It took a very long time for satellite broadband operator WildBlue to get their first satellite into space, and it wasn't long after that the company quickly began suffering from capacity issues. Back in 2007, resellers for satellite broadband company WildBlue informed us that the carrier had frozen new orders because they were struggling with capacity. This week the carrier says they're adding additional capacity which should help them with some of these capacity concerns -- for now.

According to a new announcement by WildBlue, the company is adding additional capacity in the form of Ka band capacity bandwidth reserved on EchoStar's AMC-15 satellite. The additional bandwidth will be used to serve WildBlue customers in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia and Arkansas. That bandwidth only went live this week, roughly five months after the company signed the deal with Echostar.

Wildblue currently offers broadband in three flavors. The company's "Value" tier offers 512kbps/128kbps speed for $49.95.

HughesNet Communications customers in our forums have been complaining for several years now that the carrier doesn't deliver the speeds advertised, on top of the company's very strict "fair access policy" (or FAP) caps. In a move that may (or may not) improve things, HughesNet this week announced that they'll be launching a new, multi-spot beam, bent pipe Ka-band 100Gbps capacity satellite in the first quarter of 2012. Their last Spaceway 3 launch didn't seem to help, despite the fact the bird was supposed to reduce delivery costs by 70% on a per-bit basis. HughesNet was sued back in May by customers angry that they weren't getting the service promised, yet weren't allowed to get out of long-term contracts with the company.

When you've got a captive audience (like say, rural broadband customers with no other options), you can get away with a hell of a lot. Just ask Hughesnet, a satellite broadband company that's managed to stay in business despite offering consistently sub-par service to customers for much of the last few years.

WildBlue has announced they'll be demonstrating 18Mbps residential satellite connectivity in Denver this Wednesday. Satellite customers of the two largest satellite carriers (HughesNet and Wild Blue) frequently complain that the carriers often fail to deliver their current advertised speeds, so we're sure many of them will believe 18Mbps when they see it.

It's interesting to see Business Week pen a piece about rural broadband coverage gaps -- and specifically HughesNet Satellite broadband -- without once mentioning the service's caps, speeds well below the advertised rate, or how generally unsatisfied customers are with the service. The piece does offer some handy factoids for HughesNet customers while they're waiting for their "FAPed" connection to come back to life: the carrier is adding customers at about 15% per year, expects to have half a million customers by 2011, and once SpaceWay 3 is fully operational, the carrier will save about $150 million a year on bandwidth with reduced delivery costs of about 70% on a per bit basis.

One forum user notes that there is a rare bit of good news for HugheNet satellite broadband customers this week. The company's FAP FAQ has been updated to note that the uncapped window customers see from 3-6AM has been expanded two hours -- and will now be from 2-7AM starting this week (unless you're a HN9000 modem owner, in which case you'll have to wait a month).

Last month satellite broadband provider WildBlue announced that the company would now be offering $5.95 per month equipment leases, reducing the upfront cost to new customers by 50% (to around $149.95 for a new install). It appears that HughesNet noticed, and this morning announced a similar initiative that potentially trims upfront costs for new customers by 75%. According to HughesNet, the company is now offering new users the option of paying a $99 up front fee and $9.99 per month, instead of the full up front cost for hardware. Users who don't want to lease can instead pay $299.98 (after mail in $100 rebate) for equipment.

When you've got a captive audience (like say, rural broadband customers with no other options), you can get away with a hell of a lot. Just ask Hughesnet, a satellite broadband company that's managed to stay in business despite offering consistently sub-par service to customers for much of the last year.

Complaints about Hughesnet satellite broadband service have ramped up over the last year or two, with many customers saying they're being throttled back to almost dial-up speeds at peak congestion times, regardless of whether they've violated their bandwidth cap. In what will hopefully be a better class of service (given it operates from their new Spaceway 3 satellite), Hughesnet this morning announced their new 5Mbps "ElitePremium plan." The tier, featuring the fastest speeds ever offered by a satellite carrier, officially launches August 21. story continues..

