(Credit: Viasat)
As it loses subscribers to Starlink, Viasat is showing off a new satellite that aims to deliver over 100Mbps downloads, possibly as soon as this month.
In November, Viasat launched the F2 satellite, which is designed to serve customers across the Americas and promises to double the company’s bandwidth capacity across its entire satellite fleet. On Monday, Viasat posted a photo showing that a key component of the F2 satellite, the large reflector, is “fully deployed.”
“Looking good, ViaSat-3 F2,” the company wrote in the tweet, which shows the high-orbiting geostationary satellite's net-like golden reflector unfurled in space.
The reflector is crucial because it’s designed to boost the F2’s overall broadband capacity to serve multiple customers on the ground. In 2023, Viasat launched the F1 satellite, but its reflector failed to fully deploy, diminishing its overall capacity.
Although Viasat has been using F1 to serve “aviation customers over North America,” the company hopes F2 will upgrade its satellite network amid increasing competition from SpaceX’s Starlink. In Q1, Viasat users in the US experienced median download speeds of 41Mbps while Starlink users were getting around 127Mbps, according to Speedtest.net parent, Ookla.
Viasat’s website says it aims to launch actual services for the F2 sometime this month. But for now, the company is still “advancing in-orbit testing of our ultra-high-capacity satellite."
The F2 might help Viasat retain and draw back some customers. In February, the company reported that its US fixed broadband subscribers reached about 143,000, down from 603,000 in September 2020. Still, Viasat faces an uphill battle, given that Starlink has been offering various discounts and expanding its retail presence to lure more subscribers in the US.
Viasat previously aimed to kick off service for F2 early this year. But last month, the company said: “The reflector deployment progression was impacted by operational constraints imposed by the spring eclipse season, which has now concluded. We expect final deployments to be completed over the next several weeks.”
To serve the Asia Pacific region, Viasat also launched the F3 satellite, which is aiming to beam broadband to users later this year.