SATELLITE 2018 can now be consigned to history. What an event it was! So many great speakers and panels. It is by far the biggest and best event in the satellite industry, and yet again it did not disappoint.

There were so many talking points, it will be hard to mention them all here. But, there are one or two observations I will make. First, from my perspective, and as the Program Chair of the CyberSat Summit, it was noticeable that cybersecurity seemed to be mentioned a lot more on panels than the previous year. It was even mentioned quite a few times by Mark Dankberg on our opening general session. Also, the other trend I noticed (and maybe a fairly obvious one) is that developments in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) dominated discussions. There is definitely huge momentum, and the next question will be who the winners and losers will be.

As for this issue, we focus away from SATELLITE and toward two other major events in the calendar – NAB, and the National Space Symposium. To this end, we have an exclusive interview with Senator Bill Nelson talking about the U.S. government’s use for satellite communications.

We also have a number of interviews with key players in Latin America’s DTH market, and look at how the players here are dealing with emerging threats of OTT and different patterns of consumption. It is an interesting time to be a pay-TV player, that is for sure.

We hope you enjoy this edition of Via Satellite and thank you for your support at SATELLITE. While the weather was pretty cold at SATELLITE this year, things are definitely heating up in the industry for the rest of the year. VS