Satellite Sales: An Out-of-This-World-Opportunity

Polmar said satellite is attractive even in areas where there are other options. "Let's say a company has seven sites in the U.S. and one in Africa," he postulated. "The price for a terrestrial circuit in Africa will be extremely expensive. Satellite there is very price-competitive."

Remote locations within the United States are another ripe opportunity for similar reasons. "We have accounts in tribal areas, for outfitting school buses in those areas where nothing else works," said Jim Corry, vice president of government solutions at Mobile Satellite Ventures, which provides voice-over-satellite and push-to-talk-style services. "We also work with a company that has 1,100 fishing boats of the coast of Alaska. We provide a common talk group so they can talk one-to-many and keep in touch. It also helps maintain morale because we allow crews to talk back to the base station, where a wife or daughter can come into the dock house to say hello." MSV plans cost $69 per month for unlimited push-to-talk service and $1.19 per minute for phone calls.

Other applications might include support for police in squad cars, command center mobile vans, health care clinic vans, bloodmobiles, and other mobile clients that might find themselves in remote areas. Also, satellite fits well in verticals like oil and gas or construction, where the work locations are temporary. Satellite is ideal for data networking. Also, it's ideal for one-to-many content distribution and digital signage in retail environments or advertising-heavy enterprises.

"There really isn't one sweet spot," said Sam Baumel, assistant vice president of channel sales for the SMB market at Hughes "We have everything from poultry farmers with 15 locations, delivering data from those operations to HQ, to one business with two locations literally across the river from each other. The trees and water make for a non-line-of-sight situation, so microwave is out."