HughesNet has historically been the company with the biggest satellite broadband subscriber base but experts in the industry are predicting that comer-up WildBlue has the potential for 50/50 market share before the end of the year. WildBlue is the fastest-growing satellite broadband provider despite problems with capacity in the past. Announcements that these problems are resolved, rumors that HughesNet may eventually also face capacity problems and WildBlue's ability to offer competitive pricing all contribute to the rapid growth of the WildBlue subscriber base. However, it’s notable that HughesNet offers a nominal maximum download speed of 1 Mbps which is significantly faster than the speeds offered by WildBlue so people seeking faster service may still lean in favor of HughesNet.

For those unfortunate enough to be outside the range of anything else, HughesNet unveiled two new satellite tiers today. The company is now offering a 2Mbps/300kbps "Elite" tier for $119.99 a month, and a 3Mbps/300kbps "Elite Plus" tier for $189.99 a month.

As we've reported, many HughesNet satellite broadband customers have been struggling to obtain even a small fraction of their advertised speed. To add insult to injury, a routine planned e-mail upgrade scheduled for last weekend has left many customers without e-mail.

Last February, Japan launched their Ka-band WINDS (Wideband InterNetworking engineering test and Demonstration Satellite, aka Kizuna) satellite with the hope of using it to provide broadband country-wide at all times, particularly when terrestrial solutions go on the fritz during disasters. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency is currently conducting successful tests on the satellite, which by July should provide Japanese homes with speeds up to 155Mbps (businesses could see up to 1.2Gbps):Lets briefly compare that staggering capacity to leading U.S. satellite broadband provider HughesNet, who currently can't consistently provide customers even the bare minimum of what they're advertising because of capacity problems. While Japanese consumers' satellite latency won't be any better, hopefully their "FAP" will be.

Caps and traffic throttling are a major reason why the reviews for satellite broadband provider HughesNet are so painfully mediocre. HughesNet customers who exceed the company's daily, rolling bandwidth caps (aka "the FAP"), which range from 200MB to 1250MB depending on tier) find their connections throttled for 24 hours to speeds easily bested by rural American dial-up -- circa 1995 (users say around 7-14kbps).

According to a new report by Pike & Fischer, satellite broadband companies will serve nearly 1.3 million homes by 2012. Given the sorry state of satellite broadband (strained capacity, incredibly low caps, poor reviews) that's good or bad news depending on how you look at it.

Caps and traffic throttling are a major reason why the reviews for satellite broadband provider HughesNet are so painfully mediocre. HughesNet customers who exceed the company's daily, rolling bandwidth caps (aka "the FAP"), which range from 200MB to 1250MB depending on tier) find their connections throttled for 24 hours to speeds easily bested by rural American dial-up -- circa 1995 (users say around 7-14kbps).

As we mentioned in September, satellite broadband providers like WildBlue have been struggling to meet capacity, and have stopped taking new orders in certain parts of the country. ViaSat says that a new satellite that they've developed may help such providers, because it will have ten times the capacity of today's satellites.

Hughes Networks Systems' SPACEWAY 3 satellite was launched last August from Kourou, French Guiana. One of the larger satellites ever built, the company says the new bird should ease their capacity crunch, though it isn't expected to be operation until the first quarter of next year. The technical specifics from the folks at Hughes:According to Hughes, they accepted handover of the satellite from Boeing today, and will begin pre-commercial testing of the satellite immediately. In conversations with the company, they've so far been unwilling to clarify to us if the new capacity will result in the company easing up on some of its bandwidth caps.

Caps and traffic throttling are a major reason why the reviews for satellite broadband provider HughesNet are so painfully mediocre. HughesNet customers who exceed the company's daily, rolling bandwidth caps (which range from 200MB to 1250MB depending on tier) find their connections throttled for 24 hours to speeds easily bested by rural American dial-up -- circa 1995 (users say around 7-14kbps).

While "specially trained Wal-Mart Connection center associates" have been selling DSL for a while at a number of stores, the company this week expanded its broadband offerings by striking a deal with HughesNet. Though HughesNet serves a niche audience and isn't particularly well reviewed by our users (thanks largely to their caps), Business Week seems pretty excited about the deal. The piece notes that the retail giant is working on a tech support service akin to Best Buy's Geek Squad.