I have become convinced that the global satellite industry - from manufacturing to launch to services - is in the early stages of major structural change that will play out over the next five to ten years. Like all such changes, it will present huge challenges, especially to companies with a conservative history of resistance to change. Companies that take the right steps to adapt to these changes, however, may well unleash decades of growth. The price of stability For the past 40 years, the satellite industry has been known for an incredible rate of technology innovation, and a snail's pace of innovation in its business model. The reasons are not far to seek. From its birth, the industry has lived in a sheltering environment of government monopoly and intergovernmental consor-tia. It was the multilateral treaty organisation, Intelsat, that launched the first satellite system. Most of the satellites that quickly followed the 1965 launch of Intelsat 1 were national projects, from Canada's Anik 1A in 1972 to Indonesia's Palapa A1 in 1976, Japan's CS1 in 1977, and India's Insat 1A in 1982. Orbital slots continue to be national assets, and nationalism remains a driving force in decisions to build, launch and operate satellite fleets.
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