ViaSat Antenna Hits Milestone

ViaSat, Carlsbad, Calif., said Wednesday its ArcLight airborne broadband system recently passed 100,000 flight hours. Most of the hours of the Ku-band satellite service have been logged on large business aircraft using ARINC's SKYLink service, according to ViaSat. The system includes ViaSat's 12-inch antenna and offers data download speeds of up to 10 Mbps to the aircraft and up to 512 kbps uploads. “This milestone validates our claim that our ArcLight technology, using Ku-band satellites, has significant advantages over other mobile broadband systems,” said Don Buchman, director of ViaSat Mobile Broadband Systems. Recently ViaSat announced plans to expand its ArcLight network to provide worldwide coverage by the end of 2009.