August 13, 2018 Viasat’s Dankberg explains medium Earth orbit thinking, global expansion strategy
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The company’s main focus has been spinning up telecommunications services on ViaSat-2, which launched last spring, and building a trio of large geostationary satellites to cover the globe, with each sporting a terabit or more of total capacity. A Viasat medium-Earth-orbit system, being closer to the Earth, would augment services from Viasat’s geostationary fleet.
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A hybrid system of GEO and MEO — something SES of Luxembourg is the only operator doing today — would provide “interesting opportunities to reinforce coverage in high-demand places and to get polar service,” Dankberg said.
“We think it’s probably going to be a little more expensive on a per unit basis than what can be done with really good GEOs, but still could be a worthwhile addition to our fleet, and that’s the direction we are going,” he said.
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