FSS satellite business set for decline, but HTS offers hope

Revenue from traditional widebeam satellite services is expected to plummet by over US$1.25 billion over the 10 years to 2025, but the loss should be more than offset by growth in high-throughput services (HTS), according to Northern Sky Research.

According to the research outfit, while widebeam revenues will drop between 2015-25, HTS revenues could grow by US$7 billion.

According to Northern Sky Research, the changes are being driven by new TV viewing habits, growth in data consumption and growing internet penetration in emerging markets with limited terrestrial coverage.

Northern Sky Research says that over 12Tbps of HTS capacity will be available by 2025 via a mix of traditional geostationary and new medium Earth and low Earth orbit satellites. This twill more than triple the amount of traditional FSS capacity in orbit today.

On the demand side, close to 4Tbps of data demand will be sold over satellite by 2025, up from 250Gbps today, with a compound average growth rate of over 30%, according to the research outfit.

Revenue is likely to grow more modestly as price competition kicks in, but a 17% CAGR would deliver revenue growth from US$1.9 billion in 2015 to US$9 billion by 2025, according to Northern Sky Research.

The research group predicts that data prices will fall by 60% over the 10-year period.

The telecom industry as a whole has seen Moore’s Law applied to the cost of data over the past 15 years. Satellite, today, is not competitive in 99% of the telecom market, but with HTS there is hope to address a much bigger piece of the pie and, ultimately, operators must deploy HTS or die,” said Blaine Curcio, senior analyst and report lead author.