Viasat’s COO looks to the year ahead

In this episode of the Viasat Podcast, host Alex Miller speaks with Viasat Chief Operating Officer Kevin Harkenrider. Promoted to the role last fall, Harkenrider speaks to the busy road ahead as Viasat prepares to launch and monetize its global satellite constellation, ViaSat-3.

Harkenrider has been with Viasat since 2006 and has occupied a number of different roles with the company in that time.

Some of the topics touched upon in this episode:

• Preparing for the global markets where ViaSat-3 will deliver service and navigating the regulatory landscape in a variety of countries
• Determining the role third-party partners will play
• How increased competition in the satellite internet market aligns with increasing demand around the world and Harkenrider’s view that there’s room for all to flourish
• The advantage of ViaSat-3’s flexible beam structure and how it enables more strategic placement of capacity
• How Viasat continues to position itself to be an employer of choice amid the backdrop of the shift to remote work and a more mobile workforce
• The importance of accountability across the organization as it grows globally
• Six traits of a leader where Harkenrider says he’s always trying to earn an “A” himself

How business aviation connectivity is changing

Claudio D’Amico and James Person on how Viasat is addressing the challenge

In this episode of the Viasat Podcast, host Alex Miller speaks with two leaders from our Business Aviation division: Claudio D’Amico and James Person.

For business and private aircraft, in-flight Wi-Fi has moved quickly in the past decade from a nice-to-have amenity on board to a necessity — especially for business travelers using their time in the air to be online and conducting business.

Similar to how our expectations of what our internet service can do on the ground have changed, air travelers’ idea of what constitutes good in-flight connectivity has increased commensurately. Where once the ability to send a text from 45,000 feet seemed miraculous, now it’s possible to get speeds good enough to stream video and engage in video-chat meetings.

Viasat has been steadily improving its service to these users, with download speeds of 30 Mbps and higher now the norm, and with more advances on the horizon.

Some of the topics touched upon in this episode:

• How the introduction of Viasat Select has given greater value and flexibility to customers on our high-speed Ka-band network
• Some of the ways in which business and personal travel in these aircraft has changed over the course of the pandemic
• Who are the people flying on these aircraft? It’s not just CEOs and high-net-worth individuals.
• The importance of satellite capacity when it comes to delivering the bandwidth needed in flight
• Viasat’s ability to match a particular type of connectivity solution with the needs of the end users and the type of aircraft upon which it’s installed, as well as how the company is looking to expand its offerings to other airframes and markets
• How the increasing demand for more data is being met with our current fleet and how the upcoming ViaSat-3 constellation will vastly improve both capacity and coverage across the globe

Learning about Intelie with Ricardo Clemente

In April, 2021, Viasat completed its acquisition of RigNet and, with it, its Intelie division.

Intelie was started in 2009 in Brazil and has been expanding globally since then. For this episode of the Viasat Podcast, we’re happy to have caught up with one of Intelie’s founders, Ricardo Clemente, to help us understand what types of tools, services, and expertise the company now brings to Viasat.

Viasat acquisition in Europe set to have major impact on connectivity

Evan Dixon, VP of Global Fixed Broadband Services, describes what’s to come for Europe with full operation of the KA-SAT satellite and upcoming ViaSat-3 constellation

Viasat President & CEO reviews the year ahead

With a global satellite constellation ready to launch in the near future and a number of changes recently announced, Viasat President & CEO Rick Baldridge has his hands full with a growing and diverse company.

In this episode of the Viasat Podcast, host Alex Miller speaks with Baldridge about his new role as CEO, along with other topics:

• A renewed focus on customer centricity;
• Executing the launch of ViaSat-3, a global constellation, in the coming years;
• How Viasat’s diverse business profile has helped it during the pandemic and will set it up for success in the years ahead; and
• Some thoughts on how he uses reflective time and extensive reading to continually renew how he approaches his job.

Viasat’s Mark Dankberg on the perils and challenges of space pollution

The company’s executive chairman addresses a growing threat to access to space presented by the rise of satellite mega-constellations in low-earth orbit (LEO)

Viasat’s Marc Agnew on the evolution of satellite ground networks

Satellites launched by rockets into space may get a lot of attention, but equally important is the ground system back on Earth. Those connections are essential for making the link between the internet, the satellite and the end user.

In this episode of the Viasat podcast, host Alex Miller talks with Marc Agnew, who’s been working on this technology for decades at the company. As Vice President of Commercial Networks, Agnew has seen the technology for ground systems change dramatically, and he outlines some of those developments in this podcast.

With the upcoming ViaSat-3 global constellation, Agnew talks about how the miniaturization of the equipment, along with a shift of processing into the cloud, will enable the network to handle terabits of information.

Other topics discussed include:

• How ground systems work and a bit about their history;
• The growth of Viasat as a fiber optic player;
• The changes to the equipment at the home or business;
• The benefits of Ka-band for managing data; and
• The greater challenge low-earth orbit satellites have with antennas.

John Williams and Viasat Real-Time Earth

In this episode of the Viasat Podcast, host Alex Miller talks to John Williams, Vice President of Real-Time Earth (RTE) at the company. Following the news that RTE (LINK) is now a ground station ecosystem partner in the new Microsoft Azure Orbital service offering, Williams addresses what that means for the companies and their customers and what lies ahead for RTE.

Other topics covered in this podcast include:

• An overview of the RTE network, how it works and plans for growth;
• Williams’s outlook on Ground-Station-as-a-Service (GSaaS) as a business in the coming years;
• How RTE enables more timely data downloads for earth observation and remote-sensing satellites;
• Some of the excitement and challenges surrounding the construction of the RTE site in Alice Springs, Australia; and
• Upcoming sites in the works for Northern Europe, Africa and beyond.

Satellite for businesses with Eric Stark

In this episode of the Viasat Podcast, host Alex Miller catches up with Eric Stark, director of sales for Viasat’s Global Business Services. Stark goes into the benefits of Viasat Business service, which includes primary and redundant service, Wi-Fi hotspots, SD-WAN and more.

Some of the topics discussed include:

• Myths of satellite internet regarding how fast it is, how well it works for VoIP and its reliability;
• How many construction managers rely on Viasat to stand up internet in places where terrestrial infrastructure doesn’t yet exist;
• How businesses with multiple locations can streamline their broadband needs with Viasat as opposed to using a patchwork of regional providers;
• How businesses can expand their broadband service with the business hotspot product; and
• Viasat’s plans to expand internationally.

In the new Space Force, Viasat sees a valuable partner

In 2019, the division of the U.S. Air Force charged with managing the Department of Defense’s space assets and operations was split out into a new branch of the military. The Space Force is of particular interest to Viasat as a satellite communications company, and in this episode of the Viasat Podcast, host Alex Miller catches up with Ken Peterman, President of the Government Systems division at Viasat.

Peterman talks about some of the historic context behind the U.S. military’s service branches, as well as how space is being defined as a new fighting domain — just as land, sea and air are.

Some of the topics touched on in this podcast include:

• The vision of the Space Force and the critical role that will be played by commercial SATCOM providers such as Viasat;
• The unique strengths and capabilities that satellite communications providers to the American warfighter;
• The ability of services on commercial satellites to “hide in plain sight” from adversaries;
• How a flexible network that uses multiple technologies can form a resilient and seamless line of communication;
• The rapid advancement of SATCOM technology and how Viasat will play a role in that evolution going forward.