In an article in the Wall Street Journal today, ViaSat announced the purchase of WildBlue for $568M buying out existing shareholders Liberty Media, Intelsat, Kleiner Perkins and the NRTC. WildBlue now has over 400,000 subscribers and has been growing rapidly but is capacity constrained and this deal paves the way for an expansion of the service using new ViaSat technology, including the ViaSat-1 satellite scheduled to launch in early 2011.

The two companies have worked together for over ten years and this acquisition is a great thing for both sides. By joining forces, the two companies will be able to reduce long-term costs and risk of expanding Internet access via satellite and brings a great combination of scaled services and terrific brand name at WildBlue together with technology creation expertise at ViaSat.