Satellite Capacity Pricing Down 18%, Further Declines Including Video Coming, NSR Says

Satellite capacity pricing dropped on average 18 percent over the past 12 months, with video distribution pricing down 7.1 percent, mobility down 13 percent and some data segments down as much as 24 percent, Northern Sky Research said Monday. Driving down pricing is the cheap bulk supply of high-throughput capacity that's making legacy satellites "increasingly obsolete," NSR said. The firm said backhaul and broadband deployments helped boost capacity demand. It expects video declines to accelerate to 11 percent in 2019-20 because of higher compression rates and market saturation. It said mobility's decline also will accelerate. NSR said there are still regions in developing countries showing significant demand for backhaul and Wi-Fi that could help boost revenue.