Operator
Operator
Welcome to ViaSat's Fiscal Year First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Your host for today's call is Mark Dankberg, Chairman and CEO. You may proceed, Mr. Dankberg.
Viasat, Inc. (VSAT)
Q1 2019 Earnings Call· Thu, Aug 9, 2018
$58.07
-1.01%
Same-Day
-17.07%
1 Week
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1 Month
-11.61%
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-13.00%
Operator
Operator
Welcome to ViaSat's Fiscal Year First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Your host for today's call is Mark Dankberg, Chairman and CEO. You may proceed, Mr. Dankberg.
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Thanks. Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to ViaSat's earnings conference call for our first fiscal quarter of 2019. I'm Mark Dankberg, Chairman and CEO, and I've got with me Rick Baldridge, our President and Chief Operating Officer; Shawn Duffy, our CFO; Robert Blair, General Counsel; Bruce Dirks, our Treasurer; and Paul Froelich in Corporate Development. Before we start, Robert will provide our Safe Harbor disclosure.
Robert Blair - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Thanks, Mark. As you know, this discussion will contain forward-looking statements. This is a reminder that factors could cause actual results to differ materially. Additional information concerning these factors is contained in our SEC filings including our most recent report from Form 10-K and Form 10-Q. Copies are available from the SEC or from our website. Back to you, Mark.
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Thanks, Robert. So we'll be referring to slides that are available over the web and I'll start with highlights and Shawn will the present consolidated and segment level financial results. And then I'll discuss our government, in-flight and fixed broadband businesses. Then we'll wrap up with our outlook and take questions. So we've got an excellent opportunity to achieve really good growth in revenue and even better in earnings this year, and our first quarter is a promising start. We entered our fiscal year 2019 with a lot of potential across all of our businesses. And if we continue to execute well, we can turn that into sustained momentum. The big factors for us are the ViaSat-2 service ramp, a big book of commercial airline orders for in-flight connectivity and already strong momentum and a big order book in our government segment. So these are all reflected in the highlights from our first quarter summarized on the chart. Total revenue was $439 million, up 15% year-over-year with all our business segments contributing to that. Awards are up even more at $570 million, up 29% year-over-year. And that's a book-to-bill ratio of about 1.3. Government Systems revenue was up 4% year-over-year and had a very strong orders quarter with a book-to-bill of 1.6. We activated 122 commercial aircraft on to our IFC, or In-Flight Connectivity network, and that got us to 757 in service at the end of the first quarter. That helped drive over 100% increase in revenue in our Commercial Networks segment. And we still got over 850 additional aircraft under contract as of the end of the first quarter. And then, subsequent to the end of the first quarter, we received an additional order of 100 new planes from American Airlines. At the end of May, based on…
Shawn Duffy - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Thanks, Mark. Our fiscal 2019 is off to a strong start on our path to profitable growth. We saw top line growth across all of our segments with revenues up 15% year-over-year, with product revenues up $52 million or 31%, while service revenues were up $7 million or 3% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA came in at $45 million, about where we expected, and which should be the low point for fiscal 2019 due to the expenses associated with the ViaSat-2 service launch, IFC ramp and normal seasonality in the Government segment. We also had our second highest award quarter ever at the company level at $570 million and our book-to-bill ratio was 1.3 to 1. Looking at each segment, in Government Systems, we saw revenue growth of over 4% year-over-year and that's compared to an unusually strong and record Q1 last year. Our current quarter growth was supported by a broad array of both our products and service offerings. We had growth across many of our product lines with next-gen tactical datalink product being the most significant contributor to revenues and earnings performance as we reached a new record of STT shipments in Q1 and achieved a milestone of over 1,000 STT units delivered to-date. Q1 segment EBITDA performance was solid with year-over-year reflecting our growth in revenue, offset by a few factors, including increased selling costs supporting our high-volume proposal activities, growth in R&D associated with our expanding government mobility platforms, plus the sales mix across the segment government platforms and programs. And quickly on segment awards, in Q1, the volume of new contracts resulted in a record segment backlog of nearly $780 million with $170 million of these contract wins in our tactical datalink product line. And these figures do not include any future awards anticipated under IDIQ contracts,…
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Okay. Thanks, Shawn. So I'll go into a little more depth in each area and start with our government segment. This chart summarizes some of the key financial numbers for Government Systems in the first quarter and it also shows four years of historical revenue and earnings results. It's important to note the seasonality effect we've seen each of those years in our government business. Q1 has always been the lightest quarter in terms of revenue and earnings with increases throughout the year. So we believe we'll see the same pattern this year. We've had a 13% compounded annual growth rate in revenues and 19% in adjusted EBITDA over the past four years and that's indicative of the strength and momentum in the business. Strong orders and book-to-bill in the first quarter build confidence and sustain growth. Although the first quarter adjusted EBITDA decreased relative to the year ago period, you can see from the trend in the lower right-hand chart that the comparable period was exceptionally strong and the first quarter still consistent with that 19% full year adjusted EBITDA CAGR. First quarter adjusted EBITDA reflected a significant amount of new business and proposal activity, discretionary R&D projects and was affected by product and service mix. We ended the quarter with a backlog in Government Systems of $775 million and that's 12% higher than where we were last year. That's another good indicator of sustained growth prospects. Government Systems growth was exceptionally strong in tactical datalinks in the first quarter, but we see sustained growth in each of our market areas, including mobile broadband services and product sales and network security appliances, cybersecurity, and satellite. Some of our best and largest opportunities involve integrating all of our skills including mobile broadband, situational awareness and targeting, and layered cybersecurity into…
Operator
Operator
Thank you. And our first question comes from Mike Crawford of B. Riley FBR. Your line is open.
