Can open architectures propel satellite data broadcasting into the mainstream

Satellite data broadcasting has to date been a niche market, meeting the requirements of the financial world, paging networks, and other information service providers offering high value low speed data feeds. The explosive traffic demands of the Internet industry, and the potential from evolving uses for multimedia, promise massive growth in the use of satellite broadcasting for wide area data distribution. Overviewed are factors representing the `technology push´, such as high power direct to home satellites, mass produced chipsets for multimedia DVB receivers, sophisticated head end multiplexing and off the shelf broadcast aware software applications. Taking this technology out of the confines of demonstrator networks, and into successful commercial deployment, poses new challenges for satellite service providers, and finding corresponding `market pull´ is proving more difficult than market forecasters and industry pundits have foreseen. How can this technology be made reliable and deliverable into large network communities spread across continents? How can system design side step the high costs traditionally associated with satellite, and allow charging structures to encourage take up? How closely can satellite broadcasting emulate familiar data networks, and break down the perception of `rocket-science´?