ViaSat, Hughes Ready Higher Speed Satellite Broadband Services
ViaSat will reignite a battle for high-speed broadband subscribers with the launch of the ViaSat-1 Ka-band satellite next week, pitting it against Hughes Communications as well as DSL and cable providers, industry executives said Thursday at the Content & Communications World show in New York.
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ViaSat-1 is scheduled to launch Oct. 18 to 115 degrees west from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with a goal being operational by late this year. The new satellite, which will serve the U.S. east and west coasts as well as Alaska and Hawaii, will give ViaSat’s WildBlue a much-needed boost. The satellite broadband service has about 425,000 subscribers, but has suffered from a lack of capacity.
In its bid to compete with Hughes, which has 630,000 subscribers, it will be faced with dealers that may have to choose between services. ViaSat has gained 100,000 customers through Dish Network, whose affiliate EchoStar acquired Hughes earlier this year. Hughes has about 400 dealers and 80 sales agents, while ViaSat has about 200 dealers and distribution agreements with DirecTV and the National Rural Telecom Cooperative.
Despite the overlap, “the market seems so big right now” that there will be room for Hughes and ViaSat, ViaSat CEO Mark Dankberg said. The much-delayed launch of ViaSat-1 will shrink the gap before Hughes puts its Jupiter satellite into orbit at 99 degrees west in a few months. Hughes will launch Jupiter in March or April from an Arianespace facility in French Guiana with a target of starting service from the new satellite by July, said Arunas Slekys, vice president-corporate marketing.
The pricing and packages for the satellite haven’t been set. But Hughes expects to keep its entry level monthly fee at $60 despite increasing download/upload speeds to 4 Mbps/2 Mbps from 1 Mbps/256 kbps, company officials said. Both services will top out at 10 to 12 Mbps. Viasat is weighing a variety a plans, including one based on megabyte usage, with a monthly rate starting in the $50 to $55 range, ViaSat officials have said.
Hughes also is considering bundling its broadband service with Dish video packages, the first of which will be unveiled at CES in January, Slekys said.