Mumbai: Satellite spectrum management, market consolidation, government and military technology developments, capacity provision and Asia’s seemingly unflagging demand for satellite services were just a few of the issues covered during the CASBAA Satellite Industry Forum 2008 in Singapore on 16 June.

Almost 300 top-level executives from the world of satellite and government participated in the CASBAA forum to discuss the future for satellite systems as well as the latest challenges in Asia.  

The Forum was keynoted by Intelsat CEO David McGlade and Telesat CEO Dan Goldberg—providing both political and technical context for the market accelerators and the ways in which people consume content.

With an emphasis on the need for Asian markets to further open up, McGlade highlighted growth in China and India and the huge potential for Asian satellite services, which will be partially served by the six new satellites to be launched in the region in the second half of this year.

Goldberg also added that there is ‘not enough competitive choice in terms of launch vehicles’ and stressed the need for new launch service providers to be encouraged.

Further sessions included lively dialogue on subjects like the exponential growth in demand for satellite services from the government and military sectors with panellists reporting that services that cater for the military need do not take a great length of time to acquire. This recent migration to commercial applications has opened important doors for the industry.

The CASBAA Satellite Industry Forum was concluded by a ‘CEO Wrap’, during which C-level executives were put on the spot on the ‘way forward’.

It was stressed that the satellite operators must be flexible in their approach so as to adapt to the changing markets and applications. New ways and means must be found to grow businesses in spite of spectrum constraints and the industry must be more pro-active protecting spectrum from terrestrial operators.