The main idea the operators’ representatives tried to convey in their speeches at the annual World Satellite Business Week (WSBW) conference is that the stagnation of the satellite industry is coming to an end and its rapid growth is expected. But the further development will not be easy, as the industry is literally staggered by technological revolutions that make us look at business in a completely new way, come up with new models of interaction between market players, consolidate our efforts and introduce new services and technologies.

Results of 2021: we have survived the pandemic

Not that it has stopped as a phenomenon, but as a factor that has a devastating effect on the market, breaking the whole business and forcing companies to go into bankruptcy proceedings – no doubt, it has. The players have realized COVID as a reality that can have both positive and negative impacts on the service development. We just need to try to reduce the former and to increase the latter. Therefore, judging by the operator sessions of the forum, market participants are full of optimism regarding the further development of events. And this optimism is supported, of course, not only and not so much by acceptance of the COVID reality. First of all, this is the completion of the next cycle of updating the orbital resource and, in this regard, reaching a qualitatively new level.

In 2022, Eutelsat will add four spacecraft to its constellation, which, according to director Michel Azibert, will increase the company's revenue by €50-€70 million in 2023. The operator will become one of the pioneers in the use of ultra-high bandwidth satellite (VHTS) — Konnect VHTS, and plans to connect 350 thousand users through it in the EMEA region. Jean-Hubert Lenotte, Eutelsat’s Chief Strategy and Resources Officer, describes what is happening in the industry today as three simultaneous revolutions: the advent of VHTS, flexible payload satellites and LEO. The combination of these three elements, Lenotte believes, will allow market offerings that compete with terrestrial technologies and ensure the growth of the satellite industry in global telecom from 0.5% to 1.5%.

SES does not abandon its plans to promote IFC, although it was the air travel market that was most affected by the pandemic. But, according to CEO Steve Collar, the market is recovering, demand for capacity is growing. Therefore, the SES-17 satellite, designed specifically to support IFC services, will undoubtedly be in demand. In addition, an extremely important, even epoch-making event for SES is awaited in 2022 — a renewal of the medium-orbital constellation and launch of mPower satellites, which will allow the operator to fully realize all the benefits of a hybrid multi-orbit service.

Hughes Network Systems (HNS), according to the company’s CEO Pradman Kaul, maintained its revenue and profit growth in 2021. This was facilitated by the active development of satellite broadband access in South America. As for North America, where the majority of subscribers of HNS as an operator is concentrated, there is no capacity for the development of the service, and the company is waiting for the launch of its VHTS — Jupiter 3, an ultra-high density satellite.

Hughes considers its alliance with the Middle East operator Yahsat very promising and plans to intensify its activities in Middle East and Africa markets in the next two years. Viasat CEO Mark Dankberg believes that the mobile broadband market is still untapped and that an operator that can meet its demand for high-speed Internet access at a competitive price will take the lead.

Another direction of development of the operator is associated with the acquisition of Inmarsat – the Internet of things. Dankberg believes that IoT will allow Viasat to fit into the 5G ecosystem.

Telesat CEO Dan Goldberg is confident that the demand for broadband capacity will grow dramatically, especially in the corporate and government sectors. Therefore, there will be no surplus of the resource, the operators will sell everything.

Yahsat, according to CTO Adnan Al Muhairi, is going public, which will give it the funds to expand to other regions and to develop new services – primarily mobile communications. The operator plans to introduce a complete package in this market, combining both onboard and inflight broadband services, as well as weather-resistant communication in the L-band. The operator has already signed a contract for a new satellite and is working on the appearance of the second one.

The South Korean operator KT Sat also sees the maritime sector as a major growth point, as competition in the Asian consumer satellite broadband market is extremely high. The company’s CEO Kyungmin David Song says that KT Sat has already taken a leading position in this sector in South Korea and plans to enter the international market.

Turksat is waiting for the commissioning of a launched satellite and is planning another launch in 2023. And, like many operators, it is becoming more active in the mobile communications market, primarily with sea vessels.

Jonathan Hofeller, SpaceX's Vice President of Starlink and Commercial Sales, says Starlink has launched the service in more than 20 countries, has more than 100,000 subscribers, and is in talks with more than 230 regulators around the world. The company will soon begin launching second-generation satellites with inter-satellite communication channels. Hofeller separately emphasizes the company's strategy focused on all three markets at once – consumer, corporate and government. So far, the company's efforts have been concentrated on the first sector, but from 2022 it will intensify work in the other two. Once, a similar strategy in the launch services market led to success, so the company will develop its operator activities according to this scheme. Hofeller compared the chosen strategy to a three-legged chair – remove one, the chair would fall.

One Web has begun beta testing of its service, and plans to launch a commercial service in the northern hemisphere, north of 50°N, in 2022. Massimiliano Ladovaz, the company’s Chief Technical Officer, noted that this region was extremely important for the operator, and the commercial start would allow reaching an important milestone — gaining income from the service provided.

