{"id":81028,"date":"2013-05-17T20:37:57","date_gmt":"2013-05-17T12:37:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/boeing-surprise-winner-of-viasat-2-deal\/"},"modified":"2013-05-17T20:37:57","modified_gmt":"2013-05-17T12:37:57","slug":"boeing-surprise-winner-of-viasat-2-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/boeing-surprise-winner-of-viasat-2-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Boeing \u201cSurprise\u201d Winner of ViaSat-2 Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n Representation of the Boeing satellite that ViaSat-2 will be based on.<\/i>
\nImage credit: Boeing\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

[Satellite TODAY 05-17-13] ViaSat<\/b> announced May 16 that Boeing<\/b> will build ViaSat-2, a landmark deal for ViaSat that has been eagerly anticipated after years of delay. Company officials, however, say it will be worth the wait.
\n 
\nOn the final day of SATELLITE 2013 in Washington, D.C. last March, Mark Dankberg, ViaSat\u2019s CEO hinted that the company wanted to order ViaSat-2 soon, but company economics proved to be challenging. And according to Chris Quilty, senior vice president at Raymond James<\/strong>, Boeing was actually a \u201csurprise\u201d winner of the deal.
\n 
\n\u201cWith Space Systems\/Loral<\/strong> eliminated from the competition due to an ongoing patent litigation dispute, the competition to build ViaSat-2 essentially boiled down to a two-horse race between Lockheed<\/strong> and Boeing, with Lockheed the presumptive favorite. Boeing, however, emerged as the surprise winner, due most likely to a combination of price, technology, and a willingness to engage in aftermarket partnering activities,\u201d Quilty said in a research note.
\n 
\nWith Hughes<\/strong> and ViaSat both launching new satellites, what impact will this have on the overall industry?
\n 
\nJay Gullish, director of space & telecommunications at Futron Corporation<\/strong> said he believes this is good news for the satellite industry.
\n 
\n\u201cI think what we are seeing is a really important migration,\u201d he said. \u201cSatellites are going to drive some of the competitive balance in the telecommunications community.\u201d
\n 
\nMeanwhile, Quilty speculated on what technology might be used on ViaSat-2.
\n 
\n\u201cAlthough management would not discuss the specific technologies used on ViaSat-2, we suspect the company may be using ground-based beam forming (GBBF) technology to achieve dynamic capacity reallocation,\u201d he said.
\n 
\nIn 2011, Boeing and ViaSat joined forces to provide a GBBF-based solution for MEXSAT. Ironically, ViaSat\u2019s primary competitor, Hughes, is not using GBBF technology for their Jupiter 2 satellite despite being the industry leader in this technology.
\n 
\nIn terms of the costs of the project, Quilty added, \u201cViaSat-2 is expected to cost 40 percent more than ViaSat-1 ($246 million), with the entire project cost (including launch, insurance, ground network, CPE development, etc.) at 25 percent more than the approximate $500 million spent on ViaSat-1.
\n 
\nRegardless, the actual cost-per-bit on ViaSat-2 is expected to be half that of ViaSat-1 due to higher absolute capacity and improved bandwidth flexibility.
\n 
\nThe deal is also a major win for Boeing. The new satellite\u2019s design will be based on Boeing\u2019s 702HP satellite bus.
\n 
\n\u201cThe Boeing 702HP is our most powerful satellite platform,\u201d said Craig Cooning, chief executive officer of Boeing Satellite Systems International and vice president and general manager of Boeing Space & Intelligence Systems.
\n 
\n“We and Boeing believe it to be unlike anything else in the satellite industry,” said Mark Dankberg ViaSat\u2019s chairman and CEO during a conference call May 16.
\n 
\nViaSat-2 is scheduled for deployment in mid-2016, and is expected to achieve an unparalleled mix of capacity and coverage.
\n 
\nCooning says ViaSat-2 will result in what the company expects to be the world\u2019s highest-capacity satellite, and will prove to be a major contributor to the expansion of ViaSat\u2019s complete portfolio of broadband services. 
\n 
\n\u201cWe are committed to delivering this satellite on-schedule and with the highest level of mission assurance,\u201d he added.
\n 
\nViaSat-2 is anticipated to approximately double the bandwidth economics of ViaSat-1 while simultaneously increasing its coverage footprint by seven-fold.
\n 
\n“Our contract with Boeing is a big step in creating and capturing more opportunities, with a substantial amount of competitive differentiation, because of the compelling functional and performance benefits of the new generation of satellites. Our strategic agreement with Boeing gives us more comfort that we\u2019ll capture more of the economic benefits of the advance in space technology,” Dankberg said.
\n 
\nViaSat currently has 500,000 subscribers, has added an additional 125,000 net new subscribers, and is optimistic that trend will continue, according to Dankberg.
\n 
\n“We have a very promising position in the market. The adoption rates are very encouraging,” he said.
\n 
\nMoving forward, Dankberg said partnering with Boeing opens the doors to a number of practical applications, which will range from commercial aviation \u2013 including service on JetBlue<\/strong> flights \u2013 to U.S. government aircraft traveling to Europe or Latin America and critical Homeland Security missions.
\n 
\nEnd-users are taking notice.
\n 
\n“It prompts us to have the fastest in-flight connectivity in the sky,” said Allison Steinberg Spokeswoman for Jet Blue Airways during an exclusive interview with SatelliteTODAY.com.<\/i>
\n 
\nJet Blue has partnered with Live TV and ViaSat and launched the Ka-band satellite last October.
\n 
\n“It is the latest generation, with capacity equal to 100 last-generation Ku-band satellites. It\u2019s smarter, newer, cheaper and better than anything on the market today for commercial aviation. We plan to make JetBlue the very first commercial airline to offer this product on board, at altitude,” a Jet Blue blog states.<\/p>\n

Follow Steve Schuster on Twitter @stevenschuster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Representation of the Boeing satellite that ViaSat-2 will be based on. Image credit: Boeing [Satellite TODAY 05-17-13] ViaSat announced May 16 that Boeing will build ViaSat-2, a landmark deal for ViaSat that has been eagerly anticipated after years of delay. Company officials, however, say it will be worth the wait.   On the final day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81028"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81028\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}