Will WildBlue Satellite Internet Expand Service to Hawaii and Alaska?

As many of you probably already know the only two states that WildBlue does not currently offer satellite internet service in is Alaska and Hawaii.  We wrote a recent blog article describing WildBlue’s plans to update their satellites and increase their network download speeds to up to 10mbps.  Unfortunately WildBlue is not planning on offering service availability to Alaska and Hawaii with this network upgrade.  With the launch of the company’s new satellite next year and the new innovative technology that has been developed resulting from WildBlue’s recent merger with ViaSat, the company’s network will be able to handle a significant amount of additional traffic. This expansion is ground breaking news, and will hopefully eventually lead to coverage beyond the 48 Continental States.  However, these areas will have to wait a little longer.  Currently, many rural areas in these regions are forced to rely on services like SKYFx, which downloads user requested information via satellite and then sends a simplified version of this data through a phone line to the individual’s personal computer.  For rural citizens in Alaska and Hawaii this is a very inefficient and slow means of connecting to the internet, and in many cases does not allow individuals to gain the full experience from many websites and web functionalities.  Rural areas in these two states, including some of the most remote areas, do not have access to any sort of fast high-speed internet. Rural citizens from these locations are not able to watch the latest YouTube videos or other video streaming services.  Neither are they able to download music, video, or any other types of data at lighting fast speeds that could be remedied by WildBlue Satellite Internet Service.  Rest assure there is nothing that WildBlue would like better than to provide coverage to these areas, and hopefully will be able to do so in the future.  However, for now citizens in these regions will have to continue to endure the current internet options available to them.