The satellite industry has a very good record of technological innovation, but it is mainly focused on only one aspect, which is maximizing the use of the limited satellite spectrum resource. Satellite spectrum has a significantly higher cost compared to terrestrial bandwidth such as DSL and fiber, and this high cost has driven the evolution of VSAT systems to efficiently use bandwidth. The satellite evolution has been especially accelerated during the introduction of IP VSATs, and the industry has innovated greatly to achieve excellent IP bandwidth efficiency. IP bandwidth efficiency will always remain important for the industry, but the focus for the next wave of satellite innovation will probably come from a very different direction.
