Benchmarking the Global Space Economy
Interest in space is exploding, with the industry seeing growth and opportunities that weren’t just dormant, they simply didn’t exist 5-10 years ago. Over the next decade, according to NSR’s Global Space Economy, 2nd Edition, cumulative revenue is expected to hit USD $1.25T. Video, the use-case that built most of the satellite industry and continues.
Satcom Interoperability- Is Open RAN the Answer?
Targeting the reduction of infrastructure costs, eliminating vendor lock-in effects and accelerating virtualization (do these objectives sound familiar to the Satellite industry?), Mobile Operators have embarked on the standardization of Open RAN. In fact, this is one of the hottest topics in the Telco industry with major endorsements like the commitment by the 4 largest.
Adding Satcom Value by Leveraging 5G
Astranis is revolutionizing the Satcom value chain with a third service provider acquiring its own satellite capacity (PDI, Anuvu and most recently Andesat). This will certainly not be the last instance in which a Communications Service Provider acquires its own Space segment. In fact, in the time of cheap and easy access to Space, satellites become commoditized, and Satellite Operators need to rethink what value they bring.
The Largest Opportunity in Satcom’s History: Direct Satellite-to-Device
DTH services apart (which are a declining market due to IP-Video trends) and GPS aside, satellite has never been able to reach the masses. In fact, satellite requires very specific equipment, know-how, etc. and, honestly, does not offer the convenience level of terrestrial alternatives. But the inclusion of Non-Terrestrial Networks in the definition of the 5G waveform and initiatives like AST.