ViaSat to Launch Satellite-Based Excede Broadband Service
LAS VEGAS -- ViaSat will launch its Excede high-speed broadband service Monday, reigniting competition with Hughes Communications and DSL and cable providers. Excede, which will deliver 12/3 Mbps download/upload speeds, will be sold on two-year contracts with 7.5 ($49.99), 15 GB ($79.99) and 25 GB ($129.99) monthly data packages, company officials said. Extra 4 GB packages will likely eventually be available for customers that want to buy extra capacity, and those who are nearing their monthly limit will get email and cellphone alert notifications, said ViaSat’s WildBlue Chief Operating Office Stephanie Copeland. The contracts will include a satellite modem built around a Cavium’s Octeon multi-core 500-700 MHz processors as well as receiving dish and feed horn, company officials said. Installation will be $149.
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The service will be delivered from the Ka-band ViaSat-1, which launched last October to 115 degrees west and will cover the U.S. east and west coasts as well as Alaska and Hawaii using a network of 17 gateways, company officials said. It will have uplink facilities in Denver and Winnipeg, Canada, company officials said.
"We're going to prove that it works and that it’s not the satellite characteristic” that has slowed the roll out of satellite-based broadband, said Tom McCann, director-business development for the Americas. “It’s the limit on the bandwidth that has held it back. We are going to pick it up from there and go up the curve. So what you are going to see from us over the next three years is bigger, stronger, faster, cheaper satellites just like you see in all the innovation going on in the rest of the world."
ViaSat will make Excede available as an upgrade to its existing 425,000 WildBlue customers, charging $149 for installation of the new equipment, Copeland said. WildBlue subscribers get service from Telesat Canada’s Anik F2 Ka-band satellite at 111.1 degrees west. “We're going to let them choose because some people may not want to pay the installation fee,” Copeland said.
ViaSat will sell the service through 2,000 dealers, including distribution pacts with Dish and the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative (NRTC). Dish will bundle Excede for its customers with two programming packages starting at $79 with Family Pack. The Dish installation will cost $99. Dish has about 105,000 WildBlue subscribers. Dish initially told ViaSat in February 2011 that it wouldn’t renew a resale agreement that was to expire last August. ViaSat could continue providing WildBlue service at the existing price until there are fewer than 20,000 Dish-related customers, the company has said in SEC documents. ViaSat officials have indicated Dish was expected to sell the service for up to a year.
ViaSat will equally split the new satellite between wholesale and retail, after briefly flirting with having wholesale be 80 percent of the business. The Loral Space Systems-built satellite has 56 Ka-band transponders and capacity for 1.5 to 2 million subscribers. The satellite will have 140 Gbps of total throughput, company officials have said.
The satellite-based broadband race will likely tighten when Hughes’ Jupiter Ka-band satellite launches to 103 degrees west in March-April with a goal of putting it in service by August, company officials have said. Hughes, which was bought by EchoStar for $2 billion, had 625,000 HughesNet subscribers as of Sept. 30 that use the Spaceway-3 satellite. Spaceway-3 has additional capacity for 100,000-150,000 subscribers and, combined with Jupiter, there will be room for 2.1-2.5 million, company officials have said. The transmissions speeds and prices for HughesNet using the Jupiter satellite haven’t been released, Hughes officials said. But the new service will likely be significantly faster than Spaceway-3 satellite-based offering, which topped out a 2 Mbps downloads and 500 kbps uploads, Senior Vice President Mike Cook said. It also will likely have caps on individual customer useage, Cook said. HughesNet began imposing 250 MB and 500 MB daily caps on useage in November for $59 and $119 monthly packages with additional capacity available for an extra charge, Cook said. HughesNet will remain competitive with ViaSat on pricing, company officials have said.
Hughes also expects to sign a contract for Jupiter-2 this year with a goal of completing construction within three-and-a-half years, company officials have said. The Jupiter-1 satellite is expected reach capacity within three years, EchoStar CEO Michael Dugan said. The Jupiter-1 satellite will cover regions east of the Mississippi, the West Coast and the Denver, Phoenix and Spokane, Wash. markets. Spaceway-3, which serves about 500,000 subscribers, will cover the remaining regions and will likely get a speed increase, Cook said. In the past, Spaceway-3 has operated at up to 5 Mbps, he said.
Dish will resell HughesNet starting later this year in bundles tying together programming with the high-speed service. There will be room for both services since “there will be more than enough demand” giving Dish the opportunity to sell both, Copeland said.