ViaSat Hires WildBlue Founder Moore to Lead Broadband Venture

By ( Multichannel News ) published

ViaSat appointed Tom Moore senior vice president of the company and president of the recently announced ViaSat-1 Ka-band broadband satellite initiative, effective immediately, officials said Friday.

Moore, a co-founder, director and former president and CEO of WildBlue Communications, will lead ViaSat's ViaSat-1 Ka-band broadband satellite initiative.

With the market demonstrating high demand for satellite broadband services, ViaSat-1 is designed to significantly expand the quality, capability and availability of high-speed broadband satellite services for American and Canadian consumers and enterprises. Compared to current Ka-band broadband satellites, the ViaSat-1 satellite, optimized to work in conjunction with ViaSat's next generation SurfBeam networking system, is expected to increase the amount of capacity by more than a factor of 10.

ViaSat-1 is the North American counterpart to Eutelsat's recently announced KA-SAT, a high capacity Ka-band broadband satellite for Europe planned to launch in 2010. ViaSat and Eutelsat are cooperating closely around ViaSat's Ka-band SurfBeam networking system and a common wholesale business model to offer service through ISPs, telecommunication companies, and direct-to-home television providers to serve subscribers. Both projects are focused on providing satellite and teleport infrastructure.

In 1998, Moore co-founded WildBlue, the direct-to-home-Internet-by satellite provider. He served as president and CEO from 1998 until 2005, and continues his involvement today on its board. Under his tenure, WildBlue raised over $500 million, built and launched its own special purpose satellites and deployed a nationwide consumer service that continues to grow and attract new users.

Most recently, Moore served as principal at TimesArrow, a telecommunications and technology venture firm located in Denver.