Satellite provider StarBand announced on Friday that was shutting down its broadband service effective Sept. 30.

In a statement on its ebsite, StarBand cited increased operating costs and competing broadband services as the reasons for ending its service.

"We thank every customer who selected StarBand over the last 15 years," the company said in its parting statement. "As you know, much has changed in the decade-and-a-half since StarBand pioneered bringing high-speed Internet access to communities beyond the reach of traditional, land-based Internet services. Unfortunately, the time has come for StarBand to retire. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience. It has been our pleasure serving you."

StarBand offers its service to residential and business customers in rural areas that are typically underserved by larger broadband providers. With broadband speeds ramping up across the nation, high orbit satellite services have been unable to keep pace and also have suffered from latency issues at times.

Despite StarBand's demise, Wired reported that Richard Branson-backed OneWeb and SpaceX plan on offering their respective broadband services via smaller, low-earth orbit satellites.

StarBand placed this announcement on its homepage.

For more:

- Wired has this article

- see Starband's website

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