Satellite > WildBlue Satellite > ViaSat (Wild Blue's parent corporation) announces Exede

ViaSat (Wild Blue's parent corporation) announces Exede

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Announcing Exede(SM) by ViaSat 12 Mbps High-Speed Broadband Service for $50[B]

2012-01-10 - Unprecedented satellite broadband speed and user experience to begin rollout in U.S. January 16

[B]Carlsbad, Calif. – For millions of consumers with a need for high-speed Internet, the broadband choices just got a lot better. ViaSat Inc. (NASDAQ: VSAT) will launch Exede by ViaSat high-speed Internet service on January 16, offering speeds up to 12 Mbps (megabits per second) downstream and up to 3 Mbps upstream beginning at $50 per month.

Although satellite Internet has been available for years, ViaSat has completely transformed satellite broadband technology and now delivers a broadband experience similar to some of the fastest terrestrial broadband services for most applications.

“With our new Exede broadband service, customers across the United States will have a way to get exceptional speed whether they live in a city, suburbs or a more rural area,” said Tom Moore, senior VP of ViaSat. "Our new Exede service speeds make us very competitive with wireless home broadband service, as well as legacy DSL and many cable services."

The rollout of service is a major milestone in a process that began in 2008 when ViaSat introduced its next-generation satellite system, representing the most significant capacity leap in the history of satellite technology. The system integrates ViaSat-1, the world’s highest capacity satellite, with an advanced, next generation ground system.

The Exede service also includes advanced web acceleration technology to provide an Internet web browsing experience with “feels like fiber” performance. Through a constantly evolving variety of techniques that go far beyond simple caching of web content, this new web acceleration technology quickly delivers pages, even on media and video intensive websites.

Exede by ViaSat Residential Service Packages

The new Exede by ViaSat residential broadband packages all feature the same high speed with successively higher data allowances at each price point. For the first time, satellite broadband delivers an attractive alternative to wireless and many wireline offers.



The data allowances for the Exede service have been established to ensure that a compelling mix of speed and volume can be offered to a large segment of the nation’s typical broadband users, many of whom would otherwise not have access to high-speed Internet service.

For more information and to subscribe, go to www.exede.com.

Professional Broadband Services

In addition to residential service, the new ViaSat high-capacity satellite system is designed to simultaneously deliver a wide range of enterprise and mobile broadband services. Professional customers can choose from a family of terminals for enterprise, on-the-move, and portable applications.

ViaSat is also working with JetBlue to create the industry’s best in-flight broadband for commercial aviation, with a planned service launch by the end of 2012.

About ViaSat

ViaSat delivers fast, secure communications, Internet, and remote network access to fixed sites or on-the-move. The company provides networking products and managed network services for enterprise IP applications; is a key supplier of network-centric military communications and encryption technologies and products to the U.S. and allied governments; and is the primary technology partner for gateway and customer-premises equipment for consumer and mobile satellite broadband services. Based in Carlsbad, Calif., ViaSat has established a number of worldwide locations for customer service, network operations, and technology development.

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I have been a Wildblue customer since Sept. 2007. I just talked to Wildblue regarding their Exede service and was told that the ViaSat 12 Mbps Service is for NEW CUSTOMER ONLY. They told me that it was too costly to transfer existing customer and they may look at a promotion for existing customer within a few months.

ViaSat has had over a year to work out the details of integrating ViaSat service in Wildblue and to determine how to provide service to their existing Wildblue Customers. Their answer is to make me pay $69.99 for 1.5 Mbps and new customer pay the same for 12 Mbps. I'm not a great HughesNet fan, but I hate getting screwed over!

Existing WB customers must qualify for their priority upgrade program to get a quick switch from Anik-F2 or WB-1 to Viasat-1. About 30% of existing customers qualify for the program. The others will have to wait longer but will get an opportunity to switch to Viasat-1. Wildblue currently has about 450,000 customers and switching will require a service call from a technician to swap the modem, TRIA and repoint or peak the dish. There are not enough tech's to switch everyone simultaneously. Be patient.

The information provided by the anonymous poster Cactus is incorrect. With all the BS being posted in this forum I suspect HughesNet has launched a disinformation campaign against WB. For those considering HughesNet I suggest you carefully consider the sleazy ethics demonstrated by the supporters of HughesNet. The bottom line is that satellite Internet sucks whether it is HughesNet or Wildblue, not because of some limitation of the technology, but because management makes decisions that make it suck. If you can not get Internet by any other means or your alternative is 29 k baud dial-up, then get satellite Internet. Otherwise, run away as swiftly as your feet can carry you.
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Value Pack, beam 31, Riverside gateway

reply to Spice300
I am no longer anonymous. The information I posted is CORRECT with the exception that I pay $79.95 for 1.5 Mbps download. I was so upset after speaking to the Wildblue rep. I posted without registering. Well, I have registered and I am no-longer anonymous. What I posted is exactly what I was told by the Wildblue rep. My point is that the definition of good customer service is to keep your customers informed. ViaSat has had well over a year to plan their customer integration to their new satellite. Is there a press release informing their customers what options they have and time-frames available for upgrading their service? If there is I have been unable to find it. As of yesterday (1/17/2011) it was not posted on ViaSat's or Wildblue's website. I live in a rural area and must use satellite internet. You are right satellite service is not great, but the other options are worst.

