Hughes Network Systems

Hughes Network Systems is a satellite communications company headquartered in Germantown, Maryland, founded in 1971 as Digital Communications Corp. The company deployed its first VSAT very small aperture terminal network in 1983 and became a service provider to large enterprises before launching Hughesnet in 1996, described as the first national high-speed satellite internet service, followed by two-way consumer satellite service in 2001. Hughes operated the SPACEWAY-3 telecommunications satellite and later the JUPITER-1 high-throughput satellite that underpinned its fourth-generation HughesNet Gen4 service, and the company is now a subsidiary of EchoStar providing satellite-based communication services to consumer and enterprise customers.