Hughes Initiates Commercial Service on SPACEWAY 3 Satellite

[HCI]

04-07-08 Hughes Initiates Commercial Service on SPACEWAY 3 Satellite

Germantown, Md., April 7, 2008 — Hughes Network Systems, LLC (HUGHES), the global leader in broadband satellite networks and services and wholly owned subsidiary of Hughes Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: HUGH), today announced that it successfully activated the first HughesNet® consumer subscriber for broadband Internet service utilizing its SPACEWAY™ 3 satellite on April 3rd, 2008.

“With this significant milestone, our SPACEWAY 3 satellite has officially commenced carrying revenue-bearing traffic, making Hughes a fully integrated service provider,” said Pradman Kaul, president and CEO of Hughes. “We are excited to begin delivering HughesNet broadband services over the world's first commercial satellite with on-board switching to our rapidly growing base of consumer, SMB, enterprise, and government customers throughout North America .”

Launched by Arianespace in August, 2007, SPACEWAY 3 was subsequently placed into geostationary orbit by Boeing in December, 2007, at which time Hughes assumed operational control. Extensive pre-commercial testing has been completed since then and Hughes has now achieved its goal of commencing commercial service in early 2008.

With 10 Gigabits per second of gross capacity, SPACEWAY 3 is the highest traffic-carrying satellite to be brought into service in North America . It was designed and developed as a next-generation, Ka-band broadband satellite system, and is the world's first commercial satellite to employ on-board traffic switching and routing. Combined with many other advances in satellite technology, such as dynamic beam forming, and direct small-dish-to- small-dish connectivity, SPACEWAY 3 ushers in a new world of bandwidth-on-demand HughesNet services accessed through a range of high-performance ground terminals.

About Hughes Network Systems

Hughes Network Systems, LLC (HUGHES) is the global leader in providing broadband satellite networks and services for large enterprises, governments, small businesses, and consumers. HughesNet encompasses all broadband solutions and managed services from Hughes, bridging the best of satellite and terrestrial technologies. Hughes has shipped more than 1.5 million systems to customers in over 100 countries. Its broadband satellite products are based on global standards approved by the TIA, ETSI and ITU standards organizations, including IPoS/DVB-S2, RSM-A and GMR-1.

Headquartered outside Washington, D.C., in Germantown, Maryland, USA, Hughes maintains sales and support offices worldwide. Hughes is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hughes Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: HUGH). For additional information, please visit
HUGHES Home


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[nbluedorn]

Do you know when we will be able to have this Spaceway service installed at our home? I live in Illinois and I plan to order satellite service in the next few days.

[Stargazer]

When they say direct small dish to small dish connectivity, does this mean that two different areas can do more of a direct link without going to the internet with only the satellite in between to pass data?

[HCI]

When they say direct small dish to small dish connectivity, does this mean that two different areas can do more of a direct link without going to the internet with only the satellite in between to pass data?

Yes. Say if I have a system at my house and you have a system at your house we could communicate with each other without going through the NOC's router. It would work just like a WAN. This however is only available to Enterprise customers.

[HCI]

Do you know when we will be able to have this Spaceway service installed at our home? I live in Illinois and I plan to order satellite service in the next few days.

I cannot say for sure. We only got 7 initial systems for the release. I would say within 3 to 4 weeks you should be able to order one directly from Hughes. I must say if you are planning on getting satellite internet service wait for the 9000 and make sure you are getting a 9000 when you order and when the installer arrives. One way you can tell is the 9000 is white.

[Stargazer]

I wonder if it is going to be cheaper to use the small satellite dishes for the new point to point feature they are going to offer than just getting the internet service on both ends. How are they able to get away with smaller dishes for the point to point than what is required for the larger dish required for the internet?

[HCI]

I wonder if it is going to be cheaper to use the small satellite dishes for the new point to point feature they are going to offer than just getting the internet service on both ends. How are they able to get away with smaller dishes for the point to point than what is required for the larger dish required for the internet?

The dishes will be the same size as the normal dishes. I don't think there is a set definition of what a small dish really is, I know most people think of a small dish being like a single lnb Directv dish, but I think anything that is under 1.2 meters can be classified as a small dish. What Hughes means by small dish to small dish connectivity is they can install a regular say .98 meter dish "which is the most common with Enterprise work, because remember the dish to dish feature is only available to Enterprise customers" at the corporate offices and the same .98 dish at the retail stores and communicate back and forth with each other just by a single hop from the satellite itself.