Satellite Broadband Enters the Mass Market: Now Everything is Different

In the mid 1980s, the satellite industry segment providing two-way data communication settled into a market niche as the communication service of last resort, primarily serving customers that could not be served any other way. Examples of markets that have been viewed as ideal for satellite are maritime shipping, resource extraction, and the military. Because the market has been defined as one without alternatives, the pressure for technology advancement has been low, and for nearly a quarter century, satellite technology has generally moved at a leisurely pace compared to other communication fields. The advent of High Capacity Satellites (HCS) has disrupted this paradigm. Data recently released by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) shows that well-designed broadband access provided on high capacity satellites can outperform the majority of terrestrial consumer broadband offerings. This development vaults satellite into an ultra-competitive world in which capacity cost must drop at a precipitous annual rate, terminal designs must achieve mass market price points, and design cycles must shrink to periods of a few years rather than decades. As a result, the availability of inexpensive satellite capacity and low cost terminals that outperform more costly niche market satellite offerings by orders of magnitude will become widespread. One result of this will be that many satellite applications that currently seem disconnected from the mass market will be absorbed into the commercial mainstream.