Wholesale Satellite Internet Provider Files For Bankruptcy Protection

Internet Satellite Platform Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on June 9, but the company made no public announcement until today. According to its filing, the company seeks interim and long-term funding. The bankruptcy filing followed the company’s inability to close on a second $500,000 tranche of a $2 million series-C financing round it closed in April, leaving the company “unable to continue its operations at a level that the business and its partners demanded,” according to its written statement.

While the company boasts of having more than 200 active ISP and rural telco partners, and more than 4,000 subscribers, the company still came up short in the financing department. One has to wonder if this is some kind of harbinger of things to come for the consumer satellite broadband industry. Satellite Internet providers don’t seem to be attracting the same attention as do direct-to-home satellite television services, and it could be a struggle to convince homeowners who may already be friendly to the idea of satellite television to put another (or, in some cases, a third) satellite dish on their property to connect to the Internet.