The satellite broadband market will grow to over 5 million subscribers worldwide and generate over $4 billion in revenue in 2026, according to ABI Research, which announced details of a new report into satellite broadband on April 15. The report “LEO Satellite Constellations and Broadband Access Implications” and looks at this exciting market for satellite. ABI Research believes the industry will reach 3.5 million broadband subscribers by the end of this year.

Satellite broadband is a huge deal for the industry, and was one of the main talking points at the recent LEO Digital Forum, in which executives from Telesat, OneWeb, SpaceX and others talked about the future of satellite broadband and in particular, the LEO constellations.

“LEO satellites will play an important role in satellite broadband services in the years to come. High Throughput Satellite (HTS) LEO systems can support multi-Gbps speed per satellite. Orbiting around 800-1600 km from the Earth’s surface, LEO systems offer a major advantage of low latency between 30-50 milliseconds, enabling LEO broadband services to support low latency services such as online gaming and live video streaming,” Khin Sandi Lynn, industry analyst at ABI Research, said in a statement.