The proliferation of UAV sorties and the resulting amounts of data are putting strain on the SATCOM networks of all the branches of the U.S. military.

In this executive interview Tom Foust,Regional Vice President, Global Network Solutions at Intelsat, discusses how the branches address this challenge in different ways, and he shares how his military background prepared him for his career at Intelsat General.

“Bandwidth is like gasoline.” This is the unfortunate sentiment of many U.S. Government buyers and users of satellite capacity. In some cases it also consistent with the value proposition of industry resellers and integrators.

The Washington Post published a very interesting story last week covering budget hearings on 2013 military space programs. Each branch of the military touted their own respective space programs – the Air Force talked AEHF, the Army WGS, the Navy MUOS. 

As promising as these programs truly are for the future, there are two important issues the military faces right now in space.

Last month, members of industry, government and defense gathered for Satellite 2012, which is one of the premier forums for staying up-to-date on the latest in satellite communications, as well as capturing a glimpse of the future of satellite technology. 

The proliferation of remote sensor data from manned and unmanned aerial vehicles has played a major role in increasing overall satellite bandwidth usage.  In this executive interview Tom Foust,Regional Vice President, Global Network Solutions at Intelsat, discusses this topic and how C4ISR is advancing to provide the timely and actionable data to the warfigher. 

In this executive interview, Kay Sears of Intelsat General discusses what market trends she sees affecting the commercial SATCOM market. Kay also talks about the most satisfying part of her job at IGC.

Click here to watch an interview in which Kay talks about the proper role of commercial SATCOM in supporting military operations.

Today we're publishing the second clip from an interview of Intelsat General President Kay Sears speaking with Federal News Radio. In this segment Kay discusses the much shorter time to market offered by commercial SATCOM, and how that can save the government a great deal of money. She also discusses how to keep innovation from suffering in a tight budgetary climate.

To listen in, just click on the player below.

Although the U.S. is winding down its military presence in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the need for satellite bandwidth has not diminished by any stretch.  The U.S. military is actually seeing a rise in demand for bandwidth, which is changing the communications landscape and creating more opportunities for commercial providers that offer hosted payloads.

In the first of a series of executive interviews, Kay Sears of Intelsat General discusses the proper role for commercial SATCOM. For almost 20 years commercial SATCOM has supported military operations with no defined role, nor a specific place in the overall architecture of space operations.

The current budget climate presents an opportunity to better define the proper partnership for space operations moving forward.