Comments on: SES cleared by the United Kingdom to buy Intelsat https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/ses-cleared-by-the-united-kingdom-to-buy-intelsat/ Fri, 30 May 2025 22:11:55 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Dick Eagleson https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/ses-cleared-by-the-united-kingdom-to-buy-intelsat/#comment-1591781 Fri, 30 May 2025 22:11:55 +0000 https://behindtheblack.com/?p=114489#comment-1591781 Competing with Starlink will, I think, turn out to be a forlorn hope. GEO-based provision of Internet services has always been pretty niche-y and low-performance. Calling it “broadband” represents considerable gilding of the lily. What is really killing GEO comsats is not Starlink, per se, but the rise of streaming services that mostly use terrestrial broadband for distribution and also Starlink a bit around the edges – mainly in mobile applications, eg., planes, trains and ships. The old GEO model of carrying multiple cable or cable-like channels that have fixed schedules for their offerings is now viewed as less preferable than on-demand streaming by nearly everyone. These outfits need to find a new “killer app” for GEO comsats and I am not at all sure there is one to be found.

In the meantime, the GEO comsat outfits will diminish in both number and value through such acquisitions as the one reported on here. The paltry transaction price of 2.9 billion euros is the best possible illustration of the likely dead-end nature of most of the GEO comsat business.

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