The satellite industry continues to enhance its offerings in order to both protect its traditional business strongholds and develop new revenue streams. To accomplish this, satellite developers have improved technology for delivering signals. But, the problem seems to be that no matter how quickly satellite players make advances, they are finding it difficult to keep pace with improvements made by larger terrestrial competitors with more financial reserves.

With telcos and wireless players investing in next-generation networks capable of handling bandwidth-rich applications, the question of where satellite fits into the media ecosystem continues to be difficult to answer. Will there always be areas where terrestrial networks do not reach? Will satellite be marginalized even further, particularly in core markets such as video broadcasting?

Speaking during an engineering panel at SATELLITE 2011, SES World Skies CTO Alan Young expressed his concern that the satellite sector has been focusing too much on improving the capabilities of the space segment. The problem, according to Young, is that satellites with advanced capabilities still are expected to serve a 15-year lifetime in orbit, meaning that those space-based capabilities are likely to be surpassed by terrestrial improvements many times over during that lifespan.

The more favorable option to Young is for satellites to feature fewer active components in orbit and serve solely as a wide-open pipe, with technology development efforts focused on ground assets to improve the efficiency of bandwidth use and delivery.

Companies focused on the ground side of the communications network also see utility in both the satellite and terrestrial offerings, with many executives involved on a separate panel at SATELLITE 2011 seeing a symbiotic relationship.“Terrestrial services actually provide a great opportunity to expand our business as satellite becomes a more crucial element of the fiber infrastructure,” says Wavestream vice president of broadcast systems, Colin Boyd. “For example, take a look at the earthquake situation in Japan. Today’s video audiences expect to see these events live. This is where instant video from SNG trucks plays a huge role. In that environment, satellite complements the infrastructure as it does in other sectors,” he says.“While we could lament about how satellite lags behind terrestrial speeds, the satellite platform is here to stay,” says International Datacasting Corp. (IDC) CTO and vice president Gary Carter. “I think it’s an extremely exciting time for satellite, as Ka-band is finally seeing a wide-scale launch after being around for a while. There is an insatiable demand for IP services. Frankly, everything is going to turn to IP.

We have to defend our turf and offer new services.”Satellite and terrestrial technologies have converged, says Newtec CEO Serge Van Herck, but he remains adamant regarding the ability of the satellite sector to thrive. “Whenever someone asks me about the future of satcom, I think back to when I was hired as technical product manager for VSAT in the 1990s. As soon as I got that job, people told me I should find a new one because VSAT and satellite will be gone in a few years when everything is fiber, but we’re still here and since I joined, I’ve seen only growth.”There may be some reason to be concerned about the growth of the terrestrial communications sector and the pace of its technology advancement, but the prevailing viewpoint seems to remain that terrestrial players need the satellite sector’s vertical market strength just as much as the satellite sector needs terrestrial players’ innovation on the ground.