Date: October 9, 2026
Author: Catie Owen (Adapted by Global Infrastructure Insights)
Estimated Read Time: 8 minutes
Executive Overview
For decades, satellite communications occupied a specialized, almost peripheral domain within the global telecommunications ecosystem. Widely categorized as a niche solution, it was deployed primarily to solve the headaches of extreme isolation: connecting remote maritime vessels, hard-to-reach rural outposts, and adventurous expeditions venturing beyond the edge of terrestrial infrastructure.
Today, that narrative has fundamentally reversed. Satellite technology has shed its auxiliary status, emerging as a core, strategic pillar of mainstream telecommunications infrastructure. It is no longer just a backup plan for the disconnected; it is a vital layer of modern network resilience, cloud integration, and continuous enterprise operations.
In the lead-up to Capacity Europe 2026, Olivier Gommes, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer (CTIO) at Marlink—a premier managed network service provider—sat down to discuss this seismic shift. As telcos and enterprises race to fortify their networks against mounting geopolitical, physical, and cyber threats, satellite has graduated from a luxury consideration to an operational absolute.
However, this transition is not without friction. As multiple Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), and Geostationary (GEO) constellations crowd the skies, telecommunications operators face a paradox of choice. Integrating these diverse architectures requires navigating complex operational models, stringent security frameworks, and seamless hybrid architectures.
This article explores how satellite has transformed into a critical piece of global connectivity infrastructure, the evolving demands of enterprise customers, the pitfalls telcos must avoid, and what the future holds as the digital revolution accelerates.
Detailed Chronology: The Evolution of Satellite from Margin to Mainstream
To understand how satellite technology achieved its current market dominance, one must look at how the telecommunications industry has evolved over the past several years.
Phase 1: The Isolation Era (Pre-2020s)
Historically, satellite communication was defined by high latency, limited bandwidth, and exorbitant costs. Dominated primarily by Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) satellites sitting tens of thousands of kilometers above the Earth, the technology was largely restricted to industries where terrestrial fibers or cellular towers were physically impossible to deploy. Maritime fleets, oil rigs, aviation, and remote military outposts were the primary consumers. For mainstream telecom operators, satellite was viewed as a separate, specialized vertical—something outsourced to niche providers rather than integrated into core portfolios.
Phase 2: The Hybrid Awakening (2020–2024)
As global digitalization accelerated—driven by cloud computing, remote workforces, and the Internet of Things (IoT)—the limitations of purely terrestrial networks became glaringly obvious. Enterprises began demanding 100% uptime, exposing the fragility of single-path fibre dependencies. During this period, the conversation shifted toward network resilience. Telecommunications providers began experimenting with hybrid network models, combining traditional terrestrial broadband or LTE with secondary satellite links to guarantee business continuity.
Phase 3: The LEO Explosion and Mass Production (2025–2026)
The rapid commercialization of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellations fundamentally altered the economics and performance of satellite communications. With advanced operators like Starlink expanding rapidly, OneWeb scaling its global network, and Amazon’s Project Kuiper looming on the horizon, latency plummeted while bandwidth skyrocketed.
Within the last twelve months alone, satellite deployments have transitioned rapidly from isolated trials and proof-of-concept projects into large-scale production environments. Today, enterprise networks routinely integrate thousands of satellite-backed sites worldwide into their core architectures. Satellite is no longer a peripheral trial; it is deployed at scale alongside 4G/5G mobile links to form unified enterprise networks.
Supporting Context & Metrics: Meeting Changing Customer Needs
According to Olivier Gommes, the catalyst for this transformation is a radical shift in customer expectations. Enterprise requirements have expanded far beyond basic coverage in dead zones.
"For telcos, satellite has become something customers increasingly expect to see as part of a connectivity portfolio," Gommes explains. Today’s enterprise customers are asking critical questions regarding:
- Resilience and Business Continuity: Mitigating the risks associated with terrestrial fiber cuts or regional network outages.
- Rapid Site Deployment: Standing up secure, high-speed corporate networks in greenfield locations or temporary operational hubs in a matter of hours rather than months.
