A cell tower. Photo: Phil Hart (Flickr)

[Via Satellite 04-20-2015] Northern Sky Research (NSR) projects revenues from wireless backhaul over satellite will climb from $1.7 billion in 2014 to $5.3 billion by 2024. The research firm’s recently issued “Wireless Backhaul via Satellite, 9th Edition” report shows a steady increase in the prominence of High Throughput Satellite (HTS) systems on this particular market.

NSR notes that traditional Fixed Satellite Service (FSS) capacity in C band and Ku band has been the predominant solution for backhaul and trunking in land, with growing business in maritime and aviation. However, the firm notes “a clear migration” by fixed land towers backhaul and trunking markets toward Geostationary (GEO) HTS. Nascent Non-Geostationary (NGSO) HTS players, such as O3b Networks, are making inroads into backhaul, trunking and mobility markets as well. With several Low Earth Orbit (LEO) HTS systems currently in the planning stages, NSR expects they could have a significant impact on total available capacity if one or two such programs do launch, potentially leading to price pressure on all offerings.

“Non-GEO HTS equipment pricing, specifically antenna systems, will have to come down dramatically compared to current O3b pricing in order to address CAPEX considerations,” said Jose Del Rosario, research director for NSR and report author. “More importantly, although backhaul is a large and growing market, other applications will have to be targeted by LEO-HTS systems as the market opportunity is relatively limited given that all systems will target this market space. Incumbents will surely respond to the LEO-HTS threat in terms of lowering their own pricing such that the LEO-HTS impact until 2024 will likely be limited.”