With the changing landscape in how media services are delivered...

at a Washington Space Business Roundtable event Tuesday. There are more than 1.3 billion smartphones in circulation, he said. “As a consequence, there’s a massive attack on satellite television broadband frequencies by terrestrial operators and regulators that are looking to feed the voracious appetites of the handheld networks.” This continued shift to serving the untethered customer “is providing opportunities for satellite operators to expand outside of their traditional swim lanes,” he said. Direct-to-home continues to evolve around the world, he said. Dish Network’s ad-skipping feature, the Hopper, and DirecTV’s Whole-Home recording service are “changing the in-home viewing experience,” he said. Due to the distribution of increasingly more untethered devices, “I think the industry has the potential to redefine itself,” Horowitz said. The commercial satellite industry must lead the government to buy its services, he added: NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration “don’t have a problem issuing multi-year contracts for services … Why is it that DOD [Department of Defense] cannot?” Industry must help DOD figure it out, he said. Horowitz urged the satellite industry to engage in expanding over-the-top services: “How do we bring Google and Yahoo and Netflix and Twitter somehow into the satellite world?”