Avanti wins ViaSat business
June 26, 2018
By Chris Forrester
ViaSat of California has signed an “initial” 2-year contract with London-based speciality satellite operator Avanti Communications.
The contract is worth $10 million, says Avanti, in a notice to the London stock exchange. The deal sees ViaSat take a lease on one of the new Hylas 4 satellite’s steerable beams. The capacity potentially is of some 920 MHz.
The news comes just weeks after Eutelsat announced it would not be proceeding with a joint-venture with ViaSat on the proposed ViaSat-3 satellite being planned to serve Europe.
Kyle Whitehill, CEO at Avanti said: “Avanti’s contract with ViaSat reflects the winning qualities of our Hylas 4 satellite. This is a confirmation that our new carrier strategy helps operators to increase addressable markets and drive customer satisfaction without additional satellite and launch capex spend.”
Ken Peterman, president/Government Systems at Viasat continued: “Partnering with Avanti will give us access to steerable Ka-band satellite coverage and capacity to further enhance connectivity services for global government applications on Viasat’s Best Available Network. We expect easy integration of the Hylas 4 satellite capacity into our global network-enabling us to quickly bring capacity to where our customer demand exists.”
Avanti’s Hylas 4 craft reached its orbital position on April 19th, and will be brought into full use at 33.5 degrees West by the end of July.