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Of the nominally US$787 billion that makes up the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, less than 1% has been directed to be used for funding a variety of broadband initiatives throughout the U.S. Yet, it seems that the broadband subsidy funding has attracted much more than its fair share of attention with all types of projects and proposals being floated and developed by entities large and small across the country. While NSR is admittedly biased towards the satellite industry, our view is that funding should not come down to a question for government agencies picking between competing proposals using different technologies to offer broadband services as seems the current trend. Instead, NSR believes...
Anyone in the satellite industry knows that the benefits and advantages of Ka-band spotbeam satellites have been endlessly discussed. With Ka-band satellites in fact here and active in the market, NSR would contend that only a small minority of the industry has truly grasped the long-term significance of these satellites and how they have the potential to change every aspect of the market. Just as the move from C-band to Ku-band in the 1980s brought profound (and many unforeseen) shifts in the satellite market, so too will these "high throughput satellites".
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With Hughes' recent announcement of the ordering of its new high throughput satellite (HTS), the satellite industry is once more seeing a company putting real and substantial money behind the burgeoning single site satellite broadband Internet access market for consumers and businesses. But now a question is being asked in the industry: just how much capacity is enough? Or even more worryingly, is too much satellite capacity going up in the North American market for single site satellite broadband services. 