A Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT). Photo: Wikipedia

[Via Satellite 12-23-2014] The number of VSAT and broadband subscribers is projected to reach 9.5 million by 2023 and generate $8.8 billion in revenue from service provisioning and Consumer Premises Equipment (CPE) sales, according to a new report from Northern Sky Research (NSR). The research firm’s “VSAT and Broadband Satellite Markets” report, 13th edition forecasts more than half of projected revenues will come from North American providers, with rapid growth coming from Latin America and Europe as well.

“Broadband is fast becoming a universal right and governments recognize that one of the fastest ways to make it available to a large population is a High Throughput Satellite (HTS). The consumer demand for broadband is so strong in parts of the developed world that the VSAT provider industry as a whole is changing from being a [Business to Business] B2B, wholesale infrastructure provider to essentially a Global [Internet Service Provider] ISP,” said Prashant Butani, senior analyst at NSR and report author.

NSR forecasts Asia and other regions with less HTS supply and lower disposable income will have a smaller addressable market for consumer broadband on the basis of purchasing power. The firm expects Fixed Satellite Services (FSS) with C, Ku and Ka-band wide-beams to also see growth, adding that while there is concern HTS will cannibalize Ku-band enterprise VSAT business, there are a number of issues that need to be addressed first, such as reaching global coverage and overcoming regulatory challenges. The research report does not include backhaul and trunking.