Asia-Pacific's Satellite Broadband Market Is Set to Fly
By Computerworld
SINGAPORE
– The Asia-Pacific satellite broadband Internet access market is
set to skyrocket because of favorable market conditions and
ongoing developments in satellite broadband technologies. And
putting its finger in this growing pie is Singapore
Telecommunications (SingTel), which recently launched its $1.64
million Internet protocol satellite broadband infrastructure and
service.
Christopher
Baugh, principal analyst at U.S.-based Northern Sky Research,
estimates that in the best-case scenario, satellite broadband
access in Asia Pacific would hit $4.51 billion in combined
residential and enterprise service revenue by 2006. Northern Sky
Research is an international market research and consulting firm
specializing in satellite broadband technology and Internet
applications.
In a
breakdown of the estimates, Baugh says that in a high-growth
scenario, the enterprise segment will yield a whopping $2.57
billion in revenue while satellite broadband access revenues
from residential users will rake in $1.95 billion. Even in a
low-growth scenario, service revenue from the enterprise market
is expected to reach $1.07 billion, while that from residential
users will stand at $811.2 million. High- and low-growth
forecasts represent different supply scenarios where growth in
demand parallels available supply.
This is the
right time for players to capitalize on the satellite broadband
opportunity, Baugh said during the recent Asia-Pacific Satellite
Specialist Conference held in Singapore.
This is
especially so in Asia-Pacific and in
Europe where the high incidence of information-intensive
small and medium enterprises and SOHOs (small office/home
office), represent a "large pool of demand," explaineds Baugh.
Other accelerators for satellite broadband access are
residential users without options for terrestrial access such as
integrated services digital networks (ISDN) or digital
subscriber lines (DSL), and existing enterprise VSAT (very small
aperture terminals) customers like Fortune 500 companies which
need to dispatch bandwidth intensive data regularly.
