Viasat Business Satellite Internet Review

Whether you own a canoe rental company, a car repair shop, or the only restaurant in town, you will need reliable internet. Viasat Business Internet service will keep your company humming no matter where you are. 

Viasat Business Internet plans are a good choice if you operate a business in a small town or rural area and satellite is your only internet option. Viasat offers the fastest satellite internet of any provider and gives you more data for your dollar than HughesNet business internet plans. 

In this review

• Prices and packages
• Pros and cons
• Other rural business internet options
• Viasat vs. Hughesnet
• Final verdict
• FAQ

How much is Viasat Business internet service?

With Viasat, you can choose from unlimited data plans or metered plans. Unlimited data plans start at $175 per month and metered data plans start at $80 per month. 

Remember to pay attention to your company’s data usage each month if you’re going with a metered plan. The metered data plans look inexpensive at first glance, but they come with very little data, which means you’ll pay steep overage fees if you go over the data cap.

Metered data plans can end up costing you a lot in additional data costs. Once you reach your data cap, you’ll pay $3 to $10 per GB of additional data. For instance, the 10 GB plan looks like a good deal at $80 per month—but it comes with only 10 GB of data. If you select this plan and then your business uses 90 GB of additional data in a busy month, you’ll pay up to $900 in data overage charges (depending on your plan). For this reason, we recommend an unlimited plan for most businesses.

With an unlimited Viasat plan, you won’t have to worry about varying internet costs each month. Unlimited plans do have a soft data threshold limit, but that’s not the same thing as having a data cap. Once you reach the soft data threshold limit, you may experience slowed internet speeds, but you won’t be charged anything extra. Your business can continue using data at possibly reduced speeds at no additional cost. So, if you run a bed and breakfast and you happen to have a few guests who are internet hogs, they won’t be able to ring up a $900 data overage charge.

Just know that slower internet speeds will work for sending and receiving emails with customers and suppliers, but video conferencing, transferring large files, or streaming video will be more difficult.

Viasat offers faster speeds than other satellite internet providers. Businesses located in most of the US can get download speeds around 35 Mbps. Select areas have access to speeds up to 100 Mbps. When you compare this to small-town businesses with dial-up internet speeds of 0.5 to 1.5 Mbps, it’s easy to see that faster internet from Viasat can give you an edge.

Satellite internet might not be your only internet choice though. Depending on your location, you may have a few other options. And, frankly, if you can get cable, fiber, fixed wireless, or DSL, we recommend that you check out those types of internet first.

Viasat business satellite internet is recommended only for businesses that are located in areas where cable or fiber internet networks are unavailable. Let’s take a look at other types of internet that might be available in your area.

Satellite internet might not be your only option. There are different internet connection types available in small towns and rural areas. Not all of them will be available to everyone. A few small towns have cable or fiber internet, but most do not. Most businesses in rural areas get their internet service from one of the following types of internet providers.

Viasat and HughesNet are the two main satellite internet providers used in rural areas, and both offer business plans. They may seem similar at first glance since they’re both satellite internet providers, but there are some key differences in their plan structures.

Viasat Business internet service offers faster speeds and more data than HughesNet plans. Although more expensive, Viasat plans deliver more data for your dollar than HughesNet.

HughesNet for Business package prices are lower but packages come with less data and lower speeds. HughesNet caters to business customers with minimal internet needs, such as a few office employees at a manufacturing facility who use email to communicate with customers, suppliers, and business partners.

You can get a deeper dive into business satellite internet providers with our article on Viasat vs. HughesNet.

Satellite internet speeds are slower than many other connection types, but if satellite is the best option in your area, then we recommend you go with the fastest provider—Viasat.

Viasat offers the fastest satellite service and is a better choice for businesses that rely heavily on the internet for day to day operations. If most of your business activities are conducted offline—such as running a bowling alley or a bed and breakfast—and you just need the internet for providing customer service and ordering equipment from your suppliers, then HughesNet will be okay. Business owners who will especially benefit from Viasat’s faster connection speeds are companies that have a customer service chat, online ordering, or video conferencing.

Viasat’s metered plans can result in high data overage charges (with some plans charging $10 per GB of data). So we strongly recommend that you skip the metered plans and go with an unlimited plan to avoid the stress of unplanned business expenses.

Viasat internet is the fastest satellite internet provider. Viasat download speeds are around 35 Mbps in most parts of the US and up to 100 Mbps in select areas. To compare this with other types of internet providers, cable internet download speeds can reach 1,000 Mbps while dial-up speeds are less than 1 Mbps.

Yes, Viasat Business Internet is a good choice for many small businesses that can’t get internet with traditional internet providers. Viasat Internet is delivered via satellite, which means that it’ll be a lot slower than internet plans you can get in a big city. You probably wouldn’t want to get Viasat internet in Dallas, for example. Companies in big cities have many faster options than satellite internet. But, if you’re comparing satellite providers, Viasat is our top recommendation. Viasat has faster speeds than HughesNet.

Viasat Business Internet is available to 98% of the population of the US in all 50 states. It’s available everywhere, although the speeds and plan availability vary by location. Some areas offer faster speeds than others. In order to get Viasat, you will need to have a clear view of the southern sky. If you live in a deep canyon or near other geographical features that interfere with a signal, you may not be able to get Viasat or any other type of satellite internet. To find out if Viasat is available in your area, type your zip code into our search tool.

You can access your Viasat Internet account by navigating to the Viasat/Exede sign in page. You can also access your Viasat account with the Viasat app—called My Viasat—which is available for Android and iPhone.

No, Viasat and HughesNet are not the only satellite providers for rural businesses. Skycasters and Broad Sky Networks also offer satellite service to businesses customers. These internet providers deliver service that’s a combination of satellite data and 3G and 4G LTE data. Both Broad Sky Networks and Skycasters are reliable but quite costly—installation costs run $2,000 or more. Data speeds are slow. These companies primarily offer business satellite internet to companies in the oil and gas industry.