- Extended Reach: Seamlessly connecting regional branches, retail locations, and industrial sites where traditional terrestrial services are economically or logistically impractical.
The Multi-Orbit Reality
Modern enterprise customers are no longer looking for a one-size-fits-all product; they are demanding a sophisticated balance of application performance, security, and absolute resilience. This has ushered in a multi-orbit environment.
"One of the advantages of the market today is that there are more options available than ever before," notes Gommes. "Different constellations, different orbits, and different service models all have a role to play. From a service provider perspective, that means flexibility matters more than ever."
Marlink has embraced this reality by adopting an agnostic approach—remaining independent of specific satellite operators, underlying hardware technologies, or orbital architectures. This flexibility allows service providers to solve complex architectural challenges on a case-by-case basis, matching the precise workload requirements of an enterprise to the optimal connectivity medium.
Furthermore, connectivity can no longer be viewed in a vacuum. Gommes emphasizes that network performance, cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, and enterprise applications are now deeply interdependent. A deployment decision made regarding satellite bandwidth inevitably impacts cloud routing policies, endpoint security protocols, and overall IT architecture.
Official Statements and Industry Insights: Navigating the Operational Maze
Despite the enthusiasm surrounding new LEO constellations and high-capacity links, industry leaders warn against common strategic missteps. One of the most frequent traps telcos fall into is focusing exclusively on the connectivity product itself while underestimating the operational complexity required to manage it.
"A service like Starlink can appear very straightforward initially, but enterprise-scale deployments quickly introduce additional requirements around billing, logistics, network integration, security, installation, support, and service management."
— Olivier Gommes, CTIO, Marlink
When enterprises scale satellite deployments across thousands of global locations, they demand enterprise-grade SLAs, centralized billing, unified security policies, and 24/7 technical support. Expecting internal IT teams or traditional telecommunications providers to manage the fragmented operational roadmaps of multiple satellite vendors can quickly overwhelm internal resources.
This operational friction has created a vital market position for managed network service providers (MSSPs) like Marlink. Operating as an intermediary layer between the chaotic multi-vendor satellite ecosystem and the end service provider, Marlink harmonizes disparate technologies into a single, cohesive, managed service. By absorbing the administrative, logistical, and technical overhead, MSSPs allow telecommunications operators to offer advanced satellite capabilities to their clients without sacrificing customer service quality or stretching platform management resources thin.
Future Outlook: Reinforcing the Global Digital Fabric
As the connectivity landscape heads toward the latter half of the decade, the integration of satellite into mainstream telecommunications is poised to accelerate even further.
Subsea Cable Resilience and Terrestrial Backup
Recent global debates surrounding the vulnerability of subsea telecommunications cables have laid bare the urgent need for diverse, independent routing paths. A single anchor drag or geological event can sever continents from the global internet, paralyzing financial markets and digital services. Satellite infrastructure provides an indispensable insurance policy against such catastrophic points of failure, acting as an autonomous, air-gapped backup layer that reinforces terrestrial networks.
The Business Opportunity for Telcos
For traditional telecommunications operators, the integration of satellite is no longer optional—it is a prime commercial opportunity. As Europe and the global economy lean deeper into artificial intelligence, cloud-native enterprise operations, and ubiquitous data processing, the demand for unbreakable, high-performance connectivity will only rise.
Telcos that proactively embrace satellite as a fundamental component of their infrastructure portfolios will capture market share by offering truly resilient, end-to-end digital services. Those that ignore the technology risk leaving mission-critical enterprise customers exposed to downtime and performance bottlenecks.
Join the Conversation at Capacity Europe 2026
To dive deeper into these transformations, industry leaders will converge in London for the landmark 25th-anniversary edition of Capacity Europe 2026 (October 13–15).
Olivier Gommes will take the stage during the Snapshot Presentations: Key developments shaping Europe’s digital infrastructure, offering further insights into how satellite and hybrid architectures are reshaping the continent’s telecommunications backbone.
Join an estimated 4,000 decision-makers, innovators, and executives from across the global fibre, data center, cloud, and AI infrastructure communities to connect, collaborate, and define the future of connectivity.
