Viasat's Broadband Base Falls to 100,000 Amid Starlink Pressure

By Amara Osei

Viasat counted about 100,000 broadband subscribers as of September 30, with average connectivity bills of $111 (€99.21) a month. In the Q2 results discussed on November 9, 2026, its once-important satellite broadband business was still contracting as it lost clients to Starlink.

Can three ViaSat-3 satellites stop the slide?

Viasat has now completed a fleet of three ViaSat-3 high-throughput satellites serving the US, Europe/MENA and the Asia-Pacific region. CEO Mark Dankberg said the fleet was already making a difference, would energize broadband markets and would revive Viasat as a major airline connectivity provider. The broadband pitch is straightforward; the measured proof is thinner.

Dankberg said: “We are adding more bandwidth capacity through the ground network, and migrating more user terminals onto those satellites. Customers [are measuring] pretty drastic improvements in speed. Per-use bandwidth consumption is comparable to that claimed for LEO service.”

Those statements put more ground capacity and terminal migration at the center of Viasat's broadband effort. The results presented included no megabit-per-second figures, latency measurements or named customer benchmarks. His LEO comparison remains a vendor claim, although it points to the metric that matters: usable bandwidth per session.

For Viasat, the commercial test is whether added capacity produces enough usable bandwidth to slow customer losses at an average $111 monthly price. The results do not quantify terminal migrations, extra ground-network capacity or the subscriber share served by ViaSat-3. Those omissions leave Dankberg's speed claim directionally useful but commercially unproven.

Where does airline connectivity stand?

Viasat's Q2 airline service revenue rose 8% year on year to $326 million. The company counted 4,490 commercial aircraft in service using Viasat, up 6% from a year earlier. Business aviation was flat at 2,080 aircraft, showing growth concentrated in commercial fleets.

Total Q2 revenue rose 3% to $1.2 billion. Airline connectivity supplied the clearest growth indicator in the results, while the broadband business remained in retreat. Dankberg nevertheless expects ViaSat-3 to revive Viasat as a major airline connectivity provider.

The airline figures give ViaSat-3's aviation case more substance than the broadband claim alone. They do not prove that the new fleet caused the growth, and the figures did not show how many aircraft used ViaSat-3 rather than earlier satellites.

What must Equatys clear before procurement?

Abu Dhabi's Space42 and Viasat's joint venture, Equatys, are still waiting for regulatory reviews. Dankberg declined to say when the process would be ready for its next stage. Approval would let Equatys begin selecting a prime contractor for a low-orbit constellation of almost 3,000 satellites.

The proposed constellation would contain roughly 1,000 times as many satellites as the completed three-satellite ViaSat-3 fleet. The arithmetic sets a large procurement and financing task; the timetable remains unspecified. Regulatory clearance comes before contractor selection can move.

Dankberg said: “We are not done with these regulatory approvals, but we expect to be in the not-to-distant future. Once we have them, the first thing we’ll announce is the technical solutions, with satellites and capacity and a schedule of service delivery.”

He also said Equatys still needed the entity and its initial funding. The update named no regulator, review deadline or funding amount, leaving regulatory clearance and capital as the immediate gates.

Until those gates clear, Equatys has no disclosed prime contractor, satellite capacity, funding total or service date. Viasat and Space42 can describe the intended system, but the network remains a plan rather than a scheduled rollout.

What are the next milestones?

The near-term test for ViaSat-3 is whether added ground capacity and terminal migrations translate into faster service and retained broadband users. For Equatys, regulatory approval must precede prime-contractor selection, while the entity and initial funding must also be in place.

Technical disclosures would then cover satellite count, capacity and a service-delivery schedule. Viasat's next milestones will show whether three operating satellites can stabilize broadband, while Equatys waits for regulatory and funding clearance.