Cristal-balling the satcom future
Predicting the future of satcom can be challenging, but there’s value in looking back at how past events were accurately anticipated. By examining these moments, we can uncover valuable insights that might just help us unlock what’s next in the ever-evolving world of satellite communications.
Recently, we've seen multiple instances where Starlink’s broadband network has faced congestion in specific areas, prompting SpaceX to pause new subscriber sign-ups in those regions. A related development is Starlink's need to frequently adjust service pricing in select areas—whether through changes to terminal bundle prices, service fees, or terms and conditions—in an effort to manage usage and optimize network capacity.
Ultra-local supply and demand dynamics are playing an increasingly significant role in shaping Starlink’s pricing strategy. While this may come as a surprise — and even frustrate some end users — it serves as yet another example of an event that was accurately predicted years in advance, thanks to the valuable insights provided by NCAT analytics.
Below are excerpts from a June 2021 article in Via Satellite titled “Analyzing Short to Long-Term Trends in Satellite Capacity” (link)
“HTS-LEO constellations will impact satellite capacity pricing differently based on business focus and architectural strengths. SpaceX’s Starlink is about to complete its first shell of satellites, so will soon be competing with established GEO-HTS broadband providers. OneWeb, after emerging from bankruptcy, shifted focus to strategic alliances to reach end users once operational. Telesat Lightspeed will target B2B applications and we shall see how Amazon enters the market with Project Kuiper, which could seek synergies with its cloud AWS ecosystem. SES O3b, which remains the only commercially available Non-GEO HTS system, will expand B2B capabilities via mPOWER satellites and other LEO and Medium-Earth Orbit (MEO) players could enter the picture; so impact on bandwidth supply and pricing will clearly be major and multi-sided.
While the amount of capacity produced by LEO players will be enormous, two aspects need to be considered when analyzing bandwidth supply and pricing trends: Hundreds to thousands of satellites orbiting at low altitude produce high levels of frequency-reuse spotbeam capacity but LEO’s limited visibility of the Earth’s surface reduces addressability for all such capacity supply. This creates highly localized buy/sell opportunities that both operators and educated users will seek to leverage with various degrees of bargaining power. There may be regions like ocean regions where the bulk of LEO capacity goes almost wasted but there could be specific territories where the only way to sell capacity is through a local gatekeeper. So, as measured in NSR’s Non-GEO Constellations Analysis Toolkit, low altitude not only increases spectrum reuse but also reduces addressability.
LEO mega-constellations and VHTS programs will undoubtedly further commoditize satellite bandwidth, a situation that NSR expects will become more evident towards the 2022-2023 timeframe when such programs gain traction and a subset of the LEO constellations complete their first shells and strike commercial distribution agreements”..
“Given looming disruptions, what happens in the longer term around satellite capacity pricing is less clear but it is possible that we will see a more pronounced departure from region- or even country-level pricing, as ultra-local supply/demand dynamics and pricing power could modulate pricing.”
Fast forward to today, and it's clear that these predictions have come to fruition. This is just one of many examples where NCAT analytics played a pivotal role in accurately forecasting events, providing strategists with crucial insights to spot emerging opportunities and potential threats. By leveraging NCAT’s data-driven analytics, #satcom stakeholders can refine their strategies, anticipate market shifts, and stay ahead of the curve.
Ready to predict the future of satcom yourself? Unlock the power of the NCAT toolbox. Contact Analysys Mason to learn more.
The Non-GEO Constellations Analysis Toolkit (NCAT) is an assembly of easy-to-use analytics models to assess and benchmark LEO and MEO satellite constellations. To learn more about NCAT:
Pre Post Sales Engineer at NovelSat
4 天前Carlos, how do you see change in bandwidth use efficiency with massive use of ISL? As initial Starlink strategy was to use the same cell for terminal and GW, with ISL it makes no sense anymore. That's easy to implement and with extra capacity for lasers in V3 it makes no sense anymore to build GWs in crowded cells, like it used to be. Another potentially useful feature could be store and forward type of transfers or onboard data processing for certain (non-interactive) data, but that's hard to implement with little or questionable benefits. In any case, I believe Starlink deployment strategy is pretty much driven by the same mass service model as MNOs are used to for quite some years, so should be nothing new to them. Lastly, us in the industry looking at bandwidth "waste", are raised by old school approach " bandwidth not used - bandwidth wasted". I don't think the same paradigm applies here. I'd rather think of capacity supply as computing power on demand - if not used to 100%, pricing model still works. E.g. capacity factor can be IMO much lower than on traditional GEO or even MEO satellites.
Business Development & Sales Leader ? Technology Evangelist | Growth & Innovation | GTM Strategy | Trusted Advisor | Industry Relations | Inspirational Leader | Newsletter Publisher & Podcast Host | IP, AI, SaaS/Cloud
4 天前Thanks for posting this, Carlos Placido. Side comment: I never really stopped to think about all that capacity that is "wasted" while transiting over water. Either way, Tim Belfall has certainly been keeping us all up to speed on the pricing shenanigans!