The Imperative of Long-Term Contracts

As the House Armed Services Committee reviews much needed policy changes in commercial SATCOM capacity acquisition, it is vitally important that both Congress and their colleagues at the Pentagon recognize the following key issues. Long-term contracts work not only because they assure appropriate amounts of bandwidth are available, but of equal importance, because they offer industry the commercial certainty necessary  to build and deploy solutions which are designed precisely to meet the government’s requirements for advanced capabilities.

Without a clear and certain commitment from the Government to provide stable income, satellite operators will be reticent to invest, and DoD will be left with the only option to spend scarce financial resources building and operating expensive systems which could be provided by trusted operators at far less cost.

XTAR applauds Congress and DoD, led by Under Secretary Kendall, for the bold leadership to achieve the policy reform recommended by the Defense Business Board.  XTAR is committed to supporting this process however it can.