In recent years, there has been a boom of announcements for satellite constellations comprising satellites weighing as little as 3 kilograms to address a growing market of machine-to-machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) via satellite. Traditionally, this market has been serviced through combinations of Ku-band Very Small Aperture Terminals (VSATs), and mobile satellite.
Satcom IoT is going from strength to strength, and not showing any signs of stopping, with NSR expecting growth to continue over the coming decade across a wide range of applications. However, on the horizon are many competing IoT network deployments that promise to significantly lower the cost of hardware and airtime costs associated with.
Smallsats for IoT are making noise in the press, with just this past week an announcement by a Luxembourg-based consortium for yet another smallsat IoT constellation. Myriota also raised another $15 million earlier this year, and many more similar announcements have been made. While “everything will be Internet connected and terrestrial only covers 10% of.
What does space-based IoT connectivity bring to the table? Nanosatellites are much smaller and less expensive than large satellites, so they can deliver “significantly lower costs and much smaller terminals, which can be integrated into a significantly greater number of devices — by an order of magnitude. This has the potential to add connectivity.