Strategic Intelligence: Deep Dive into Satellite Broadband Access

Strategic Intelligence: Deep Dive into Satellite Broadband Access

Summary

Satellite broadband is making huge strides; costs are coming down, and global capacity is increasing rapidly.

Global satellite switched capacity has increased by a factor of 65 times since 2019, following the launch of Starlink, to reach over 150 terabits per second (Tbps) in 2025. Global switched capacity will exceed 800Tbps with further satellite launches over the next three years.

Key Highlights

• Starlink has become the leader in satellite internet access and will be highly competitive due to its significant downstream capacity. Starlink doubled its subscribers in 2024 to 4.6 million with an estimated 31% market share. By the end of January 2025, Starlink had over 7,000 low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites with over 150Tbps of capacity, a figure that should exceed 800Tbps by 2027. Competitors to Starlink include Telesat Lightspeed, Eutelsat OneWeb, SES mPower, Amazon Kuiper, and various Chinese operators.
• Africa, Central Asia, Central and South America, and South Asia are exploring the use of satellite broadband to deliver cellular backhaul and residential internet access, as well as provide connectivity for public and government infrastructure. Large swaths of underserved towns and villages can have excellent broadband access with satellite.

• This report provides a complete overview of the satellite broadband access theme.
• It includes analysis of the business model, including details of how satellite broadband access is sold and delivered.
• It highlights industry use cases across 15 segments, including automotive, energy, healthcare, agriculture, education, media, and telecom.
• It looks at the latest developments in the device-to-device (D2D) market.
• It also puts satellite broadband access in the context of the broader space economy theme, including GlobalData's space economy value chain and market forecasts for the space economy.

• Falling wholesale bandwidth costs have the knock-on effect of expanding the addressable market for industry use cases.
• The wholesale price for enterprise bandwidth was $5,000/Mbps in 2015. Today, it is less than $250/Mbps and falling. Energy, oil and gas, mining, maritime, and defense have traditionally been the primary users of satellite broadband. Education, government, transportation, automotive, healthcare, and data centers will be key growth opportunities. This report will provide an invaluable overview of this increasingly relevant theme.