Emerging trends in the satellite industry
Almost 1,000 satellites launched per year and 332% growth in launches expected over the next decade when compared to the previous ten years!
These statistics (from Euroconsult in 2019) pre-date approval being granted for Amazon’s Project Kuiper LEO constellation.
Driven by an exponential reduction in launch costs, advances in satellite communications technology such as software-defined satellites and multiple ground equipment breakthroughs, the satellite industry is set to enable growth in the global and Africa telecoms landscapes.
Compared to the mainstream fibre and mobile telecommunications sectors, the satellite industry remains a niche, specialised market which until recently was only used for government, broadcast and other limited telco requirements.
While reliability and flexibility were always key advantages, the cost and performance points limited the role of satellite within the wider telecoms industry.
Now however, emerging trends in the satellite industry are unlocking much wider application advantages at completely new price and performance points.
New fundamentals in launching, space vehicles and ground equipment are restructuring satellite architectures for a very different future.
While the capacity of satellite constellations will always be limited in comparison to fibre networks, the performance envelope has been pushed much further in terms of data rates, bandwidth and price.
To understand this evolution, let’s consider some of the emerging trends and their anticipated impact on the South African and African marketplaces.
Reduced launch costs enabling large scale deployments
While the characteristics of launch vehicles vary widely, the ultimate goal is always to move payload into space.
For the telecommunications industry, payload means satellites for LEO, MEO or GEO orbital constellations.
Satellite launch costs are therefore a fundamental input block in terms of driving the satellite business case and determining service price points.
SpaceX has been phenomenally successful in reducing launch costs to less than US$1,000/kg.
SpaceX is also the launch partner for the SES O3B mPower constellations planned for 2022.
SES O3B mPower will introduce completely new flexibility – potentially globally, and specifically in South Africa and across Africa.
With link capacities of up to 10GBps mPower is set to reposition the barriers in national and regional connectivity constraints.
While these cost reductions are impressive, new entrant SpinLaunch is claiming a further 20x reduction in launch costs for payloads up to 200kg.
SpinLaunch successfully demonstrated their powered centrifugal launch concept in October 2021.
Advanced satellite technology brings flexibility and scale
Intelsat kicked off 2021 with an order for two Airbus OneSat GEO software-defined satellites which marked the launch of a new vision.
Software-defined technologies have been developed and applied by Lockheed Martin and by Airbus for Inmarsat since 2019, the same year in which Boeing introduced the SES O3b mPower MEO system.
These developments mark the implementation of a new and much-needed space constellation technology architecture.
NSR analysts put this in context when explaining that with the cost of launching satellites coming down, satellite costs must also decrease.
Reduced costs can be achieved by producing generic software-defined satellites that can be manufactured at scale and then configured once in space for specific service offerings.
Software-defined satellites bring the capability to reconfigure the shape of the beam, capacity or power in real time.
Typically, this means that instead of capacity footprints being frozen for the 15-year lifespan of a GEO satellite, there is a degree of flexibility and capacity can be adapted in response to changing market demand.
Software-defined satellites also support future mobility applications through extremely high speeds, enhanced capacity flexibility, redundancy, and backward compatibility.
Smart Satellite Services enable seamless customer networks
With launch costs dropping and software-defined satellite constellations offering economies of scale, capability and flexibility, the next phase in unlocking market value will be end-to-end implementation of customer satellite services.
For business, government, mobile networks and most user applications, satellite services are typically implemented as part of a wider fibre access network.
For these applications, future large-scale deployments of satellite services will require seamless integration with terrestrial networks – exactly what Smart Satellite Services such as Twoobii on Flex offer.
Within corporate IP-architectures, Smart Satellite Services provide feature including advanced quality of service to ensure real-time voice and video communication; IP Layer 2 over satellite capabilities for interoperability in SD-WAN environments; local terrestrial gateways for seamless core integration; and the ability to map end-user IP numbering policies.
Conclusions
The exponential reduction in launch costs, combined with the development of flexible and scalable software-defined satellites and the implementation of end-to-end Smart Satellite Services, will redefine the landscape for satellite service implementation for South Africa and across the continent.
These enabling trends are being repeated worldwide and will underwrite and endorse the delivery of solutions by niche telco operators like Q-KON Africa – operators which have significant experience in designing and delivering specialised solutions for the demanding Africa environment.
About TWOOBII managed by Q-KON
Twoobii is a high-throughput satellite connectivity service, powered by the latest Intelsat platforms and managed by leading satellite engineering enterprise, Q-KON.
Twoobii was established in 2018 and remains at the forefront of African satellite connectivity solutions.
Twoobii continues to pioneer advances in satellite business broadband technology as a standalone service or as a component of integrated network architecture solutions.
Q-KON is a first-tier provider of integrated access services, specialising in turnkey telecommunications solutions and value-added distribution, configuration, integration and installation services for Africa.
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