Latest News

Hughes: Global Leader in Broadband Satellite Networks and Services

By Staff Writer | September 1, 2010

      Hughes Network Systems, LLC (HUGHES) is the global leader in providing broadband satellite networks and services for large enterprises, governments, small businesses, and consumers.
      Headquartered in Germantown, Maryland, U.S.A., Hughes owns and operates service businesses throughout the U.S., Europe, India, and Brazil, delivering continent-wide broadband satellite connectivity along with an ever growing range of fully managed solutions and applications to major enterprise customers in virtually every vertical sector, including many of the Fortune 1000. HughesNet® is the #1 high-speed satellite Internet service in the marketplace, with over 500,000* consumer/SMB subscribers in North America enjoying the benefits of high-speed satellite Internet access (*as of June 2010). To date, Hughes has shipped over 2.2 million systems to customers in over 100 countries, representing over 50% market share. Its broadband satellite products are based on global standards approved by the TIA, ETSI and ITU standards organizations, including IPoS/DVB-S2, RSM-A and GMR-1.
      Hughes operates the award-winning Ka-band SPACEWAY® 3 satellite over North America, the world’s first with on-board switching and routing, and with the highest traffic carrying capacity of any commercial satellite in operation, approaching 10 Gbps. SPACEWAY’s onboard switching and routing capability has enabled Hughes to bring several novel offerings to market, such as bandwidth-on-demand services; government emergency preparedness and response networks; and private networks for SMBs.  SPACEWAY 3 entered commercial service in April 2008 and as of August 2010, is providing HughesNet services to approximately 330,000 consumer and SMB subscribers.  Together with numerous other technology advances, it is unlocking a wealth of value-added broadband services, and has given Hughes the competitive advantage of offering the highest satellite speeds and service packages to consumers and small businesses that were either unobtainable or uneconomical in the past.
      Jupiter™ is Hughes’ next generation, high throughput Ka-band satellite scheduled for launch in the first half of 2012. Designed with over 100 Gbps of capacity, 100 times greater than today’s conventional Ku-band satellites, and employing a multi-spot beam, bent-pipe architecture, Jupiter will bring significant additional capacity and service capabilities to support over 1.5 million new subscribers in North America, augmenting the successful SPACEWAY 3 satellite system.
      Hughes technology powers broadband solutions and services across the globe, operating on over 20 satellites and more than 100 transponders. A growing family of authorized service providers, governments, and businesses employ Hughes advanced broadband systems and terminals covering the full spectrum in price-performance— from affordable, high-speed consumer/SMB offerings; to sophisticated satellite networking solutions in both star and mesh topologies; to mobile satellite systems, handhelds and high-speed IP data terminals; to wireless point-to-multipoint systems. Customers include leading fixed and mobile telecom operators  worldwide, utilizing Hughes products to offer “Internet everywhere” access for voice, e-mail, file transfers, and remote applications such as telemedicine, SCADA, marine and aeronautical broadband, newsgathering, fleet operations, and emergency management.