Kourou, French Guiana – With a bright flash and a deep rumble, the future of satellite-delivered broadband services was lofted into orbit Thursday night.
Eyeing the kind of speeds typically delivered by wired broadband services, ViaSat-2, ViaSat’s new high-powered satellite is designed to deliver 100 megabits per second, and possibly more, to individual subscribers.
ViaSat-2, built by Boeing Commercial Satellite Systems and launched into successful orbit here aboard Arianespace's Ariane 5 heavy-lift launch vehicle, will provide 300 Gigabits per second of total throughput. ViaSat-2 is expected to enter into service in early 2018.
“We’re still working on our plans, but we likely will have service plans that are up to 100 Mbps, and we may have some that are as high as 200 Mbps,” Mark Dankberg, chairman and CEO of ViaSat, said here in an interview just hours before Thursday’s launch. “The satellite’s capable of that. The real issue is how do we price those plans and how many subscribers we can put on them?”
