Satcom Bubble Unlikely: NSR Analyst

Data surpassed video as a revenue stream for commercial satellite operators in 2020, and data revenue should grow sizably over the rest of this decade while video shrinks, said Northern Sky Research analyst Lluc Palerm on an NSR webinar Thursday. He said COVID-19 affected some satcom service areas such as aviation connectivity, but consumer broadband and fixed data continue growing. Business areas affected by the pandemic should recover by 2023, said Palerm. He said tens of Tbps of capacity is coming from low earth orbit constellations, but a lot will be over areas with no addressable markets, like oceans, meaning a 5% to 10% utilization rate for non-geostationary orbit high throughput satellite data by 2030. Asked about the possibility of a communications satellite bubble that could burst, Palerm said 2021 is very different from the downturn 20 years ago. He said the telecom industry is more open to adopting satellites into telco networks. Whether low earth orbit constellations will be financially successful remains to be seen, “but for sure they are going to launch," he said.