Satellite Broadband Providers Soldier On

6:20 am on June 26, 2006 | Category: Internet, Telecom Services, Wireless Technology

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A decade ago, satellite broadband was seen as an up and coming industry, with companies like Loral Skynet poised to become the leading providers of internet access in the developing world.

In the last ten years, however, a lot has changed. Terrestrial broadband services like cable and DSL have flourished in North America and Europe alike, due to their low cost and high bandwidth speeds.

Laurence Journez, the vice president of French satellite consultancy, AON Explorer, acknowledges that “it is very difficult to make broadband satellite cost-competitive vis-a-vis terrestrial solutions.”

“The question is ‘what are people willing to pay?’ What that figure is may have been overestimated,” Journez explains. “To be attractive, satellite broadband has to find a niche in under-served areas.”

Mick Darcy, the president of president of Hughes Network Systems Europe (HNSE), agrees that of the hundreds of millions of broadband connections in Europe, he doesn’t expect “anything more than the tiniest fraction of a percent to be connected by satellite broadband.”

Nevertheless, satellite internet providers are turning a good profit in the areas that they do serve, and according to Darcy, “the number of subscribers is growing at a healthy rate.”

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    Published by TeleClick Enterprises
    Edited by Jeremy Maddock