New NSR
Study Foresees 2013/2014 as an Inflection Point
in Global Broadband Satellite Markets
December 17th,
2013
NSR’s Broadband Satellite
Markets 12th Edition report,
forecasts the entire broadband satellite
market’s installed base of VSAT sites, broadband
access subscribers, trunking and backhaul sites
will increase by just over 5 million by 2022 and
generate US$9.9 billion in revenues. Fully 87%
of this growth will come from new subscribers to
satellite broadband access services with the
North American, Western European and Latin
American markets leading the way.
“It
appears that 2013 and 2014 are going to be an
inflection point in the satellite broadband
Internet access market,” stated Christopher
Baugh, NSR President. “Thanks to the full entry
into service of the Viasat-1 and EchoStar-XVII
satellites, North America could score a record
gain in broadband access subscribers, likely
over 300,000 net new subs in 2013, while the
Australian NBN Interim Satellite Service is
projected to reach its subscriber cap at least a
year sooner than previously anticipated.” NSR
also expects that a revamped Tooway management
team and new HTS capacity for SES will lead to
better subscriber growth in Western Europe in
2013/2014, while Latin America saw the launch of
its first HTS provisioned broadband access
services in late 2013.
“Another major inflection
point will arrive in 2014 with the entry into
service of O3b Networks’ new MEO-HTS
constellation,” noted Baugh. “The new MEO-HTS
supply as well as upcoming HTS payloads will
bring a surge of lower cost capacity that will
be especially beneficial for the satellite
trunking and backhaul markets.” NSR’s BBSM 12th
Edition forecasts that global HTS and MEO-HTS
capacity demand for these two market segments
alone could exceed 135 Gbps by 2022.
NSR also
anticipates the enterprise VSAT networking
market will remain dynamic in the coming years
helped too by the availability of new HTS
capacity. “The new HTS capacity will grow
specific VSAT verticals like ‘high
availability/backup’ services as well as bring
lower cost services to the most cost conscious
clients,” explains Baugh. “Yet, at the same time
classic C/Ku-band enterprise VSAT networks will
be focused on driving new value for clients
where coverage, uptime, and end-to-end network
management have a priority over pure cost per
bit delivered.” NSR maintains its view that, on
a net-net basis, the new HTS-provisioned VSAT
services will do more to grow the overall
enterprise VSAT market than to cannibalize
existing FSS services. This being said, “there
will certainly be a period with some winners and
some losers during this transition phase,”
according to Baugh.
