The enterprise customer is the most attractive yet elusive for the satellite service provider 

Signaling the drawing to a close of the northern hemisphere summer, two major events on the satellite industry calendar, which regularly bring together significant numbers of industry representatives to Europe in early September, will additionally feature gatherings that will focus on initiatives in which GVF, together with key industry, and other, partners, is taking the lead.

According to a new report from Digital TV Research, rapid expansion meant that Brazilian DTH subscriptions overhauled cable as the most popular platform with considerable panache during the first six months of 2011. Further change is ahead as the government will soon amend legislation to allow telco to offer full IPTV services.

Among Chinese respondents, HDTVs were the second most cited device when considering CE purchase intentions in the next six months, according to a recent trio of surveys conducted by ABI Research on the Asia Pacific consumer electronics markets. Smartphones were number one, with nearly 60% of respondents; only 43% of respondents were interested in HDTVs. Purchase intent was similar in South Korea, with smartphones and HDTVs representing the top two device categories at 47% and 22% of respondents, respectively.

Russia, China, Japan and India are among the countries challenging the US in Space leadership according to the fourth annual Space Competitiveness Index Report by Futron.

Los Angeles, Calif., August 4, 2011 by Michelle Elbert

Government and military clients are looking to meet global challenges yet spend more efficiently. In the US, deficit-reduction efforts have caused DoD and its various branches to make serious changes in how it acquires goods and services.

Back in 2007, NSR viewed the longer term outlook in the maritime segment likely to “benefit products in Ku- and C-band ultimately and provide stronger competition to L-band services...”, recognizing that VSAT flat monthly fees with Mbps data rates provided a more predictable return-on-investment than the traditional MSS pay-per-byte model. Then Inmarsat on July 1, 2011 announced new rates that seem to go counter to this view and could drive a growing base of the smaller boat community towards the flat, predictable VSAT service fees.

By 2012, 63% of IPTV service providers interviewed plan to support multi-screen viewing across PCs, tablets, and smartphones according to market research firm Infonetics Research2011 IPTV Services Deployment Strategies: Global Service Provider Survey. IPTV is also getting highly personalized, highly integrated, portable and on-demand according to the survey.

Ideally an operator would like to have a satellite go from RFP to orbit in 25 to 30 months. However, the reality is that manufacturing satellites is far from an assembly line operation where every component is sourced with sufficient inventory support. Often the equipment onboard the satellite is highly specialized and vendors are few, which put constraints on delivery and in effect, time to market for satellite services.

So what issues keep satellite manufacturers up at night?

30% of Broadband Homes consider Live Multiscreen Service as a Top TV-Service Feature

Receiving live TV on a mobile phone, tablet, or computer is a popular feature throughout Western Europe, with 30% of broadband households highly interested in these TV Everywhere services, according to Parks Associates’ recent consumer survey Connected Consumer in Europe.