Viasat-3 F2 Successfully Deployed: Faster Satellite Internet Speeds Coming in May 2026

The legacy satellite internet company Viasat is pushing back at growing competition, hoping its new satellite will help win over customers and keep the ones it already has. Viasat announced the successful deployment of its Viasat-3 F2 geostationary orbit (GEO) satellite. This could mean faster speeds for more Viasat customers, many of whom are turning to newer rural internet solutions, including Starlink and 5G providers.

The next-generation satellite will double Viasat's broadband capacity, according to the company. This means the potential for faster median speeds during peak hours. 

Viasat shared a photo of the satellite completing the unfurling of its enormous reflector, marking the mission as a success. In 2023, the company faced a major setback with the first version of the Viasat-3 satellite when a malfunction prevented the reflector from fully deploying. The reduced capacity meant it could only service aviation customers.

With the satellite now in geosynchronous orbit and fully deployed, it can serve customers on the ground in the Americas. Details on exactly how it will affect customers remain vague, but Viasat claims the new satellites will impact performance, user experience, coverage, capacity, and cost for all its customers. 

"The high throughput capacity will support applications including fast free Wi-Fi for commercial aviation, fixed broadband services for home internet, and resilient connectivity for government and defense mission operations," the company wrote in a press release.

Viasat expects the new satellite to start servicing customers in May 2026 after an initial testing period. 

For more than a decade, Viasat was one of only two options for satellite internet in the U.S. It, along with competitor Hughesnet, was the only option for rural internet access in places where traditional wired internet was unavailable. Both competitors utilize a handful of GEO satellites to connect users to the web nearly anywhere in the U.S., albeit with lower performance than terrestrial providers. 

However, the rise of low Earth orbit (LEO) technology, notably Starlink, has come to prominence in the last several years. GEO is increasingly considered outdated due to the high latency inherent in its distance from the planet. 

During this period, Viasat has attempted to adapt to the overnight shift in the industry by updating its consumer internet plans, abandoning a two-year commitment model with restrictive data caps in favor of a more modern, no-contract, unlimited-data model. 

Despite many residential and small-business customers migrating to Starlink, Viasat still maintains a considerable market share among enterprise and government customers.