Hughesnet Loses Over Half Its Customers as Starlink Takes Over Rural Internet

Hughesnet has shed more than half its broadband customers since late 2020, and the timing lines up almost perfectly with Starlink’s rise.

The numbers come from a first-quarter earnings report from parent company Hughes Satellite Systems Corporation. As of March 31, Hughesnet had 681,000 subscribers, down from 1.56 million in December 2020. The report doesn’t sugarcoat the situation, flagging that the company doesn’t have enough cash on hand to pay down its debts and raising internal questions about its ability to keep operating. Net loss for the quarter came in at $7.6 million, according to the filing (via PC Mag).

The core problem is performance. Ookla data shows Starlink users in the US averaged 127 Mbps download speeds in Q1, while Hughesnet customers averaged 48.55 Mbps. That gap is hard to sell around, especially when Starlink has been offering promotional pricing as low as $29 a month for residential service, undercutting Hughesnet’s entry-level $40 plans.

The rivalry has an odd wrinkle, though. SpaceX and Hughesnet’s parent company EchoStar are also partners in a $20 billion deal that lets SpaceX use EchoStar’s radio spectrum to strengthen Starlink’s mobile coverage, while EchoStar’s Boost Mobile gets satellite connectivity for areas with no cell signal.

There was also talk of a referral program that would pay EchoStar for routing Hughesnet customers directly to Starlink, though the earnings report made no mention of whether that’s actually been put into practice.