Projects of huge constellations of small satellites circling around the Earth have been gaining space in media and attention of those involved in the satellite industry and of outsiders. But at the Congress of Rio de Janeiro, traditional operators opted for prudence: the overall opinion is that only some of these plans will be made. Michel Azibert, Eutelsat CEO in office, explained that for so far, they do not venture into the LEO orbit due to the complexity posed by a system to settle there. "By the time these initiatives become a reality, GEO satellites capacity will have been so much improved that it will not be competition. When doing the estimations, it is noted that a low Earth orbit constellatio will not be able to be more efficient than HTS deployments, or other innovations in the satellite sector", analyzed the executive in dialogue with Convergencialatina.

Anyway, as Azibert added, a constellation of this type could workin in addressing specific markets, such as the Internet of Things, for example.

Intelsat -which will participate in the  OneWeb deployment in LEO, in Ku- band- considers low orbit projects as complementary to what already exists in GEO. "It has advantages, such as coverage at the poles -which could improve connectivity in many air routes- or serving strong demand locations. Intelsat is involved in initiatives such as those launched by Facebook, or connected cars projects, flat antennas, among others, because we believe that we must promote the ecosystem, not only in space but also on earth: the future needs innovation in both planes", he said.

O3b Networks welcomes the discussion because it considers itself as  a "pioneer" to have fallen to the medium orbit (it has a fleet of 12 satellites operational at 45° South North). "Moving from vision to reality requires effort and investment; therefore I think that not all initiatives will materialize. The truth is that the lower latency ensured by the lowest orbits will become increasingly necessary, as traffic grows. Applications highly sensitive to latency and user also demand interactivity, an issue where latency is also very important", said Sandro Barros, CEO of O3b Networks Brazil to Convergencialatina.