[Satellite News 04-27-10] Ever since KVH Industries and ViaSat introduced the Mini-VSAT broadband service with ViaSat’s ArcLight spectrum mobile broadband technology in July 2007, the two partners have worked to create a global network by connecting and activating service one region at a time.
    KVH kicked off its global connectivity initiative by hiring former SES Americom Senior Vice President of Strategy Brent Bruun in August 2008, put ting in charge of finding deals in each region to expand its Ku-band Mini-VSAT network. One of the first major deals under Brunn came in February 2008, when KVH and ViaSat expanded their service enterprise operations in the Persian Gulf, packaged under ViaSat’s Yonder mobile network for in-flight broadband to business and commercial aircraft. KVH had just completed rollout of the service to the Northern Pacific Ocean.
    “The addition of mini-VSAT Broadband coverage for the Persian Gulf enables us to provide more affordable broadband Internet for critical commercial and government maritime operations as well as leisure vessels in the region. Ship operators are looking for cost-effectiveness in an increasingly competitive market, and the TracPhone V7 and mini-VSAT Broadband service offer lower hardware, installation and airtime costs than competing services in the Persian Gulf,” Bruun said following the service announcement.
    To fill the hole between the Northern Pacific and the Middle East, KVH activated its Mini-VSAT Broadband service in the Asia-Pacific maritime region in August 2008, working in collaboration with Sky Perfect JSAT Corp., which provided the service via the JCSat-1B satellite. As part of the deal, Sky Perfect JSAT, which held exclusive rights for sales to Japanese-flagged and Japanese-owned vessels, promised to include service coverage in the Indian Ocean in early 2010.
    Later that month, KVH moved south to Australia and New Zealand by activating the maritime service to support leisure boaters and commercial ships in the region. Bruun said the addition of live service for Australia and New Zealand moved the company one step closer to its final goal and set the stage for its plans to launch 505 emergency calling services with Inmarsat’s FleedBroadband in September 2008. 
    Bruun then turned the company’s attention to the Eastern Hemisphere in December 2008, when the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted KVH a permanent Earth Station onboard-Vessel (ESV) license authority for Mini-VSAT. The FCC’s approval allowed KVH to provide its services to the U.S. Coast Guard in November 2009, to replace its older satellite communications systems.    
    KVH CEO Martin Kits van Heyningen called the license approval a major achievement for the company’s global initiatives. “While the FCC jurisdiction applies only to U.S. flagged vessels and operations in U.S. territory, the FCC’s approval serves as a major endorsement of the viability and reliability of our global spread spectrum network for maritime operators worldwide," he said.
    KVH and ViaSat would spend the next two years signing multiple deals to complete its coverage network, including a multi-year agreement with Telesat to use the Ku-band coverage of Telstar 11N satellite to support its maritime and enterprise customers in Africa in December 2008. “The West African region, with its offshore oil and gas fields, has long been an important part of KVH’s plans for expanding our mini-VSAT Broadband network. However, KVH could not launch a service that met our quality standards until Telstar 11N became available. Now with Telstar 11N’s African beam, KVH has live coverage, or is under contract to provide such coverage, to virtually every major maritime region on the globe,” said Bruun following the deal.
    Building off of its sustained growth KVH Industries incorporated its Singapore-based subsidiary KVH Industries Asia as a new business unit called KVH Singapore in March, putting the company in a more effective position to pursue opportunities, seek out new business in the region’s shipbuilding industry and support its local and regional distribution partners. That same month, the company linked up its services in Europe by signing a deal with Norwegian maritime company DSD Shipping to provide its mini-VSAT service to DSD crew members with multiple voice lines, broadband Internet, e-mail and onboard data access.
    Finally, KVH and ViaSat achieved their goal of creating a global Mini-VSAT broadband and ViaSat Yonder network by activating the services April 20 in the Indian Ocean, Guam and Northern Australia regions via Sky Perfect JSAT’s JCSAT-85 satellite, as promised in the contract the companies signed with Sky Perfect two years earlier.
     For KVH, the company’s global initiative under the direction of Bruun has paid off. In its latest financial results released April 22, the company reported that its 2010 first quarter revenues increased 53 percent from the same period in 2009. KVH turned a $2.6 million first quarter net loss in 2009 to a $2.1 million net income in 2010, driven by strong contributions from strategic initiatives in global satellite communications.
    “We continue to gain momentum in our mini-VSAT broadband business as we build credibility with the speed and performance of our network … We continue to believe that 2010 will be a year of strong top line growth while also establishing a trend line of improving profit performance within the context of normal leisure market seasonality. As we move through the second half of the year we expect to be in a position to more fully leverage the mini-VSAT infrastructure on a global basis,” van Heyningen said.