While Northern Sky Research (NSR) will not claim to have predicted the recent purchase of WildBlue Communications Inc. by ViaSat Inc., the early October announcement of the acquisition deal did not come as a complete surprise. In fact, the fit between WildBlue and ViaSat is exceedingly complementary and has been justly lauded both on Wall Street and within the satellite community. More importantly, this deal is a harbinger of where the commercial satellite communications industry could be headed in the future.