\u201cThis is a moment that is called a singularity,\u201d Thierry Guillemin, former executive vice president and chief technical officer at Intelsat<\/strong>, said in a keynote address at the conference. \u201cThat means it\u2019s a moment where there is no way to predict what will happen next.\u201d<\/p>\n Bandwidth price erosion is expected as High Throughput Satellites (HTS) in Geostationary Orbit (GEO) are joined by large constellations in lower orbits, said Guillemin, now president of the New Space Directions<\/strong> consultancy. He said that each orbit offers unique advantages, noting that GEO satellites, (which hold fixed positions 36,000 kilometers above the equator) can cover large areas economically and quickly, but suffer from latency that can disrupt certain applications. Constellations in lower orbits have far less latency, but require many satellites to achieve global coverage.<\/p>\n Another trend on the space side is the commoditization of satellite hardware, a notable example being the push by SES<\/strong> for standardized, software-defined satellites that can be rapidly reconfigured on orbit depending on market demand. Standardization will enable manufacturers to crank out satellites assembly-line style, lowering costs through economies of scale. Guillemin raised the possibility of operators being able to buy satellites off the shelf, whereas now they are made to order in a process that typically takes two years or longer.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s beginning to make the satellite less important,\u201d Phil Carrai, president of Kratos Technology and Training Division, said of the forces now shaping the industry. \u201cIf you have that much capacity and the satellites are reconfigurable then the real activity must be in the network; if you\u2019re going to differentiate versus the competition it\u2019s got to be on the ground side.\u201d<\/p>\n The changes that must take place on the ground range from consolidation and automation of satellite operations and network management functions, to the introduction of individual user terminals that connect seamlessly with different satellites regardless of orbit or ownership, officials said at the conference. Some of these changes are already underway, a problem that Kratos has seen with a number of its customers.<\/p>\n Stuart Daughtridge, vice president of advanced technology at Kratos, said the company is beginning to move away from what he characterized as \u201cstovepipe\u201d architectures where different command and control management functions are handled by discrete systems, each with its supporting personnel and infrastructure. Increasingly, he said, Kratos is offering systems that consolidate multiple functions, such as satellite control and signal monitoring, on a single platform.<\/p>\n In an ideal world, this interoperability would even transcend corporate proprietary boundaries, enabling systems provided by one company to work seamlessly with those supplied by competitors. However, at least one speaker said that might be a bridge too far. \u201cIt may be an uphill battle for the individual satellite operators and different providers to come together and create standards if these standards remove their ability to differentiate,\u201d said Dan Sullivan, chief technology officer at Kratos. More realistic is a degree of commonality that would allow customers of one operator to access unique services offered by a different operator, he said during a panel discussion on the industry\u2019s future.<\/p>\n There was seemingly unanimous agreement on the satellite industry\u2019s need to become more closely integrated with the broader global telecommunications grid, of which it represents just a small fraction. \u201cWe as an industry are less than 1 percent of a $6 trillion terrestrial networking services capability,\u201d Eric Watko, executive vice president of products, marketing and strategy at SES Networks, said. \u201cSo how do we get into that market segment?\u201d<\/p>\n A big part of the answer is economic \u2014 getting prices to a point where the large telecommunications companies see value in adding a satellite component to their networks. In that respect, the declining cost of bandwidth could be more blessing than curse, provided the industry is successful in significantly reducing its operating costs.<\/p>\n Guillemin said promising growth areas for a satellite industry with reduced overhead include Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications, connected vehicles, and other applications which feature closer integration between the satellite industry and the internet. If bandwidth costs get low enough, new, unanticipated applications are likely to emerge.<\/p>\n According to Daughtridge, the good news is that terrestrial bandwidth prices dropped 99 percent during the 15-year period from 2001 to 2016, but the industry nonetheless grew massively by introducing new services to their offerings. \u201cI think that\u2019s the kind of period we\u2019re entering as an industry where we\u2019re going to put up a lot more bandwidth but we\u2019re going to see growth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Prevailing trends in satellite telecommunications have brought the industry to a crossroads. The successful navigation of which will depend on what happens with ground operations, as much as in space. Bandwidth prices have dropped sharply amid a capacity glut magnified by decreasing demand from television broadcasters \u2014 a longtime anchor customer for satellite operators. These […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63331,"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-63330","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\/63330"}],"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=63330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.satellitetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/ZY8hIt1b_400x400-150x150.jpg\")
Warren Ferster is a Washington-based consultant and writer specializing in the space and satellite industry. Previously he was with SpaceNews, where he spent 21 years, the last eight as editor in chief.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"