Mike Crawford - B. Riley FBR, Inc.
Analyst
Thank you. Could you please provide an update on when you might launch your first two ViaSat-3 satellites and when it might go to service as well as the earliest you can get potential ViaSat-3 over Asia given that you haven't finalized plans or selected final business plan for that satellite? Thank you.
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Okay. Yes, so haven't changed the ViaSat, the first two ViaSat-3 satellites. The first one we're aiming for in-service around the end of calendar 2020. So just, say within two, a little over two years from now 2.5 years. The next one which will be Europe, Africa, Middle East ought to be about six months behind that. We'll probably talk about the ViaSat-3 schedule once we've committed to a contract on it. We're aiming to do that as we said before by the end of this calendar year. And I think we'll talk about the schedule when we do that.
Mike Crawford - B. Riley FBR, Inc.
Analyst
Okay. Thanks, Mark. And then, while recognizing look angle and certainly the capacity problems or handicaps with LEO and MEO constellations. Have you – are you still interested or have your thoughts changed on how you might have potential interest in adding some of those capacity options to your overall network?
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
So we have a filing for non-geosynchronous MEO orbit system. And we're putting a bunch of work into figuring out how to optimize that. Overall, there are definitely challenges with non-geo systems when they're trying to provide 100% persistent coverage everywhere in the world. And so the direction that we've been looking at is really looking at the non-geo and the geo as an integrated system and that relieved that constraint. We don't have to use the non-geo to provide coverage everywhere. That we think can help improve the economics and still get us some pretty interesting opportunities to reinforce coverage in high demand places and to get polar service. And that's kind of more the angle we're looking at. I think as we've said, we think it's probably going to be a little more expensive on a per unit basis than what can be done with really good geos. But still could be a worthwhile addition to our fleet and that's the direction we're going.
Mike Crawford - B. Riley FBR, Inc.
Analyst
All right. Thanks. And last quick question is, given declining but still robust R&D spend, is there a rough Commercial Networks revenue level where you think ViaSat would return to breakeven EBITDA in that segment?
Shawn Duffy - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Hey, this is Shawn. So I think, one, we look at the segment almost into parts which is kind of isolate investments that we're making to grow the business as a whole and then our different lines of business. So I wouldn't say there's necessarily a target revenue level that we're hitting. I think as you're looking in this year, I think as we noted, we're going to continue to see heavy volumes of terminal shipment. So we should see a really strong year-over-year growth. From an R&D perspective, I think our R&D as a percentage of revenue this quarter was about 8%. We've been ticking down. I think we'll tick down a bit more, but I wouldn't go below kind of that point we've said like 6% to 7% of revenues. I wouldn't go beyond that. That's kind of how we look at it.
Mike Crawford - B. Riley FBR, Inc.
Analyst
Okay, great. Thank you.
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Thanks, Mike.
Operator
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is from Ric Prentiss of Raymond James. Your line is open. Richard H. Prentiss Jr. - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Thanks, good afternoon.
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Hi, Ric. Richard H. Prentiss Jr. - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Hey, a couple of questions. First, Mark, you talked about wanting to go after the right subscribers and that really was the end of May when you were able to get the faster speed plans out there. How should we think about the pacing into second quarter and then for the rest of the year as you look at those opportunities? But then also the opportunities of the Community Wi-Fi and the enterprise as far as where those beams might be? How should we think about the pacing of those different line items?
