WildBlue
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| Public | |
| Traded as |
NASDAQ: VSAT S&P 400 Component |
| Industry | Communications |
| Founded | Carlsbad, California, United States 1986 |
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Key people
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| Products |
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| Revenue |
 US$1.42 billion (2015) |
 US$21.74 million (2015) |
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Number of employees
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3,300 (2014) |
| Subsidiaries | NetNearU |
| Website | viasat |
ViaSat Inc. is a communications company based in Carlsbad, California, with additional operations across the United States and worldwide. ViaSat is a provider of high-speed satellite broadband services and secure networking systems covering military and commercial markets. ViaSat is ranked on the SpaceNews Top 50 space companies and is also included on the Defense News list of Top 100 defense companies. ViaSat owns and operates Exede Internet, a satellite Internet provider for over 657,000 households. ViaSat launched its satellite, ViaSat-1, in 2011, and its second satellite, ViaSat-2, will launch in Q1 2017.
ViaSat was co-founded in May 1986 by Mark Dankberg, Mark Miller and Steve Hart. Mark Dankberg became chief executive officer and Mark Miller and Steve Hart became chief technical officers. ViaSat received venture capital financing of $300,000 from Southern California Ventures. In December of 1996, ViaSat had its initial public offering(IPO). The company offered $20 million in stock to the public, leaving the founders with 28 percent of the company and venture capital backers with 20 percent.
The acquisition of the satellite networking business of Scientific-Atlanta for $75 million in cash in 2000 helped ViaSat to focus on providing technology for interactive services to businesses. ViaSat launched a spin-off company, TrellisWare Technology, in 2000. The self-funded company focuses on solutions for ground communications problems.
In 2001, ViaSat started working with Boeing on Connexion broadband for airliners. The company acquired Lockheed Martin Global Telecommunications' products unit, Comsat Laboratories in 2001 for an undisclosed amount. Comsat Laboratories is ViaSat's technology and product development group for communication systems focusing on developing new technologies for extremely bandwidth efficient, high data rate satellite transmission. In 2001, ViaSat also purchased US Monolithics, a company focused on designing high frequency broadband circuitry, for around $30 million. ViaSat won a contract with WildBlue Communications worth $16 million in March 2001 to build WildBlue's satellite modems to support the company’s initial service launch. WildBlue signed a second contract with ViaSat in 2001 for $17 million and ViaSat would develop and produce satellite modem termination systems for six gateway stations.Eutelsat entered an agreement in 2001 to use ViaSat’s LinkStar high performance terminals for their broadband multimedia network over Ku-based FSS satellites. ViaSat entered a joint venture in 2001 with Loral Skynet to found Immeon Networks to develop the Immeon satellite bandwidth-on-demand service sold in monthly managed service plans. ABC News used Immeon to improve its voice and data-communications for on-location news.
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Wikipedia