Providing Satellite Services
DID YOU KNOW?
Satellite operators are highly efficient companies who from a central satellite control centre fly fleets of satellites remote-controlled 24/7 - in the case of ESOA members, some operators fly single satellites or small fleets while others fly fleets of up to 54 satellites!
Being quite literally the pilots of their infrastructure, satellite operators are not the ones to provide services directly to end-users. They lease capacity on their satellites to customers who in turn provide - either directly or indirectly - services to paying customers. Each satellite operator works with distribution partners and service providers who provide value-added services using satellite capacity all over the world. The satellite communications sector has realised - thanks to market forces - the separation of network operations and provision of services.
Where free market conditions prevail, a satellite operator can therefore provide services while being incorporated and paying taxes in a single State. The types of partners that satellite operators have include: broadcasters, internet service providers, telecommunications carriers (long-distance telephony, cellular backhauling, trunking), mobile communications providers, and others.
Simply put: each user group leases 'raw' satellite capacity from the operator, adds its own specific value & then sells to end users. Although the services of satellite opera
tors in many instances compare directly with those of other telecommunications providers, the nature of the business (managing a central infrastructure with global reach & limited contact to the end-user segment) results in satellite operators being a fraction of the size of for terrestrial telecoms operators for example.
Satellite operators are therefore in most cases, not in contact with the end-user segment. However of all the actors in the "space" value chain, the satellite operators remain the ones closest to the market, driving new satellite orders and innovative, new services.