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Okay. This current quarter which – September quarter, this will be the first quarter that we've really had all of the geographic areas in the high demand markets in service for a whole period. And I think the best thing to do is to wait and see how that – how we report that. I think you'll see stronger net subscriber add growth as well as continued good ARPU growth. And there will be some mix of those two that drives revenue throughout the year. In the past, what we've talked about is – we've shown those charts that show productivity gains and what our target revenue objectives would be and how we'd like to achieve those over the course of about 2.5 years until ViaSat-3 gets into account. And I look at that slope. It's a little bit of work but I'd look at that slope as sort of the product of the subscribers and revenues as what we're aiming for. I think this quarter will be good from that perspective. But it will be best wait and we'll report that. And then that will be an interesting base going forward. In terms of the Community Wi-Fi, right now, that's mostly outside of the U.S. Mexico was our first real target market. We have more bandwidth to deploy there than in any other country. And we've got a lot of room to grow probably a factor of 5 to 10 in total, over the course of the next couple years or so. And so far, it's gone well, but we're paying attention to the incremental results, so that we'll know how much to invest in it. Richard H. Prentiss Jr. - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay. And enterprise same thing, starting – sounded like starting slow there or scaling over time?
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Yes, the enterprise market is – it's new for us at Ka band. We've been preparing for it for a while. Right now, it's on the order of thousands of terminals and we think that will grow faster than the residential well. There are good things about it. Obviously, the ARPUs are quite a bit higher. Also the peak busy hour usage is countercyclical with the residential. And so it provides really good returns for us. We've got a good distribution network. We want to make sure that the network performs the way we expect that we can scale up the billing and the customer support before we really turn up the volume on that one. Richard H. Prentiss Jr. - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay. The other one I want to ask about is the backlog. Obviously, pretty big point on your results for the quarter with the contract wins, obviously, absorbing the numbers quickly and then getting on the call. But government quarter-to-quarter looked like the firm backlog might have gone up by almost $100 million and satellite services looked like it went up huge maybe from $130 million to $500 million. What sort of timeframe should we expect those firm backlogs to turn into revenues given the big step-up that you saw?
Shawn Duffy - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Guys, I think the way to look at it and we've provided additional information for you guys in the Q around the backlog. So just to separate the satellite services backlog, one of the things that we did this quarter was conform the backlog reporting that we need to do under 606 to the backlog that we're providing to you guys. So the element that is an additive into Q1 of this year is the backlog associated with our consumers that are currently under contract. So that's just to point that out and you guys can see further discussion in the 10-Q on that. That's just part of the adoption of the 606 this quarter.
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
That was a backlog adjustment not quarters within the period. Richard H. Prentiss Jr. - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay.
Shawn Duffy - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Yeah. There's nothing in the... Richard H. Prentiss Jr. - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: That was (00:39:21) Yeah. That was like -
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Yeah. Richard H. Prentiss Jr. - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay.
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Yeah. And some were consumer. Richard H. Prentiss Jr. - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Yeah, but government was up -
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
But the government orders, those are new real orders. And those typically, those would be worked off over a one to three-year period in general. Most of the services contracts are a single year at a time, so we'll only put a year in backlog. But typically, 18 months is kind of – you wanted to have an average of when the backlogs will be put into service. That's sort of a good average. Richard H. Prentiss Jr. - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay. And last one for me, kind of more philosophical strategic question. Charlie Oregon was on the EchoStar call first time in probably 7.5 years. Talking about M&A, talking about strategic combinations or partnerships and joint ventures and suggesting that the industry, people have strength. People have weaknesses, makes sense for people to think about some relationships. If you look at ViaSat, what do you consider your biggest strength? And what's the biggest thing you're missing as you look at what the future might hold for the services you're trying to provide?
