The communications satellite industry is rightly proud of its history and often points to milestone events like the 1957 launch of Sputnik, the 1962 launch of the first communications satellite, the first global live satellite TV broadcast in 1967, and the 1969 global broadcast of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon.
However, recalling events more than a half-century old obscure recent innovations. Regrettably, many people hold to three myths about communications satellites.
Myth 1: Satellite capacity is expensive
Communications satellite capacity was sometimes thought of as expensive. While there was never a significant cost to broadcasting a program, when other production costs were considered, satellite operators were keen to manage capacity lease rates to maximize revenues.
However, the development of high-throughput satellites (HTS) has led to a “massive” price reset, according to industry consultant Euroconsult’s 2021 Satellite Connectivity and Video Market report. Specifically, the average capacity price dropped by 53% between 2016 and 2020 from an average revenue per user (ARPU) of $1,032 megabits per second (Mbps) per month to $488 Mbps per month.
Euroconsult cites two factors leading to the massive price decrease. First, the influx of new HTS capacity resulted in an oversupply of capacity in several regions as it grew by 2.5 times from 2016 to 2020, while capacity leased grew by double. Second, the lower cost base of HTS capacity contributed to a 53% price decline across just five years.
When viewed through a slightly longer lens, the price decline is even more significant, as Euroconsult reports that the ARPU for 2014 was approximately $1,400 Mbps per month, meaning that prices declined 65% from 2014 to 2020.
Myth 2: Satellite capacity is subject to unacceptable latency
Until another Albert Einstein — or perhaps quantum networking — comes along, it appears that there is a speed limit on communications: the speed of light.
While the speed limit of about 186,000 miles per second is extremely high, it nevertheless will be noticeable when communicating with someone on the moon as it will take about two seconds for an astronaut on the moon to receive and respond to a question from Earth. This delay in sending and receiving a signal is called “latency” and it appears to be an immutable limitation imposed by the laws of physics.
Fortunately, communications satellites are much closer to Earth than the moon, so latency is rarely an issue. Even in a geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) of approximately 22,000 miles — or about one-tenth the distance between Earth and the moon — latency will be measured in milliseconds rather than seconds. While a latency of approximately 600 milliseconds for satellites in GEO will be noticeable for some applications, such as high-frequency trading and some games, satellite operator Viasat estimates the amount of latency-sensitive internet traffic to be less than 10%.
Benefiting from billions of dollars of investments, today’s communications satellites offer a solution for latency-sensitive applications in the form of satellites operating in low and medium Earth orbit. SpaceX’s Starlink, a satellite network operating in low Earth orbit (LEO), was found to have a “median latency, 45 milliseconds (ms) [that] is close to fixed broadband’s 14 ms,” according to in an August 2021 report.
Another report that compared Starlink’s latency with 4G and 5G wireless networks determined that Starlink’s 44 ms latency was lower than that for a 4G network, and only 5 ms greater than the latency of a 5G network. Other LEO networks — such as those being developed by Amazon (Project Kuiper), OneWeb and Telesat (Lightspeed) — will likely also have latency of less than 100 ms. In fact, hypothetical LEO satellites orbiting at 550 km that employ intersatellite links (ISL) will have at least 20% less latency than terrestrial fiber connecting transoceanic cities, according to a 2021 research paper.
Myth 3: Satellites have low throughput
Perhaps the greatest legacy complaint about satellite communications in the digital era has been that satellites are not able to transmit data at a high rate.
This too is a false perception from a bygone era. HTS achieve a 10-to-100-times higher throughput of up to 100 Gbps compared with conventional satellites. The next generation very high throughput satellites (VHTS) will provide speeds of 200 Gbps and up. Today’s satellites have data transmission rates far greater than the traditional satellites widely purchased and launched just 10 years ago.
Not my grandfather’s satellite
The satellites that brought Neil Armstrong’s historic step for mankind to my grandfather’s living room in 1969 represented a great technological achievement at that time. Those satellites earned their place in museums around the world but should not be confused with today’s satellites, which are far less costly and far more powerful and efficient.
David Meltzer is the secretary general of GVF. Previously, he was general counsel of the American Red Cross and Intelsat, among other positions. The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily the views of GVF members.
