel. <\/p>\n

Telesat<\/strong> is making progress on its Lightspeed Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation and just finalized its financing agreements with the government of Canada and the government of Quebec. <\/p>\n

Goldberg told the audience that Telesat is making \u201cgood progress\u201d in executing the next stage and that manufacturer MDA Space is \u201cratcheting up their supply chain.\u201d He said more Telesat announcements are coming in the near term.<\/p>\n

Like others, Goldberg spoke of the dramatic change taking place in the industry, and how this led to Telesat placing a greater emphasis on LEO going forward. Goldberg said that while Telesat is focused on building Lightspeed, it\u2019s also focused on how the company will serve customers on the network. <\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing to build a great network, you need the right channels to get it to users out there. We are focused on the enterprise market \u2013 telcos, MNOs, ISPs, maritime, government, aero, etc. Our ecosystem is evolving very quickly. Some verticals evolve differently. We work with service providers and integrators,\u201d he said. \u201cBy the time Lightspeed is available, what will that ecosystem look like? All the customers want the same thing \u2013 high throughput links, resiliency, security, ubiquity and at a lower cost. However, not all solution providers are the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goldberg believes customers don\u2019t want one player to dominate the market. He added, \u201cNo user wants to put their eggs in one basket. Our customers want to have multiple operators.\u201d <\/p>\n

Eutelsat<\/strong> CEO Eva Berneke highlighted the need for sovereign capacity as one of the biggest trends right now in the market. She also spoke about the importance of the IRIS\u00b2 program in Europe and the importance of having an alternative to a fully verticalized ecosystem. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is an alternative to building silo technology stacks,\u201d Berneke said. \u201cHow do we put the right set of suppliers behind IRIS\u00b2? It is opening up a rethinking. It is a great opportunity for the ecosystem. We really want to see a very strong ecosystem. Having that in Europe is what IRIS\u00b2 is about.\u201d <\/p>\n

Berneke also talked about the potential in the telco market, reporting that admitting advancements in satellite have made the discussions with telcos \u201cmore vibrant. <\/p>\n

EchoStar<\/strong> CEO and President Hamid Akhavan, pointed to the large opportunity for greater satellite penetration. \u201cThere is a lot of potential,\u201d Akhavan said. \u201cThe roadmap reminds me of the mobile business. 5G has been an amazing standard. All of these open systems are able to connect together.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PARIS \u2014 The satellite industry is undergoing massive change as many of the largest satellite operators consolidate to deal with competition from SpaceX\u2019s Starlink constellation.  During the operator panel in Paris at World Space Business Week on Sept. 16, Viasat CEO Mark Dankberg described the current environment as a \u201cquantum period of change\u201d unlike anything […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50540"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}