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Okay. Well, I think our fundamental strengths really in our vertically integrated technology platform that we can do everything from designing the payloads and the networking system to delivering the – to packaging and delivering those services into each market. I think that's really very unique in our space. And I think that what we're really focused on is turning those vertically integrated technologies into competitive advantages in the way that we can deliver services. And mostly, that's in terms of being able to deliver a lot more bandwidth at the same or lower cost which is fundamentally what's really driving the broadband Internet as a whole. So that's the thing that we're most focused on trying to capitalize on. The thing that's going to be important for us on a go-forward basis is globalness, I would say. And that is owning to operate in all the different countries around the world and having the right partnerships in each of those countries. So that's the thing that we're working on. And I think that there's not a lot of companies that are really good at globalness in the context that we're trying to do that is really understand each market and be able to deliver services to end users in those markets, not just to sell to intermediaries. And we think that that's a really important part of capturing the value of what we do. And so we're looking for ways to exploit that. Some of that may be by partnering with entities that are well outside in the satellite industry. It's not at all clear that the satellite industry is really the place to look for consolidation. Richard H. Prentiss Jr. - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Great, makes sense. Thanks for your insights.
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Sure. Thank you.
Operator
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Simon Flannery of Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Simon Flannery - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Great. Thank you very much. Good evening. Nice results in the aviation space and more backlog coming. Can you help us think about the seasonality of that business? I think you talked about strong momentum through the year. But should we expect the pace of Q1 to continue pretty much at a level set or might there be a little bit of seasonality during the busy season in this summer? And any clarity on what's going on with average revenue per aircraft? You talked about strong growth in volumes and traffic. But what's the overall impact of these new planes coming on, on revenue per aircraft? And then, any update on the insurance recovery process? Thanks.
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Okay. I'll try to cover those. So, first, I think that for – probably for the duration of this fiscal year, we'll see installs go at the rate that we've done or increase assuming that things continue to go well. The install rates, really, it's an artifact of multiple things. One is the extent to which we're doing retrofits versus new aircraft. So, for instance, one of the things we've been pretty successful at is getting new orders per line fit 737 MAXs with the number of fleets. Of course, those will roll out at the rate at which those planes are delivered. The same will be true for the new American Airlines A321 orders. The retrofit, those will tend to go faster and we've got a big bunch of retrofits that will work through over the course of next year. In terms of revenue per airplane, there's a pretty big variance in the revenue per airplane, depending on the carriers that we're working with and where they are in their go to market strategies. And I would say it's a little bit premature to draw conclusions on that because the diversity is so wide. And what we're seeing, I would say, at the top level, what I think people should expect is that the average revenue per plane, overall, isn't going to change that much on a go forward basis and that you could think about scaling revenue as the tail count scales. But over time, I think we'll see different patterns in revenue per aircraft from different carriers. And as we learn more about that, we'll probably give more color on it. The other thing that's I think – I mean, I'd say the overall trend will be positive, that revenue per aircraft will grow. And it's partly because we're doing more things for the new carriers, right. So we're providing more tech support. We're providing more maintenance. We're adding in-flight entertainment to the offering as opposed to just In-Flight Connectivity. But I think one of the big factors will be the way that the airlines – that market – bring their In-Flight Connectivity to market. And this thing that I mentioned about the potential for drawing in third-party payers who are these Internet, media and commerce companies, I think that's going to surprise some people in a positive way as well. The last thing you mentioned was the insurance. And where we are for ViaSat-2 insurance is we've provided a bunch of data to the insurers with models we think describe the situation. We've gotten questions back. Remember, there's a bunch of independent insurers. I would say that overall I think the process is converging, but it's still a little too early to make any predictions. Simon Flannery - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Great. Thank you.
Operator
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Philip Cusick of JPMorgan. Your line is open.
Philip A. Cusick - JPMorgan
Analyst
Hey, guys, thanks. Let's dig into two of those things you just mentioned, Mark. First, on the insurance side. So the design footprint of the satellite is intact, but did you actually lose capacity? Thanks.
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Yes. Okay, yes. Yeah, the short answer to that is yes. Our estimates of the capacity of the satellite really haven't changed. I mean one thing that we're happy about is the models that we developed with Boeing and the antenna manufacturer back in January proving to be really good estimates of what the situation is. Yes, there's capacity loss, but the total footprint of the satellite is still what we expected.
Philip A. Cusick - JPMorgan
Analyst
Can you give us an idea of the sort of percentage of the capacity loss versus max?
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
No. I mean what we did, and I think we did this back in January, is using that antenna modeling data, we an estimate that the total capacity was in the – let's see, the maximum potential capacity was in the 260 gigabit per second range. I think that was the number. That we gave you back then and it hasn't changed.
Philip A. Cusick - JPMorgan
Analyst
Okay, understood. And then, let's dig into your comment on Internet, media, and commerce companies. So we'd like to connect with In-Flight Customers. When finally we brought Gogo public, this was a big part of the story, but never really played out. What have you seen from companies these days?
