Satellite's Role in Connected Car Market Could Be Limited, NSR Says

The satellite industry's slice of the connected car market won't be big, at least for the next decade, said Northern Sky Research analyst Dallas Kasaboski in a blog post Sunday: The number of land-mobile connected vehicles receiving broadband by satellite is expected to be small through 2025, with wireless and cellular coverage instead being dominant. NSR said satellite's challenges include signal decay limiting its effectiveness, while weather and vehicle speed issues necessitate rugged, expensive antennas. Also making competition difficult is the near ubiquity of terrestrial services, it said. NSR said while numerous partnerships between mobile operators and the auto industry have been announced, there have been few such talks between the auto world and satellite service providers. "OEM deals are key factors to enable satellite-based connectivity in cars," NSR said. Antenna manufacturers haven't focused on connected cars, seeing it "as very niche with little potential," it said, adding there's a bigger focus on providing connected vehicle capability for high-speed railways. Dual-mode devices that switch between terrestrial mobile and satellite networks and are integrated directly into vehicle manufacture "will allow satcom to ride along with the success of terrestrially-connected vehicles, while proposing an added value proposition for use in remote environments," NSR said, though it added an integrated billing system could be difficult. "It will be necessary if satcom is to make a play with network-agnostic passengers in the connected car market," said the researcher.