Multi-orbitality as a Key Trend

At the WSBW, operators — SES, Eutelsat, Viasat, Hughes, Telesat — repeatedly mentioned multi-orbitality — the provision of services using both geostationary and non-geostationary constellations — as the main trend for the further development of the industry. However, some skeptical remarks have been made about the correctness of this general opinion. Ruy Pinto, CTO of SES, noted the pointlessness of the battle of different orbits, saying that clients did not really care how the service came to them — from geostationary, low or medium orbit, quality and price were of great importance to them. Therefore, the operator's success lies in a differentiated multi-orbital service.

Jean-Hubert Lenotte outlines the standard picture of a hybrid service: the low orbit constellation provides global coverage and low latency, while the geostationary constellation provides high throughput in densely populated regions. For example, maritime carriers that are currently in talks with Eutelsat intend to use both technologies, recognizing that LEO may not provide the required capacity. As for user broadband access, only a geostationary HTS can cope with peak loads, when subscribers in the region all at once turn on streaming video services.

Therefore, the future belongs to systems that seamlessly and imperceptibly for the user redirect traffic between different constellations depending on the network load and applications used by the subscriber. Jonathan Hofeller disputed the claim that only geostationary systems could provide high capacity in a certain region. Of course, he first did a courtesy to those present, saying that his company had always been open for cooperation where the LEO + GEO scheme had advantages. At the same time, he noted that people who had a choice between a more complex hybrid solution or one that could provide high speed with low latency would choose the second one, as it was simpler. The second means a purely low-orbit service, which, as Hofeller believes, can provide the client with the required network capacity and throughput.

Is a Low Latency Required?

The main advantage of low-orbit systems is the low signal delay in the network, which is important for some applications. But will such applications be in such demand that it makes sense to spend huge amounts of money on the creation of non-geostationary systems for their implementation?

Dan Goldberg noted that Telesat had answered this question in the affirmative, that is why it is making such serious efforts to develop its own LightSpeed LEO constellation. Goldberg believes that the opportunity to provide a low latency service is an opportunity to expand the market and increase profits.

Jean-Hubert Lenotte expressed doubts about the use of mid-orbit constellations. In his opinion, integration into 5G networks will require lower signal delays than MEO provides. According to Lenotte, it is not for nothing that the American program for the so-called village communication contemplates a latency of 100 milliseconds, which is provided by LEO, but is not available for MEO.

Regional operators note that currently their customers do not request a service with a low signal delay. Therefore, they are much less active in the implementation of such a promising, according to major players, multi-orbitality.

Turksat CEO Hasan Huseyin Ertok says that his company has not yet received requests for low-latency services. But, perhaps, government agencies and gamers will generate such a demand in the near future.

Miguel Angel Panduro, CEO of Hispasat, says the operator is now tasked by the Spanish government to bridge the country's digital divide. This task is easier and cheaper to solve with the help of geostationary HTS, since the availability of mass and relatively cheap user terminals is extremely relevant here.

Hispasat has already tried to invest in the low-orbit LeoSat project, which was closed in 2019. Therefore, the operator is now quite carefully studying the proposals of operators of existing and prospective LEO constellations in search of a potential partner.

It is difficult for a regional operator to create its own non-geostationary system, and it is not easy to negotiate with an existing operator on good terms, says the company’s CEO Kyungmin David Song. Perhaps it makes sense for them to create an alliance to organize access to a non-GSO resource on favorable terms for all participants.

Tight Regulation of LEO

Mark Dankberg is known for his very harsh criticism of international regulators, who, in his opinion, are too soft on the regulation of low-orbital constellations, not noticing the danger of polluting near-Earth space. At the WSBW, he did not disregard this topic, as well.

He stated that ITU rules made it extremely easy to apply for a non-geostationary system. The emerging dominance of a few operators of non-GSO constellations in the market prevents many countries from being able to participate in space commercial activities. According to Dankberg, it is necessary to make the regulation of non-GSO systems much more stringent. He was supported by Michel Azibert, who also noted that non-GSO operators exerted powerful information pressure on the society, promoting the idea “the more constellations, the better for humanity”. He urged everyone not to succumb to this pressure and fight for strict regulation of this industry.

He grounded his position by the fact that, according to his knowledge, the risk of collisions was growing exponentially. Therefore, even a large-scale introduction of technologies for clearing near-Earth space, while maintaining the declared pace of deployment of non-GSO constellations, will not reduce the likelihood of collisions to a safe level.

If we single out some general trends from all discussions of the operators, we can emphasize the following:

• firstly, operators look to the future with serious optimism;
• secondly, by the time low-orbit constellations entered commercial operation, they were no longer perceived as “gravediggers of the satellite market”, they had begun to be viewed as another opportunity for the development;
• thirdly, the mobile communications market is again, as before the pandemic, becoming the most attractive for players;
• fourthly, operators are not afraid of an overabundance of satellite capacity due to the launch of ultra-high capacity satellites, they are confident in its successful distribution.