Providers of internet content and broadband services, as well as a host of other companies, have been looking toward the heavens for help with delivering streaming media. What some think they've found is nothing short of divine intervention in the battle for congestion-free Internet content delivery.
The idea is catching on that satellites may prove to be one of the best technologies in reaching the elusive goal of providing flawless full-motion video and rich audio content to corporations and consumers of all stripes. This year, major fixed-satellite systems operators - including GE American Communications (GE Americom), in Princeton, N.J.; Loral CyberStar, a unit of Loral Space and Communications, in Rockville, Md.; and PanAmSat, in Greenwich, Conn. - have all launched new businesses directly addressing this market phenomenon. Other operators, such as Williams Communications, have also begun less-formal forays into using their satellites to offer streaming media services. In addition, infrastructure and content companies in the industry are interested in the use of satellites for streaming media delivery.
"There's tremendous anticipation that streaming video will be huge business for satellite operators," says Gina Dolin, senior product manager at Intelsat, an international satellite consortium.
Certainly, satellite operators are making concerted efforts toward building themselves into a mainstay in the Internet infrastructure.
In September, PanAmSat created a subsidiary called Net-36 that specifically addresses content delivery to broadband Internet access networks for consumers. Mike Demko, vice president and general manager of the unit, says satellite networks can improve the user's streaming media experience by reducing packet and frame loss, as well as minimizing jitter.
As is the case with traditional entertainment companies, such as television broadcasters and cable networks, PanAmSat is paid by the content providers to deliver their content to various distribution points around the U.S. and overseas. The key to Net-36's success will be to create the biggest "footprint"- i.e., distribution network - possible. The more Internet service providers (ISPs) receiving the company's signal, the more compelling it will be to sign on.
Net-36 is already working with Excite@Home, in Redwood City, Calif., and Qwest Communications International, in Denver, Demko says. The company has signed up some big names in Internet content to be part of its "broadcast" network, and expects to have up to 300 content providers signed by 2002. Customers so far include ABC, Bloomberg Television, ESPN and The Walt Disney Co.
The growth of Internet traffic over the past five years has certainly brought some new business to PanAmSat and other operators of geosynchronous, high-orbit satellites, which have for years served other communications industries, including mobile communications and TV. Geosynchronous satellite constellations orbit about 23,000 miles above the Earth, following the globe's rotation and providing vast coverage with only a few spacecraft.
Now, the burgeoning of video and audio streams is creating increasing demand for satellites from Internet content creators and infrastructure services companies.
Newer companies, such as Globalstar and Iridium, have launched very different fleets with a different purpose and business model from that of fixed-satellite systems operators. These newer companies have more low-Earth orbiters that carry mobile phone calls - and are very expensive to design, launch and operate. Yet another, entirely different model is used by direct broadcast satellite operators, which beam TV programs to users' satellite dishes.
The growing availability of broadband access to consumers is one of the primary drivers for the recent surge of interest in satellite services. The impressive connection rates of Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL) and cable modems can slow to a crawl when the Internet fails to deliver quality feeds. While a cable modem, for example, can pull in content at T1 (1.5-megabit-per-second) speeds or faster, much of the public Internet fails to run anywhere near that fast - it all depends on the level of congestion.
Internet content creators and access providers are both realizing that bandwidth-intensive content, particularly streaming media, needs a pathway to the end user that is not congested. Without such a delay-free route, the quality of streaming video or audio will fail to excite consumers who have fast connections.
The goal is to pass through as few routers as possible, thereby avoiding possible congestion points.
Satellites help insure the quality of service for broadband content delivery by skipping terrestrial backbones and their congested routers. They take content from its origin and beam it to ISPs or other entities connected to local networks. While transporting data over high-orbiting satellites is prohibitively expensive for point-to-point delivery, satellites shine for multicast - point-to-multipoint - delivery: A study commissioned by GE Americom showed that satellites are more cost-effective than terrestrial backbones when content needs to go to more than 31 destination points.
