There are approximately 400 commercial communication satellites in orbit around the Earth today, but ViaSat plans to launch new ones that will make all the rest look like space garbage.
Announced on Tuesday, the company's ViaSat-3 is a giant leap forward for satellite Internet services, which has traditionally been pricier and slower than traditional land-based systems like cable or DSL. Each of the three satellites will provide 1-terabit-per-second network capacity, roughly the same as all current commercial satellites combined.
By 2019, the company plans to launch two satellites developed in partnership with Boeing, that will deliver coverage to the Americas, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. The third satellite will launch later and focus on the Asia Pacific region.
For consumers in rural areas, the additional capacity could mean cheaper and faster Internet service. Exede and HughesNet, two of the largest American satellite ISPs, currently enforce data caps for their customers. A sampling of plans on Exede's website show that users must pay a cringe-worthy $150 per month for just 30GB of "priority" data; that's 12Mbps for downloads and 3Mbps for uploads.
ViaSat claims that its new satellites will enable 100Mbps service at affordable prices. If that happens, it will make satellite service competitive with current offerings from cable ISPs like Comcast or Time Warner Cable. Faster options will also be available for government and commercial customers like cruise ships, airliners, and oil and gas platforms.
ViaSat-3 is the latest of several efforts to deliver affordable Internet to underserved areas. Elon Musk plans to send hundreds of satellites into orbit at a cost of $10 billion. Facebook and Google both have similar plans.
Source: pcmag.com
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