HughesNet Celebrates Two Years of Connecting Chileans in Rural and Remote Areas with Satellite Internet Service

April 29, 2021

Hughes Network Systems celebrates the second anniversary in Chile of HughesNet®, the company’s flagship high-speed satellite internet service. Reaching 98% of the population of Chile, HughesNet is available from Arica down to the north of the Aysen Region, providing connectivity to the country’s most remote locations, even places where land-based Internet access, such as fiber and cable, is not available. 

“Today, HughesNet is the connectivity solution for rural areas across Chile and we are very proud to celebrate our second year connecting more and more Chileans,” said Benjamin Valverde, Commercial Director of Hughes Chile. “There has been a dramatic difference in connectivity between rural areas and large urban centers, but with HughesNet, people across the country can enjoy all the advantages of Internet access, particularly important in today’s context.”

One of the first HughesNet customers in Chile was Tomas Rodriguez, Director of the Punta Colorada School, who lives in the village of El Romeral in Elqui Province in the Coquimbo Region. Mr. Rodriquez said: “HughesNet has made my life easier with the students and the meetings I have with colleagues at the main office. Without HughesNet, I would not be able to do anything, I would have to go to La Serena.”

With service plans for homes and SMEs, HughesNet brings families and professionals the access they need to work, take online classes, surf the web, connect with social media, and conduct business activities such as processing credit card transactions and managing inventory. Service is available in sectors as remote as Isla Mocha or Isla Santa María in the Biobio Region, the mining areas of northern Chile and the village of Melimoyu in the Aysen Region, bringing essential connectivity whilst also creating new employment opportunities for a network of distributors.

Pablo Werner is a HughesNet customer living in Melimoyu, a rural village with less than 100 inhabitants in the Cisnes municipal district, 14 hours by sea from Chiloe Island, where there is still no cable or fiber optic internet. Mr. Werner said: “The HughesNet service is essential for us, especially in an area as isolated as Melimoyu. Here, everything was limited, but HughesNet gave us the possibility of having better connectivity in the region so we can go about our daily tasks with a much more reliable signal.”