Hughes Network Systems activated its first "HughesNet" consumer subscriber for broadband Internet service utilizing its SPACEWAY 3 satellite.
Launched by Arianespace in August 2007, the geostationary SPACEWAY 3 satellite offer 10 Gbps of gross capacity, making it the highest traffic-carrying satellite to be brought into service in North America. It was designed and developed as a next-generation, Ka-band broadband satellite system, and is the world's first commercial satellite to employ on-board traffic switching and routing. It also features dynamic beam forming, and direct small-dish-to- small-dish connectivity for subscribers.
"With this significant milestone, our SPACEWAY 3 satellite has officially commenced carrying revenue-bearing traffic, making Hughes a fully integrated service provider," said Pradman Kaul, president and CEO of Hughes. "We are excited to begin delivering HughesNet broadband services over the world's first commercial satellite with on-board switching to our rapidly growing base of consumer, SMB, enterprise, and government customers throughout North America."http://www.hughes.com/
- Hughes has built a scalable Network Operations and Control Center (NOCC), installed at its Germantown Maryland headquarters, which anchors control functions for network addressing, registration, network security, admission control and multicasting. The NOCC also provides satellite payload management, capacity planning, terminal management, customer care and network management functions. The SPACEWAY architecture can scale up to two million terminals per satellite and will provide coverage with multiple spot beams across the U.S. including Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico, as well as in selected areas in Canada, Mexico, and major cities in South America.
- SPACEWAY 3 was built by Boeing and is based on the company's 702 satellite platform.