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
So I think it's been different for us. I mean, the big issue – the big thing that these companies want is if they're going to – this is our view of it, but we've had successful engagements with some of these companies. And what they'd like when they go on a plane is that if they're promoting a service that everybody that wants to on that flight can use it. And obviously, most of the In-Flight Connectivity systems just didn't meet that. The more people that try to use the service – whatever that service was, the worse it performed. So, for us, I mean a great example has been our relationship with JetBlue, where they offer free In-Flight Connectivity. We have many fights with more devices connected than passengers and they can still stream. And so JetBlue as an example worked out an initial sponsorship/partnership with Amazon, where Amazon would sponsor a portion of JetBlue's costs. They would work out agreements around e-commerce. And I think it's been a win-win situation. One of the things we've said is that – one of the things Amazon got out of that agreement was much higher viewing rates on Amazon Prime Video at a time when Amazon Prime Video didn't have the same amount of viewership as a Netflix or YouTube or even Hulu. So that's an example. With other airlines, we've had agreements, which would either involve payments or other forms of non-financial partnerships including Spotify and Netflix for instance with Virgin America. When Virgin America launched, it painted an airplane with Netflix and had a good promotion around House of Cards. Qantas in Australia has really embraced these types of media relationships. They also have a free service, very high penetration, and offer both a streaming media and live sports on the fights. So those are the kind of relationships we want. I think each of those partners will tell you that the way they look at it, the more people that use it, the better. That's the arrangements that we're trying to get to.
Philip A. Cusick - JPMorgan
Analyst
Understood. And then lastly, can you help us think about the TAM of fixed broadband in the U.S. not only for ViaSat-2, but when ViaSat-3 launches as well? Hughes has had weaker subscriber growth than we expected and yours is taking some time to take off. Do you think the TAM is as large as you expected a couple of years ago?
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
So we always think of the addressable market as being defined by the relationship between what we offer and what the next best alternatives are. And we think in pretty large parts of the country that alternatives are generally limited to DSL. And we're talking about here generally this long loop DSL where the speeds that can be delivered for relatively long with long loop DSL hasn't improved because there's just not technologies to do that like there are with shorter loops and fast or something that are more metro type of technologies. There may be some – there are going to be some improvements with 5G, but not necessarily in the rural areas. So we think that market is in the millions. It's probably in the 5 million to 10 million. No, I don't think that the market for that services that we're offering right now and the price points that we have right now would be in the 10 million range. But it doesn't need to be because we can't serve that many customers. So basically, what we're trying to do is sort of match our capacity to serve customers well which is bounded by the amount of bandwidth we have and the demand for each customer to match that with the market. But if we can – I think with ViaSat-3 we'll be able to offer higher more – I'll say, more speed, more bandwidth. We'll be able to do that in more geographic places than we can now. And I think that will expand our market, but will still only be able to serve even with adding that satellite to our fleet low single-digit million for sure. So our main concern is just like the addressable market, be a lot bigger than what we're aiming at. And I think it'll continue to be that way for a while.
Philip A. Cusick - JPMorgan
Analyst
Thanks, Mark.
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Thank, you.
Operator
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Chris Quilty of Quilty Analytics. Your line is open.
Chris Quilty - Quilty Analytics
Analyst
Thanks. Mark, the net adds in the quarter were a little less than I was expecting. And I know you don't report gross adds and churn, but when you characterize the quarter here, is it still more of just a slow ramp of ViaSat-2 services as you test out the satellite? Or are there churn issues or substitution issues with legacy customers transferring over to the new service? And wrapping that altogether, would you expect that as we move throughout the year, you kind of see that tens of thousands of customers on the net add side that we've seen traditionally when new satellites come online?
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Okay. So for first quarter, the mean – for the quarter that we just finished probably dominant effect. And the thing that you'll see most different in the second quarter is that the number of people that we could address due to the size issue with the high demand market area I described. So as I said we increased our addressable market for the best plan at the end of May. We had June – basically, we've got the benefit of June for that. In the September quarter, we'll have the benefit for all three quarters. That increases the number of adds we can get. But remember ViaSat-1 – in our older satellites what we're doing is we're offering plans that are higher price, but will use more bandwidth. So we can only have – we're going to go down in the number of subscribers on those while we go up in the number of subscribers on ViaSat-2. So that – we describe that effect a few quarters ago. So I think that's what's going to pace the net add growth. And so what we think is a better measure of the financial performance is that it's just total revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth more than subscribers. That wouldn't be looking for tens of thousands of net adds. We don't need that per quarter to get really good growth in revenue and adjusted EBITDA.
