America is a land of haves and have-nots when it comes to broadband Internet. While many of us enjoy downloads speeds of 50 or even 100 Mbps, 119 million Americans lack broadband access (defined as 4Mbps down and 1Mbps up). Out of those 119 million, 19 million live in areas where there is no option to buy a wired broadband connection, according to government data.

Wouldn't it be great if we could provide broadband speed to nearly every American, without costly construction projects to bring cables to the home? Apparently, we already can. At least that's what providers of satellite broadband Internet services said today in a panel at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Latest-generation satellites operated by HughesNet and ViaSat offer 10 to 15 Mbps down and 1 to 3 Mbps up to nearly any home in the US, representatives of those companies said. They believe the industry simply suffers from an awareness problem. Previous-generation satellite products offered only a fraction of that speed, and even people who realize satellite is available to them may not know that the latest products are as fast as they are.

"Satellite now is a viable option for millions and millions of consumers, with speeds of 10 to 15 Mbps," said HughesNet director of sales Allen McCabe. "We're a real player."

If you live in a major city with access to cable Internet or FiOS, there is probably little reason to even consider satellite Internet. You may already have higher speeds, higher data caps (or no caps), and less latency. Say you're a fan of online multiplayer first-person shooters: satellite is not for you, at least if you want to win.

"We can't get around physics and the speed of light," said Dan Turak, VP of sales and distribution at ViaSat Communications. "We have about a half-second latency. The only time latency becomes an issue is for a gamer. We're very clear to that customer that you'll probably lose if you're playing against someone without satellite broadband. That latency is just enough to cause delay."

But for voice over Internet services, video streaming, and just about any other type of Web surfing, the service is perfectly fine, they said. It's also much better than what's available to a huge number of Americans: those who are stuck on dial-up or terrible DSL.

"Even though we have a national footprint our market area isn't really downtown Chicago," Turak said. "Those people are served. They have Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon, or AT&T." Satellite providers are trying to sign up the people who "have no Internet. They have dial-up. Or they have poor Internet. And that's our market area."

Best option for some, not the best service for all

ViaSat's Exede service launched last year as a major improvement over WildBlue. It offers 12Mbps down and 3Mbps up across all of its plans, differentiating tiers not by speed but by data usage. Usage is unlimited from midnight to 5am, but metered at all other times of the day. $50 a month gets you 10GB per month, $80 equates to 15GB, and $130 provides 25GB.

Hughes charges between $40 and $100 a month, with speeds ranging from 10 to 15 Mbps down and 1 to 2 Mbps up, and data limits of 20 to 40GB per month. Satellite bandwidth is not limitless: both Hughes and ViaSat have optimized their service for download speeds, saying in their experience customers care much less about upload speeds.

While Dish Network or DirecTV services are one-way broadcasts, Hughes and ViaSat home systems receive and transmit.

McCabe explains the process thusly: "The request for a website goes out from the computer to the modem, out to the dish and transmits to the satellite. It bounces back down to the ViaSat and Hughes ground-based stations, which we call gateways. Those gateways have large antennas that pick up the signal from the consumer's home, what website they want to go to, and using the terrestrial system connect with the Internet, grab the data, take it back to the gateway, shoot it back up to the sky and back down to the consumer's home."

"It sounds like an enormous process. It takes less than a second," he said. "The signals travels almost 90,000 miles, up and down, up and down again into the Internet and back."

The Hughes and ViaSat footprints are roughly the same, covering the continental US, Hawaii, and most of the Alaskan population. "We use spot beam technology," Turak said. "We have beams across the country. Our subscribers are provisioned under very specific beams. … We have a beam over a part of Alaska where most of the population is. It's a huge state."

Any satellite dish that goes onto a consumer's home must be installed by a certified technician to ensure it has line of sight access to the satellite in the sky. The likes of Dish Network and DirecTV resell Hughes and ViaSat Internet services. Hughes and ViaSat satellites also provide in-flight Internet access to some airlines.

There are also satellite Internet products for businesses, and for emergency responders who need mobile rather than fixed access. For residences, Turak said ViaSat plans to add voice service in the first quarter this year.

HughesNet has 640,000 consumer subscribers, and more than two million installations including business customers. While HughesNet and ViaSat could grow substantially just by signing up more underserved customers, lack of awareness is among the biggest roadblocks. They're trying to solve that in part by advertising to Dish and DirecTV customers.

When asked if more satellites would be needed to cover all of the underserved population, McCabe said, "We both know we're going to have to build more satellites. There is a max capacity." McCabe didn't say how many subscribers can be served by today's satellites, saying it depends on usage patterns, whether customers use Internet just for e-mail or also for streaming video and gaming.

ViaSat has 140Gbps capacity with its ViaSat-1 satellite, which we wrote about after its launch last year.

Since expanding broadband access is a stated goal of the US government, panelists said they would like to see US officials pay more attention to satellite. Panel moderator Joseph Widoff, executive director of the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association, said discussions around the National Broadband Plan have focused too much on costly infrastructure projects to bring fiber to the home.

"There's a lot of places [cable and FiOS buildouts] are never going to go, and from my perspective it seems like there's not a lot of talk about the fact that they could be covered tomorrow," Widoff said. "If the government wants to throw money around, subsidize satellite broadband and it will happen literally overnight, or as long as it takes to ship the product out."

McCabe won't whine if satellite companies don't get more government support, but he won't turn it down, either.

"Most of the business is built on the enterprise system and not with government handouts," McCabe said. "I certainly won't sit here and say we wouldn't enjoy seeing some more [government] support for our technology. If they're going to support broadband in general they should support satellite because it's a really viable product in this market."