You need not develop a Chicken Little complex over it, but there's something going on in the sky above.

As in the old English children's story, there is no acorn falling from the sky, but the telecommunications satellite industry has started stirring again since its meltdown in the early part of this decade. The industry is benefiting from increased interest spawned by disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, as well as U.S. military use because of the war in Iraq. But there also are improvements in data delivery technologies, as well as voice, that are drawing interest from more businesses.

Christopher Baugh, president of Northern Sky Research, a Cambridge, Mass., analyst firm that watches satellite communications, says satellite broadband services generally will see 8 percent annual revenue increases in coming years.

"There is a solid revenue opportunity," Baugh says. "The financial markets are realizing that there is a solid business," even though it is capital intensive, with a new satellite costing up to about $250 million to build, launch and insure.

Northern Sky is forecasting that global lease revenues for commercial satellite capacity will reach $7.3 billion in 2010, although 64 percent of that will be for video services.

There also has been consolidation in the industry, which makes the larger companies more economically viable. And some of the financially beleaguered companies, such as Globalstar, have emerged from bankruptcy with renewed vigor and a broader focus.

Notable consolidations in the last year include a $1.6 billion acquisition of New Skies Satellites by SES Global, plus Intelsat's $3.2 billion purchase of PanAmSat. Baugh says the consolidation phase has concluded, except for the gobbling up of some smaller, regional satellite companies.

DATA USE ON THE RISE Globalstar has been known primarily as a voice-over-satellite provider, but the company's CEO, Jay Monroe, says there has been a marked increase in data usage in the last year. Globalstar saw a 40-percent increase in subscribers during 2005, to 195,000.

Globalstar was acquired in 2004 by Thermo Capital Partners, which effectively took the company out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Thermo acquired just over 80 percent of the stock for $43 million. Under terms of the restructuring, the company is expected to issue a new round of stock in the fourth quarter of 2006.

The company also expects to start selling a second generation of handsets and modems in the third quarter. The devices are being supplied under a $140 million contract with Globalstar's long-time vendor, Qualcomm. The handsets will be smaller, lighter and have more features, including the potential to provide cellular communications in addition to satellite. Qualcomm manufactures Globalstar's current lineup of handsets, including a data modem.

Globalstar has received FCC approval to offer a combination of satellite and cellular communications, which is known as the ancillary terrestrial component (ATC). ATC also was related to a broader battle before the FCC over the award of 2 GHz spectrum to ICO and TMI, Globalstar can offer ATC services by reusing its current spectrum in the 1.6 GHz and 2.4 GHz L and S bands. TerreStar Networks, the brand TMI is using, plans to wholesale its ATC services to wireless carriers. TerreStar expects to launch its first satellite in about 18 months.

Another company to watch in the ATC field is Mobile Satellite Ventures (MSV), which is partially owned by wireless data provider Motient. MSV has demonstrated its hybrid network for both voice and SMS, has an agreement with AnyData to build satellite-terrestrial clamshell phones and expects to have an operational network in 2009 or 2010.

Monroe says Globalstar has been able to grow its subscriber base because of aggressive pricing that is as low as 14 cents per minute for high-use customers tied to a contract. Handsets that initially cost as much as $2,000 now have fallen in price to about $750.

Although voice has been the company's largest business, there is increasing interest in using the network for data, he says. Oil exploration companies, for example, used to have people in the field assigned to travel to communications facilities to deliver drilling activity reports. "Now you can have a guy in Houston running the job connected by one of our phones," Monroe says.

Military use has been an important and stable business for Globalstar, as well as competitors like Iridium. But Monroe says devastation inflicted by hurricanes and other natural disasters over the last two years has shown satellite communications to be a viable communications tool for governments and first responders.

HEAVIER TRAFFIC Iridium, which had 137,500 subscribers in the third quarter, a 22-percent annual increase, says traffic on its network in the U.S. Gulf region increased 3,000 percent after Hurricane Katrina struck the coast last year. Globalstar saw a 500-percent increase in minutes of use.

In addition to the military, government and first-responders, vertical markets that have been most interested in Globalstar's services include mining, forestry, commercial fishing, utilities, transportation and heavy construction, the company says.

As part of its data services, Globalstar recently started offering VPN services as well as static IP addresses to customers in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean. Static IP capabilities allow typical Internet communications services beyond 1-way data transmission, such as managing assets in remote areas over a 2-way connection. The VPN capabilities provide a level of security that enterprises want, Monroe says.

Another satellite communications provider, Inmarsat, which wholesales its services, has launched new satellites that provide broadband data communications. The new satellites, under Inmarsat's Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN), provide data rates up to 492 kbps, compared to the former 64 kbps. The network also provides voice services.

The first BGAN satellite launched last year provided coverage for Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, with service launching in those areas Dec. 7. A second BGAN satellite covering North America and South America was launched in November and is expected to be turned on commercially by June.

Inmarsat uses terminals rather than handsets because the terminals can carry the battery to power the signal. The older terminals weighed about 30 pounds, but the new BGAN units are about the size of a laptop so they can provide the battery power required for the broadband data signal. The smallest BGAN terminal weighs just over 2 pounds and the largest, which is required for the highest throughput, is about 9 pounds. The largest, made by Hughes Network Systems, can be used as a Wi-Fi hot spot for several users, using the satellite link for backhaul.

"We can give you a Wi-Fi hot spot anywhere in the world," says Frank August, Inmarsat's Americas director. He says one of the biggest benefits of BGAN besides the data rates is a user can make a voice call simultaneously with data transmission.

Inmarsat saw a 4-percent increase in its revenue in the first six months of its most recent fiscal year (reported August 2005) and a 43-percent jump in profits. Through its resellers, its biggest markets are government agencies and the military, followed by broadcast service for news-gathering agencies, oil and gas, maritime and aeronautical. The company went public last June.

Distributors that work with Inmarsat include British Telecom, France Telecom, Telenor, Stratos, Singtel, KDDI, KPN and Telstra. Inmarsat doesn't reveal subscriber numbers but says there are more than 350,000 registered terminals on the network.

Analyst Baugh says end-user costs are declining to the point that satellite communications can reach a wider audience. The military may continue to be the biggest customer for a number of years, he says, but satellite communications is spreading. And then satellite service providers may indeed find that the sky's the limit.