WildBlue offers 1 Mbps Satellite Broadband for $40 for Qualified Customers

With funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act), WildBlue will begin offering a discounted price of $39.95 per month for satellite Internet service with 1 Mbps downlink performance. The service will be offered to rural households in the West and Midwest which are unserved by other broadband alternative. The new service package began selling June 3 and includes lifetime pricing for the customer. http://www.wildblue.com

• In August 2010, WildBlue Communications, a subsidiary of ViaSat, won a grant valued at $19.5 million to connect unserved residents to affordable broadband services. The funding comes from the Department of Agriculture Rural Utilities Service (RUS) under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 (ARRA). Subscribers covered by the grant would receive service from one of WildBlue’s three current satellites – Anik-F2, WildBlue-1, and AMC-15 – and starting in mid 2011, from the new high-capacity ViaSat-1 satellite.