Satellite Bankruptcies circa 2000 vs 2020 We've Come a Long Way!

摘要

It's been 20 years since the last big round of satellite bankruptcies that included Teledesic, Iridium, Glo-balstar, and many others. With Intelsat, OneWeb, Speedcast, and Global Eagle filing for bankruptcy, and several others teetering, 2020 will be known as the new year of reckoning for many satellite companies. While it's tempting to see 2020 as another part of the satellite industry's boom and bust cycle, with history repeating the same mistakes, these two cycles are different. Terrestrial competition was the primary driver of the 2000 satellite bankruptcy cycle. The 2020 cycle, by contrast, was primarily driven by new satellite technology rendering old satellite technology obsolete, which is a side-effect of the satellite industry's increasing ability to harness technological innovation. The satellite industry is undergoing a process that the late Austrian political economist Joseph Schumpeter referred to as "creative destruction," whereby continuous innovation revolutionizes an industry from within, destroying existing businesses and creating new ones.