Chris Quilty - Quilty Analytics
Analyst
Great. Thanks for the clarification. Also you had mentioned earlier about the growth on the international front. And you've got, I don't know, 300, 350, 400 government aircraft. You've got large business jets that are all Ku. When you talk about the growth of that network or the Ku network, does that imply that more dual band antennas get out there? Or does that imply that those customers are going to have to shift over to Ka over time?
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Well – okay. So both. Well, one is that we aren't going to put out more dual band antennas because – especially for our government customers and for the next couple of years for our business jet customers, they operate in areas where – in areas other than where our high-demand Ka is. And kind of – the analogy that we used is like you see with mobile service operators that you want the best 4G or 5G coverage you can get, but you also want GSM in your or 3G in your phone because if you go out and here that has the best coverage you want something. And so what's the Ku band the dual Ku band stuff does for us. Our customers tend to have high dwell rates in areas where we have our best coverage be it the U.S., Transatlantic, Europe as examples. They spent a lot of time there. And so they want something that's way better than what they would get with KU or other KA services. While they're there, but they want the KU so they can operate anywhere. And then in terms of the migration to KA I can tell you they all migrate to KA because they want to not because they have to. They want the benefits of KA. And that's what we make it available for them. We're not going to do that.
Chris Quilty - Quilty Analytics
Analyst
Understand. And I think you've mentioned that you've got 200 or so Gen 2 terminals out there. Can you remind us, do you have to go back and replace all the legacy aircraft the modems in order to transition to ViaSat-2 service for the install base?
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Yes we don't. So the first generation doesn't have to be migrated to second generation. But the – to get the ViaSat-2 footprint coverage, you do need the Gen 2. So as I've said – so JetBlue is an example has chosen to migrate to the second generation because they really want that coverage. But you don't have to do that. (00:58:46)
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Pardon I'm sorry, I didn't hear that.
Chris Quilty - Quilty Analytics
Analyst
I am sorry. Go ahead, Ric.
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Rick was just saying that Gen 2 loss would be compatible with ViaSat-3 with the ViaSat-3.
Chris Quilty - Quilty Analytics
Analyst
Got you. I was saying nobody sticks with the standard definition TV nowadays. Everybody moves to HD. So is that something that the customer pays for? Or do you subsidize that?
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
We'll work that out with each of our customers based – depends on a number of factors. But yes we'll work that out with each of our customers. In general that's an upgrade in general.
Chris Quilty - Quilty Analytics
Analyst
Okay. And final question with the community WiFi. I know in a lot of developing countries those are traditionally government run programs. Does that mean you have to go out and bid and compete and win government programs or you go to market in a different way?
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Yes we're going – our version of community WiFi is very different. We've done many programs with governments. We've done that in Mexico as well where the government will subsidize Wi-Fi hotspots. And in general those – we don't think those have provided really good service that limited amount of bandwidth often there on Ku band satellites as an example. So for us and the big thing is we're doing this ourselves. We'll go into markets. Selecting the right market is really importantly figuring out what the right service plans are and the right price points. We do all that stuff. And right now we're pretty excited about it. It's like – we wouldn't say it doesn't have its challenges. But so far it's been really promising and we're excited about it.
Chris Quilty - Quilty Analytics
Analyst
So does that mean you're actually like doing site selection putting up a building and doing that all on your balance sheet? Or is a partner doing that?
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
We're putting them up as ours, and we can do it pretty affordably in these markets. And we are – in some cases we are working with partners to help support the terminals. But basically, we do the site selection. We define the service plans in locations in each of the places that we do them. We're doing lots of tests in big markets and small markets in unserved markets in underserved markets to understand what it is that drives the economic performance we want.
Chris Quilty - Quilty Analytics
Analyst
That's right. And how is that branded? Is it ViaSat branded service center?
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Yes. Yes it is.
Chris Quilty - Quilty Analytics
Analyst
Very good. You got a good new logo to go on the building.
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Yes. Yes we do.
Chris Quilty - Quilty Analytics
Analyst
All right. Thank you.
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Thanks, Chris.
Operator
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's question and answer session. I would like to turn the call back to Mark Dankberg, Chairman and CEO for any closing comments.
Mark D. Dankberg - ViaSat, Inc.
Management
Okay. Well I'd like to thank everybody for spending your time with us this afternoon and we look forward to speaking again next quarter.
Operator
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This concludes today's program and you may now disconnect. Have a great day.