With recent declines in satellite capacity pricing, Satellite Backhaul became a real alternative for MNO rural deployments. However, CAPEX involved in the cell tower, primarily designed for urban areas with a dense distribution of subscribers, limited the market opportunity to relatively large population agglomerations.
With backhaul networks rapidly transitioning to 4G and the installed base continuously expanding, Mobile Backhaul via Satellite offers sizable opportunities in all regions. Smallcells will play an increasingly important role in this growth, as lower costs expand the addressable market to areas previously uncovered due to industry cost metrics.
Mobile growth continues unabated, with mobile data demand rising exponentially in all regions. As mobile users demand more, however, terrestrial resources are ever straining to keep up. On the surface, satellite’s ability to provide coverage, HTS cost reductions and broadcast/multicast support would seem like a perfect gap filler for mobile network operators. However, the satellite.
NSR’s longest-running coverage of wireless backhaul via satellite reveals a market filled with potential but faced with increasing internal and external competition. Within the satellite industry, new HTS capacity from the likes of Intelsat EPIC and others stands to change the cost equation for mobile operators and truly enable data-rich mobile services. Given the HTS.