ViaSat (News - Alert) Inc. has announced it is expanding the coverage area for its mobile broadband network over the North Pacific Ocean region. The new coverage area will now include Alaska, the West coasts of Canada and the United States, Hawaii, and extend into North Eastern Asia.

 

ViaSat produces satellite and other digital communication products that enable fast and efficient communications to any location.  The company provides networking products and managed network services for enterprise IP applications and is also a key supplier of network-centric military communications and encryption technologies to the U.S. government.

Don Buchman, director of Mobile Broadband at ViaSat commented, “This is the first step in our promise to grow the network to near-global access and demonstrates our commitment to the joint global network we are building with KVH. Along with the continued successful launch of KVH maritime service, the large number of business jets already flying the ViaSat ArcLight system, as well as airliners and government aircraft, will be able to immediately tap into the network in that region.”

 

Subsidiary companies of ViaSat design and produce complementary products such as monolithic microwave integrated circuits, DVB-S2 satellite communication components, video data link systems, data acceleration and compression products, and mobile satellite antenna systems.

 

KVH Industries has signed an agreement with ViaSat to lease satellite capacity on the GE-23 satellite over the North Pacific. ViaSat will install an ArcLight hub in a teleport in Hawaii in November this year. It is expected that commercial service will begin in the region in December. This expansion has opened the region to the fleet of aircraft equipped with ViaSat in-flight mobile broadband systems and also to vessels using KVH mini-VSAT Broadband maritime satellite communication system.

The patented ArcLight technology is used by the mobile broadband network of ViaSat and enables the use of small, light-weight antennas. The service provides data download speeds of up to 10 Mbps to the aircraft and up to 512 kbps uploads. Customers will be able to send and receive broadband data, connect to a virtual private network and also access video programming using portable devices. This helps to create an office-in-the-sky experience while the customer is on the move.