KVH Industries, Inc., (Nasdaq: KVHI) expects their mini-VSAT Broadband coverage for the Australia and New Zealand region to go live in August 2009, following the successful completion of service testing on the Intelsat IS-2 satellite.

The new coverage area will provide the first significant support for mini-VSAT Broadband service in the southern hemisphere. This is the latest milestone in the KVH and ViaSat Inc. (Nasdaq: VSAT) joint effort to provide affordable mobile broadband connections around the globe. In addition to providing service for the KVH TracPhone® V7, the KVH and ViaSat joint effort also expands network coverage to the ViaSat Yonder mobile network for in-flight broadband to business and commercial aircraft. The mini-VSAT Broadband service, along with the KVH TracPhone V7 antenna, comprise the first end-to-end 24-inch VSAT hardware, service, and support package available for maritime communications. Together, KVH and ViaSat are already offering Voice over IP phone service and Internet access as fast as 512 Kbps (upload) and 2 Mbps (download) at fixed monthly rates to mariners throughout North America, the Caribbean, the North Atlantic, Europe, the Northern Pacific, and the Persian Gulf.

“Together with our recently announced coverage for Asian waters and the Indian Ocean, the anticipated addition of service for Australia and New Zealand represents a significant expansion of our increasingly popular mini-VSAT Broadband Internet and voice service to a major commercial and recreational maritime region,” explained Brent C. Bruun, KVH’s vice president of sales and business development.

“We believe that our seamless mini-VSAT Broadband network, together with our compact 24-inch (60 cm) commercial-grade antenna and fixed-rate monthly airtime pricing, offers unique benefits to commercial and leisure mariners with regard to hardware and service costs as well as the value that comes with an affordable broadband data connection for crew morale, shipboard operation, regulatory compliance, and more.”

Source : http://www.satnews.com

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ViaSat Inc. has signed two contracts with RascomStar-Qaf, the pan-African satellite operator, to deliver satellite systems for high-capacity infrastructure communications carrying pan-African telephony and data between regional and national capitals and for rural telecommunications access across the African continent with RascomStar-Qaf VSAT terminals. The combined value of the contracts is approximately $53 million with deliveries scheduled to begin this year and continuing into 2011.

This major addition to the African telecommunications infrastructure is requiring a full turnkey system approach, with ViaSat providing full system responsibility: system engineering, integration, logistic support, installation, training and an initial 12 months of in-region network operation support.

“The construction and deployment of ViaSat R*BCS and R*TES infrastructure will enable RascomStar-Qaf to realize its mission of delivering affordable telecommunications services throughout Africa,” said Faraj Elamari, CEO of RascomStar-Qaf. “These satellite-based systems will reach rural areas of Africa that no other telecommunications infrastructure can support on a cost-effective basis. Our goal is to establish a modern, African telecommunications standard that will rely on resources within Africa.”

The two networks fulfill separate communication requirements for RascomStar-Qaf:
• The R*BCS (RascomStar-Qaf Broadband Connectivity Services) telephone and IP trunking network is based on ViaSat LinkWay®S2 networking terminals and 7.3-meter gateway antenna systems. Gateways are scheduled for installation between late 2009 and mid - 2010.
• The R*TES (RascomStar-Qaf Telecommunication Services) network is designed to provide low density telephony and optional Internet access. The very low-powered R*TES will be designed to combine multiple low rate telephone circuits while minimizing power consumption, making them ideal for solar operation. High-speed Internet connection is an optional feature. The ViaSat network design includes multi-transponder operation that enables seamless connections no matter the location of the rural terminal within the African continent.
For more information, visit http://www.viasat.com/news/viasat-signs-53-million-contracts-provide-rascomstar-qaf-new-communication-infrastructure-africa

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ViaSat Wins Approval for First Inmarsat Terminal with U.S. Government Type 1 IP Encryption - ViaSat

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The SurfBeam system is designed from the beginning (due to its DOCSIS® heritage) to deliver highly scalable, high performance consumer/small-office and small-medium enterprise (SME) broadband services over satellite, and it delivers the economics that make broadband-by-satellite a great business as well.

The ViaSat SurfBeam® Broadband System is a totally new kind of satellite-based system designed expressly for building broadband access networks, not like modified Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) systems that have failed to successfully expand to larger networks. With over 500,000 terminals shipped, it has become the single most popular web-centric broadband satellite networking system ever.

The SurfBeam system is the network technology behind these fast growing broadband services, and it can bring the same success to you: WildBlue Communications, United States ; Eutelsat Tooway™ Ku- and Ka-band consumer broadband in Europe; Telesat Ka-band consumer services in Canada; Intelsat/Orbit Communications Ku-band service, Middle East; Pegaso Banda Ancha, Mexico; Smart Digital Networks, Malaysia.

With SurfBeam, ViaSat has successfully integrated the widely used Data-Over-Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) broadband cable industry technology with the latest in advanced and proven satellite technology.

Key SurfBeam Broadband by Satellite Advantages
Highly scalable architecture allowing you to economically start with a small network that serves only a few thousand customers, then easily grow the hub infrastructure to accommodate hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of subscribers. High system capacity and lower bandwidth costs using advanced ViaSat technologies that give customers a better user experience, support more applications, and provide you with higher system capacity to serve more customers. Consumer priced terminals because of the economies of scale inherent in millions of DOCSIS chipsets already produced and proven in the field, along with ViaSat success in shipping more than 500,000 units to date.

Integrated front and back-office support. Unlike other satellite-based systems, the SurfBeam system also includes the front and back-office support functions that simplify managing your customers and network:

The SurfBeam system is cost-effective on traditional Ku-band broadbeam satellites and brings unsurpassed network capacity, low cost-per-bit, and ability to scale to millions of subscribers using new Ka-band spotbeam satellites.

For more information please visit http://www.viasat.com/broadband-satellite-networks/surfbeam

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