Germantown, Md., October 1, 2008 — Hughes Network Systems, LLC (HUGHES), the global leader in broadband satellite networks and services, today announced the availability of HughesNet Broadband Backup service plans, the newest offerings for small- and medium-sized businesses that provide automatic satellite backup in the event of a landline failure. With HughesNet Broadband Backup, SMBs can be secure in knowing their critical applications will remain online in the event of a landline failure, protecting them against loss of data or revenue. Read More...

Hughes Network Systems, LLC announced the launch of a new subscriber portal, MyHughesNet.com. The portal features access to e-mail, local news, weather, and other popular applications for HughesNet subscribers. “Launching this new portal demonstrates our commitment to continually add capabilities and features to our HughesNet service which enhance our subscribers' Internet experience,” said Mark Wymer, Hughes vice president of marketing, North America in a company statement.

WildBlue announced that it has secured $50 million in equity financing to fund its continued growth. “The proceeds will fund WildBlue's recently launched customer equipment leasing program, enabling the company's award-winning service to be offered to new customers throughout rural America at the lowest upfront price in the company's history,” said WildBlue in a company statement.

In an attempt to remove one of the biggest barriers for new sign-ups, WildBlue will offer a leasing program for CPE, significantly reducing total upfront fees by over 50% to $149.95. The program also provides for “free” installation of the service. The new lease fee will total $5.95/month. "The Lease Program will help new customers get WildBlue for a significantly lower upfront investment, making our award-winning service available to more people throughout rural America," said David Leonard, WildBlue’s Chief Executive Officer. Customers can also opt for a pre-payment of a 24 month lease for $99.95.

Hughes announced the launch of ElitePremium, a satellite delivered broadband service of up to 5 Mbps. In a press release, Hughes characterized ElitePremium as the “…fastest consumer broadband satellite Internet access plan ever offered.” The new service will be available August 21. ElitePremium joins other new broadband plans, including Elite and ElitePlus with download speeds of up to 2 Mbps and 3 Mbps, respectively. No official word on pricing for the new plans.

WildBlue Communications announced system upgrades that will increase its capacity by 150,000 additional customers. According to a WildBlue press release, the “…upgrades bring WildBlue's total network capacity to over 640,000 customers, with capacity available throughout the entire country.” These upgrades involved the addition of enhanced transmission link hardware and software technologies that enable transmission of 50 percent more information bits through the same existing radio link.

Embarq announced that they will become a reseller of HughesNet, a broadband satellite service of Hughes Network Systems. Embarq intends to target business customers with the broadband satellite service. They will offer download speeds ranging from 700 Kbps to 2Mbps and a price range of $59.99 per month to $179.99 per month. Embarq joins Wal-Mart who has also signed on to resell HughesNet. HughesNet competes mainly with WildBlue, a Colorado based satellite broadband provider. WildBlue has NRTC and AT&T as distribution partners.

Satellite broadband represents an interesting business. It targets rural areas that have limited to no broadband access. It’s priced somewhat higher than other broadband options, and generally includes significant equipment and installation costs (when compared with other broadband options). That might explain a recent report by SNL Kagan, featured in today’s Sky Report, which says satellite broadband is struggling somewhat. SNL Kagan reports that satellite broadband has only achieved a 6.2% penetration of the 10.8 million rural satellite broadband household footprint. That represents about 670K subscribers’ total. These numbers are relative though. If you talk to WildBlue, those somewhat low numbers have more to do with challenges of keeping up with demand than with a poor business model. WildBlue has had the unfortunate challenge in the past of having to selectively retard new subscriber acquisition, because their satellites (or certain "beams") have reached capacity, and simply can’t serve any new customers. It looks like they may now have some competitive company trying to meet that capacity challenge.

Wildblue, a provider of broadband via satellite, announced the launch of several enterprise targeted applications. Wildblue has partnered with XipLink and Trispen to provide secure VPN networking for small to medium size businesses. Wildblue also announced a relationship with UDcast for enterprise VPNs.