Satellite Backhaul Potential Big, But New Customer Focus Needed, NSR Says

Satellite backhaul demands skyrocketed in 2016, but the satellite industry needs mainstream mobile operators, not just early adopters, to get significant growth, said Northern Sky Research analyst Lluc Palerm-Serra in an NSR blog post Thursday. NSR said better satellite pricing plus smart terminals made satellite an increasingly competitive option for backhaul needs at high-speed low-volume sites, but "cheap capacity and technology per se won’t make this market thrive." It said those pricing and technology issues are opening the door to satellite use cases beyond traditional rural coverage and into network resiliency, traffic offload or sporadic-traffic sites.