Viasat Subscribers Fall to 100,000 in Q2 FY2027 Results
In its November 5 letter, Viasat also posted $111 ARPU and $815 million in Communication Services revenue, down 3 percent. Can ViaSat 3 slow the churn?
Hakkı ALKANPublished 3 min read
Viasat, Inc. said US fixed broadband ended its fiscal second quarter with about 100,000 Viasat subscribers and $111 in average revenue per user. The figure appears in the company's Q2 FY2027 shareholder letter, published on November 5, 2026, for the quarter that ended on September 30, 2026.
PCMag's Michael Kan, in an update published November 6, 2026, compared that total with 603,000 subscribers in the third quarter of 2020, when Starlink launched. That is a drop of about 83 percent. Kan's story calls the report "Q3 earnings," but Viasat's own label is Q2 FY2027.
Why did Viasat subscribers fall this quarter?
On the earnings call reported by PCMag, Viasat blamed "seasonally high churn" during the summer. CFO Gary Chase said that after the residential launch of ViaSat-3 Flight 2 in early October, the company plans "to leverage improved performance to stabilize the business over the next few quarters."
The letter also said Communication Services revenue was $815 million, down 3 percent from a year earlier, while Fixed Services and Other service revenue fell 23 percent. Companywide revenue still rose 3 percent to $1.18 billion, helped by 20 percent growth in Defense and Advanced Technologies.
The subscriber gap shows how hard low Earth orbit networks have pressed older geostationary services. For a primer on the rival system, see our guide to how Starlink works.
What did ViaSat 3 change for the US business?
Viasat said it commenced service on ViaSat-3 Flight 2 over the Americas and Flight 3 over Asia Pacific. Each satellite is designed to deliver more than one terabit per second of throughput. PCMag describes Flight 2 as a geostationary satellite meant to offer download speeds above 100 Mbps, after prior median rates of 49.12 Mbps in Ookla data. Our report on Starlink capacity shows how quickly rivals are adding bandwidth too.
How do the new plans compare with Starlink?
PCMag reported that Viasat Unleashed Max offers unlimited data and the highest network priority, with baseline speeds of 80 Mbps and bursts up to 200 Mbps, at $109.99 a month in the first year and $179.99 after that. A ViaSat-3 plan needs new equipment and a professional installation. Viasat's broadband label still lists latency around 645 milliseconds, with speeds closer to 40 Mbps during congestion.
Existing plans include Essentials at $39.99 then $69.99, and Unleashed at $69.99 then $99.99. PCMag said Starlink's Residential Max typically costs $130 a month, while Residential 100 Mbps is usually $55 and Residential 200 Mbps is about $85. Deutsche Bank has recently estimated that Starlink has 4.1 million US subscribers.
PCMag also put Viasat's typical latency around 680 milliseconds, versus about 45 milliseconds for Starlink. Satellite links still matter where fiber never arrives, a backdrop we explained in our guide to how undersea cables work. ShiftDelete.Net earlier reported that SpaceX had 13.6 million Starlink subscribers worldwide in the third quarter of 2026.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| US fixed broadband subscribers | About 100,000 |
| Average revenue per user | $111 |
| Communication Services revenue | $815 million, down 3% |
| 2020 comparison (PCMag) | 603,000, about an 83% decline |
| Unleashed Max | $109.99 first year, $179.99 after |
The official letter is dated November 5, 2026, and the longer subscriber comparison comes from Kan's November 6 PCMag report. The next quarter will show whether ViaSat-3 capacity can stabilize the US residential business.