While in many cases, satellite television services like DirecTV (News - Alert) and Dish Network are easily a match for their terrestrial cable counterparts, the same cannot be said of the Internet service providers operating via satellite. But based on Eutelsat's (News - Alert) showing at IBC 2012, there's likely to be a lot of changes in the works for satellite service, often regarded as the provider of last resort.

Eutelsat is one of the top satellite providers on the planet, so looking to them to make changes suggests that changes are likely to come to the industry at large. The changes, meanwhile, are sweeping and substantial. For instance, Eutelsat's new KA-SAT service is still adding features, including the NewsSpotter service which allows news to be gathered and disseminated via Ka-band satellite signal. NewsSpotter was already put to use for the French presidential elections as well as the UK Diamond Jubilee, sending reports about both events to Denmark's TV2 studios in Copenhagen. Eutelsat will be showing off three types of antenna used with the NewsSpotter service, each geared toward different purposes within the class itself.

Also on tap is the Tooway service, a satellite broadband service that has received a major upgrade from 8PSK to 16APSK, and provides substantial benefit like 18 Mbps maximum download speed, 6 Mbps maximum upload speed, and, in a sigh of relief to those stuck with satellite broadband everywhere, access caps of 50 gigabytes per month.

Basically, thanks to the Tooway system, and other services backing it up, the consumer satellite system is getting much more robust, and finally approaching the point where a viable triple-play--Internet, television, and telephony--system can be offered because the bandwidth is finally in play to do so. But that's not all--Sky Italia will also be showing off an improved on-demand video system, and the Ultra HD concept will even get shown, something that generally wasn't on display as recently as last year.

Satellite, especially satellite Internet access, suffers from incredibly poor perception thanks to weather-related shutdowns, tiny access caps--in some cases as small as just 10 gigabyte per month, the kind of thing that can't allow for more than a couple streaming movies a month--and cripplingly high latency. But with what, Eutelsat and other services like Sky Italia are looking to offer, it's possible that, before too much longer has passed, those who live in places where only satellite Internet service is available may not be cursing their luck but rather enjoying many of the services that those with more robust connections take for granted. Sure, even Eutelsat's Tooway still has something of a restrictive cap--Comcast (News - Alert), at last report, was looking to toss the cap in favor of a tiered system, but even then the tiering didn't start adding to the bill until 300 gigabytes per month, or six times that of Tooway--but considering that many other satellite providers were lower than that, it's still a relief for Tooway users.

There's a long way yet to go before satellite can match the terrestrial Internet access forms, but it's clear that companies like Eutelsat aren't just counting on being the provider of last resort any longer. They're bulking up their services, and offering more, to keep users willingly in the fold instead of counting on a captive audience.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2012, taking place Oct. 2-5, in Austin, TX.  Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO (News - Alert). Follow us on Twitter.