Broadband Service Users Demanding More Speed

The enormous appetite for high-speed Internet bandwidth among terrestrial subscribers in the United States is being copied by satellite broadband service users, but in the developing world, users are still focused on more basic services like VoIP and email.

Top executives of three current broadband service providers and one aspiring broadband company all spoke of rapid growth and increasing demand for services and for faster speeds in the vast “digitally-deprived universe.”

Pradman Kaul, CEO of Hughes Network Systems , said that in 2007, 69% of rural residents in the United States didn’t have broadband service – the same point urban customers were two years earlier. Kaul and David Leonard, CEO of WildBlue Communications, said their companies are adding a combined 35,000 new satellite broadband subscribers a month, but still have signed up less than 10% of the potential 11.5 million potential subscribers for the service.

Mark Dankberg, President and CEO of Viasat , said his company analyzed broadband Internet use and determined that the main factor demand of customers is the speed of the connection. Viasat designed its planned satellite to have a capacity of 100 Gbps to meet the desire for speed created primarily by video over the Internet.

“It’s a’bit factory’ in the sky because all we want to do to maximize the amount of bandwidth we can deliver,” Dankberg said. “People’s expectations are increasing, so if a company is not increasing the bandwidth it can offer, it must be getting worse.”

Dumrong Kasemset, Executive Chairman of Thaicom , said the company’s IPSTAR broadband service is offered in eight Asian countries, with four more being added in 2008. He described a vast range of customer demands, from speed in Australia to simple phone service in rural areas of developing countries without any terrestrial infrastructure.

Broadband satellite systems panel
Patrick Boyle , Longbottom Communications
+1-434-242-4088