Eight years in the making and two years overdue, there was celebration in French Guiana, Thailand and Australia this week as Shin Satellite's iPSTAR satellite was launched from French Guiana. The launch heralds the emergence of a new era of satellite broadband across regional and remote China and India, south East Asia, Australia and New Zealand. There were some anxious moments for Arianespace and Shin Satellite officials when a "premature ground segment measurement" forced a delay in the countdown to less than 18 minutes before the end of a two-hour launch window. But the countdown was revived at 5.14 and the launch went ahead. The 6,500kg iPSTAR promises 45Gbits of throughput targeted at most of east Asia and Australia from a geostationary position. The bird isn't the first promising broadband service - Inmarsat, for example, offers a broadband service via its BGAN service to almost all of the iPSTAR service area. But iPSTAR is the first to provide connectivity at prices pitched at close to terrestrial wireless or fixed prices - less than US$50 monthly with terminals starting at $1,000 and set to come down to around $500 as volumes rise.
Across the globe, many CEOs invested in initiatives to expand their digital offerings. User experience enhancements that are enabled by business technology were a priority in many industries. Worldwide end-user spending on public cloud services is forecast to grow 21.7 percent to a total of $597.3 billion in 2023 -- that's up from $491 billion in 2022, according to the latest market study by Gartner. Cloud computing is driving the next phase of digital transformation, as organizations pursue disruption through technologies like generative Artificial Intelligence (AI), Web3, and enterprise Metaverse. Public Cloud Computing Market Development "Hyperscale cloud providers are driving the cloud agenda," said Sid Nag, vice president at Gartner . Organizations view cloud computing as a highly strategic platform for digital transformation initiatives, which requires providers to offer new capabilities as the competition for digital business escalates. "For example, generativ