Think about what Spice300 posted regarding Wildblue not having enough technicians to swap out the modems and point the dishes and therefore Wildblue/VisSat is only going to address new customer and existing customers should be patient. I can be patient if I am kept informed. Lacking information I assume new customer revenue, to pay for their new satellite, is ViaSat's priority. When will their existing customer be a priority? Why did VisSat create a new website Exede.com to offer their new high speed service to new customer? Why didn't they use the Wildblue website. My guess is that Wildblue's existing customers could have a very long wait.

I am a retired president of a computer company that manufactured rugged hand held computers. Most business models will confirm that it cost significantly more to get a new customer than it does to keep an existing customer. I have no business or other relationship with HughesNet. HughesNet is planning the launch of a new high speed satellite in 2012. If I was HughesNet's marketing executive I would announce planned upgrade promotions for my existing current customer base and for Wildblue customers. The potential addition of 450,000 Wildblue customer at a relatively low cost would be very attractive.

May companies have failed when their business model puts their customer last!

As an update to my last post. I have Wildblue through Dish Network. Dish Network does not have any information regarding the new service. It seems either Wildblue/ViaSat has not updated Dish Network or Dish Network has not updated there customer service people regarding. Hopefully Dish Network will have the details soon.

reply to Cactus

reply to Cactus
The bottom line is, Millions of people live in rural America and they need satellite internet service. It may not be the greatest thing on earth, it`s a heck of lot better than their other alternatives. No! it`s not for everyone. If you have a better alternative by all means get it. The caps are set to protect the majority of America. They are not going to allow a small percentage of the population to sit around all day and download music and movies or play online games that eat up bandwidth like it`s going out of style. Truth is, The majority of subscribers will not have any problems with the caps. If you or anyone you know does need this service check out this site, these guys seem to be on top of things. `»highspeedinternetnow.com`

reply to Cactus

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Is there a press release informing their customers what options they have and time-frames available for upgrading their service?

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reply to BasilAR
No need to attack me sir/maam. More than a million people already have Wildblue and Hughesnet. Somehow the majority are doing just fine with the service caps. Sure they want something better, but they live it. If you give a million people gold bars some would complain.

I agree that the vast majority of users make do with what they have and more likely than not, the vast majority don't ever have problems with the service they have with either company. If the problems were that wide spread then forums like this would be updating with new posts and threads so fast you couldn't keep up with them.

What I don't subscribe to is that the vast majority of users are content with the low caps being forced upon us by ISP's. Right now there are alternatives to do the things that the caps prevent, for example Blockbuster coupled with Dish Network allows you to watch alot of movies without using a broadband connection, and another example is the fact that some people that were lucky enough to grandfather in on unlimited plans with their cell companies like me can stream video that way but as those alternatives go away or change over time, you are going to see that those 95% of customers that the companies say don't use more than 2GB per month are going to suddenly come out of the woodwork and start yelling foul.

I am not saying their shouldn't be caps on certain services that have bottleneck problems like satellite, but these new satellites were built to be able to extend those caps by alot and holding them back and even charging more for less is wrong and it doesn't matter which way you look at it, it is still wrong. The current caps on the older satellites not including Viasat-1 and the up and coming Jupiter and Spaceway 6 are justified and that is obvious just by observing these forums. If HN does what they say they are going to do then Viasat is going to take a hard hit, if they don't and pull the same crap Viasat has then there is no telling where things will lead. I would hope that it would lead to people saying "Hey this isn't going to work, we need to come up with something better and steal their business". But sadly I don't see that happening.
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HughesNet elite plan/.74 dish w/1watt trans. / 9000 modem / 3 computers on a linksy's wired network

reply to DrStrangLov
IN THE WORKS.....but not available to order yet . . . .

reply to BasilAR

Exactly right

reply to wildblueman

Re: ViaSat (Wild Blue's parent corporation) announces Exede

well put sir/maam

reply to phrelin
I have to agree with Nonegiven. There is a differance between fair caps to keep everything running smoothly and fairly and taking thing to stupid extremes. Viasat is following in on the cash cow that the cell phone companies discovered and are trying to cash in on some of it themselves. This is the reason for the ridiculously low caps and the overage charges being applied to Viasat-1 service. They know darn well that with good speeds, people are going to start using it for all the high bandwidth applications that they couldn't do before like HD video and they are goin to come slamming up into those caps and pay through the nose to keep going.
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HughesNet elite plan/.74 dish w/1watt trans. / 9000 modem / 3 computers on a linksy's wired network