Viasat

• Variety of plans
• Competitive pricing
• Liberty Pass and Boost 25
• Viasat's Freedom plan
• Partnership for bundling with DirecTV
• Transparency on website

Viasat offers a few different plans for their customers and pricing ultimately depends on where you live. The biggest difference you will notice between each plan is the data allowance and price. The great thing about Viasat is that all of their plans come with a 12 Mbps download speed and 3 Mbps upload speed. Their upload speed is on the higher end of the industry where competing satellite internet providers offer only 1 or 2 Mbps. With Viasat's Essential 10 plan, you get 10 GB of priority data which is data that you can use 24 hours a day. With the Essential 10 plan, there is an early bird free zone giving you unmetered access from 3 am to 8 am. Viasat offers three other plans, Liberty 12, Liberty 18, and Liberty 30 which feature 12 GB, 18 GB, and 30 GB, respectively. Each one of these plans features the Liberty Pass and Boost 25. Viasat's Liberty Pass allows you to continue using the internet even if you've gone over your monthly data allowance. However, your download speed will be limited to only 1 - 5 Mbps. Using Boost 25 is dependent upon where you live. It can boost your download speed to a whopping 25 Mbps which is unheard of in this industry. Viasat offers a Freedom Plan that is very limited in its service area right now but gives customers a monthly data allowance of 150 GB! Viasat is the first in the industry to offer any data plan that large. We like to see companies offer flexibility to their customers and remove barriers of entry for them. You are required to rent your satellite equipment. Viasat gives its customers two different options, which are, rent the equipment for $9.99 per month or prepay for 24 months at $199.99. These prices may seem steep, but we like the flexibility Viasat offers. We also liked Viasat's availability in all 50 states. There is access to Viasat even in Alaska and Hawaii. Viasat has access to high-powered satellites, which are billed as being the best in the industry. While the prices for Viasat's metered Internet service is somewhat high, we felt like the different service levels are a great fit for the customer to select the subscription that is right for them. Viasat has a page that provides information about selecting your ideal subscription. After inputting your data, a usage calculator predicts your monthly Internet usage. Also, if you ever end up needing more data, you can purchase each additional GB for $9.99.

• Low data cap except for the Freedom plan
• Slightly slower download speeds
• Read the fine print on pricing

Viasat has its Freedom Plan which gives customers access to 150 GB of  data for the month, however, the service area for this plan is very limited. Customers that live in areas that don't have that many people around them using Viasat will have access to the Freedom Plan because of the available capacity. There are plans for it to become available in 2017 and hopefully it is available to more areas then. If you aren't living in an area where Viasat offers the Freedom Plan then you are going to find lower data caps than what we find in this industry. a competing satellite internet provider offers data caps of at least 50 - 70 GB whereas Viasat's max besides the Freedom Plan is only 30 GB. With that in mind, if you plan on downloading tons of things during any given month, you'll have to be careful that you don't go over your data allowance. Viasat has a Boost 25 feature that increases a user's download speed up to 25 Mbps but, this feature is limited to certain areas. If you don't live in an area where Boost 25 is offered then you will only be able to get download speeds up to 12 Mbps which is lower than the fastest download speeds that competitors offer. The prices listed on Viasat's website (depending on where you live) are shown as the price per month for only the first three months. They do offer a 3-year price lock guarantee, but it only applies before any promotions are set in place. So if you started out at $49.99 per month and then went to $59.99 per month after the first three months, the price lock guarantee would guarantee the $59.99 price per month for your 24-month commitment.