From content delivery to crabbing to radomes, to an ASR solution to help with development and maintenance costs, transponder trends as well as a targeted mix of subject-matter expertise, this issue of SatMagazine focuses on the U.S. satellite market.

by Patrick French, NSR
In many ways, the mother of true commercial satellite transponder leasing services is the North American C-band video services segment. Commercial satellite C-band payloads in the North American “cable arc” are used to bring all kinds of television programs to literally tens of millions of households. This television content is not only delivered via cable MSOs, but nearly every television affiliate station in the U.S. and Canada receives at least some (if not all) of its daily television programming via C-band satellite capacity.

by Carlton van Putten, Blue Sky Network
Low Earth Orbiting (LEO) satellite systems provide various satellite communications systems and handheld satellite services in North America. Ten years ago, mobile satellite services (MSS) took communications to a new level in making handheld satellite services portable for the first time.

by Rachel Villain, Director, Space & Communications, Euroconsult, Paris
The United States and Canada have pioneered satellite communications services and today the U.S. is the world’s largest market for satellite-based services, all applications combined (SATCOM, SATNAV, and Earth observation).

by Tim O'Neill, Consultant
Today, there appears to be disconcerting news everywhere for most business sectors. However, what I personally see and hear is that this shaky time seems to have little or no real effect on the SATCOM arena. You may arrive at a different opinion, but there seems to be a lot of “light” ahead for our industry over the coming years, for the following reasons…

by Chris Forrester, Columnist
On February 5th 1989, just 20 years ago, the Astra satellite made its first official transmissions. Astra’s major clients were led by an underfunded outfit called Sky Television, which had taken four transponders for its debut service. Other clients came from players such as MTV, CNN, and broadcasters in Germany, Scandinavia, and the Benelux. The Astra satellite had been launched on December 11, 1988, from Kourou, French Guiana, on an Ariane 4 rocket.

by Ian Fichtenbaum, Associate, Near Earth LLC
As we detailed last month (see Satellites Going Bigger Or Smaller? Yes! in the January 2009 issue of SatMagazine), the market for satellite systems is broadening, leading to growth in demand for large as well as smaller satellites.

by Michael L. Downey, Patricia Constantino, and Jeffrey C. Chu, Glowlink Communications
Satellite interference is a growing problem that affects all commercial satellites and satellite users. One underlying cause is the large number of transmit antennas now pointed to these satellites, including the ubiquitous VSAT. As the number of transmitters has increased, so has the number of interference events.

by Lance Griffiths, Ph.D., Radome Design Engineer, MFG Galileo Composites
The basic function of a radome is to form a barrier between an antenna and the environment with minimal impact on the antenna’s electrical performance. Under ideal conditions a radome is electrically invisible. How well a radome accomplishes this depends on matching its configuration and materials composition to a particular application and RF frequency range.

by Mark Pitts, V.P., Business Development, Vados Solutions
Improvements in network technology are causing capital expenditure to decrease as a proportion of total cost of ownership (TCO). According to a recent report from Gartner, the capital cost of a network now only accounts for some 10-20 percent of the TCO. This means that to improve efficiency and reduce costs network managers have to simplify their network operations rather than focus on the feature set itself.

Paul Dujardin Founder, President, CEO, Director Genesis Networks
Paul founded Genesis Networks in 2001 and developed and implemented the business strategy for global products. He has more than 35 years of experience in the Video and Telecommunications industries and founded Triumph Communications in 1993, a Video-over-Asynchronous Transfer Mode (“ATM”) provider, serving as President until its sale to Liberty Livewire in 2000 for $54 million. Triumph Communications designed and implemented the first all-digital dedicated network for CNN, and a local Television backhaul fiber network for DirecTV.

by Rod Tiede, President + CEO,Broadcast Int'l
The ability to reduce video bandwidth needs has become critical as the demand for video skyrockets among consumers and businesses alike. A new study from TNS and the Conference Board shows that, since 2006, the number of U.S. households watching TV programming online has nearly doubled.

by Heather Eagle, Marketing Manager, SkyTerra
The situation — there are many lines of work that are considered dangerous or at the very least risky to some extent… police, firemen, miners, oil riggers and ‘crabbers’ to name but a few. However, according to the Discovery Channel’s sources, Alaskan ‘crabbers’ are top of the list in the business of... risky business.