Viasat Readies Giant 'F2' Satellite to Help It Compete Against Starlink

Viasat is ready to finally launch a next-generation satellite that promises to drastically increase the US company’s capacity to serve users.

The ViaSat-3 F2 is scheduled to launch in the second half of October, the company announced today. It’ll ride onboard an Atlas V 551 rocket from United Launch Alliance, and is expected to “provide more bandwidth capacity” than Viasat’s existing fleet, effectively doubling the company’s network capacity.

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The F2 will also try to make up for a stumble with the earlier ViaSat F1, which launched in 2023 as a high-orbiting geostationary satellite over 22,000 miles above the planet. It was designed to upgrade the Viasat network for customers across the Americas. But the satellite suffered a malfunction with its large reflector, a component developed to boost the F1’s broadband capacity.

Viasat salvaged the rest of the F1’s capabilities, and it entered into service a year ago, supplying broadband to commercial jets operating over North America. Still, the company indicated in an earlier earnings call that it planned to have the F2 take over and serve customers in the Americas while shifting the F1 to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. A third F3 satellite is planned for Asia.

Roadmap sats

(Credit: Viasat)

Thursday’s announcement didn’t mention what kind of speeds the F2 will offer and if it’ll focus on serving enterprise and government customers over regular Viasat users. But it’s clear the company has a lot riding on the F2’s success, which is slated to enter service in early 2026. Unlike SpaceX’s Starlink, which spans thousands of low-Earth orbiting satellites, Viasat relies on a smaller collection of geostationary satellites to supply broadband to users on the ground.

Satellite industry analyst for Quilty Space, Caleb Henry, noted: “After the antenna malfunction on the F1 satellite, F2 stands to be the highest capacity GEO satellite ever. This is to be the biggest test of GEO vs LEO.”

The F2 is scheduled to launch as Viasat has been losing subscribers. Last month, the company reported having 172,000 fixed broadband customers in the US, down from 257,000 a year earlier. To attract new users, Viasat has been offering a new “Essentials” plan that costs $49.99 for the first three months of service before it increases to $69.99.

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“Viasat Essentials is its lowest-priced residential plan to date,” the company told PCMag last month, although the plan caps the high-speed data to 150GB per month. Still, the company has an “Unleashed” service offering that features unlimited data for $79.99 for the first three months before the rate increases to $99.99.

However, Viasat’s satellite internet service can experience long latency times of around 680 milliseconds while offering slower internet speeds compared with Starlink, according to a survey from Ookla. In the US, Starlink now serves over 2 million active customers after initially launching back in 2020.