ViaSat subsidiary WildBlue Communications began offering a 12-Mbps satellite broadband service for $50 per month in Colorado.
The new service, billed as delivering a "fast as fiber experience," is competitive with offerings from competitors CenturyLink and Comcast.
"Historically, satellite has been for the unserved--you have no other technology, then satellite is for you," WildBlue chief executive Tom Moore told the Denver Post. "We think this will transform that marketplace. There are probably somewhere between 10 and 20 million homes that are either unserved or underserved."
WildBlue plans to soft launch the service in a few other states, including Wyoming and Nebraska, in the coming weeks and should be available nationwide by the end of February.
The new service is operating on ViaSat-1, a high-capacity satellite that launched in October. ViaSat-1 has 20 times more capacity than the two satellites behind WildBlue's legacy service, which is offered at speeds of 1.5 Mbps. The new satellite is capable of supporting 1.5 million customers at the faster speeds.
Interestingly, WildBlue is charging for the service based on data consumed rather than speed like its DSL and cable counterparts. The service offers peak rates of 20 Mbps.
For more:
- see this Denver Post article
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