The CEOs of the four largest fixed satellite services companies will set the tone for SATELLITE 2009, as Romain Bausch, Giuliano Berretta, Dan Goldberg and David McGlade again get together on one stage to discuss the issues affecting their companies and the satellite sector as a whole. Along with the overriding issue of the global economy, topics such as bandwidth and capacity concerns, the growth of HDTV, and spacecraft and launch costs will be covered.
     After the CEOs of Intelsat, SES, Eutelsat and Telesat provide the top-level view of the business today, individual sessions in the afternoon will allow attendees to drill down further into these topics, starting with “The Markets You Can’t Miss: Where Satellite Service Companies Will Place Their Bets in the Next Five Years.” This well-attended session brings together CEOs, COOs, and business development executives to look at new lines of business and new markets that will provide growth for the satellite sector in the next five years.
    The economy’s impact on the satellite sector will be further studied during the session, “Commercial Military SatCom 2009: Recession-Proof?” Attendees will be able to query representatives from the U.S. Air Force and the National Space Security Office on the military’s plans for commercial communications satellites in the coming years, especially as long-planned, next-generation military space assets finally are beginning to come online.
    With HDTV subscribers growing steadily, representatives from EchoStar, Tandberg, Intelsat and CBS will discuss if the technology finally is ready to become a steady revenue producer in the “When Does HD Become SD? Advent of a Growing Revenue Stream,” session. Some estimates of HD carriage via satellite project 1,000 channels in the near future, as requirements for HD delivery from programmers, military and government users, and other customers continue to grow.
    A good double feature to close out the day will look at the satellite sector’s continued integration with terrestrial technologies and whether the terrestrial players will be willing participants interested in generating shared revenues or competitors looking to squash the satellite players. In the “WiMax and Satellite Broadband: Competition or Co-existence?” session, satellite officials will look at WiMax implementations hitting the market and examine the technical and market issues surrounding the interplay between WiMax and satellite broadband technologies and determine the criteria for deploying satellite, WiMax or hybrid configurations to satisfy broadband demand. In the session, “The New Hybrid Opportunity: Terrestrial Mobile and Satellite,” panelists from iDirect, Arqiva, Gilat and others will look at the growing interaction between satellite service providers mobile telephone backhaul as a driver for future satellite revenues.