Just like our government customers who have had to do whatever it takes to serve their constituents this year, Hughes doubled down on our adaptability, communication, and innovation to continue meeting the needs of our government customers in 2020. Regardless of the challenges at hand, we remain focused on connecting federal, state and local government agencies and workers – even those in areas unserved by terrestrial broadband – to the technologies and services they need to serve their constituents and achieve their missions during this time.

Hughes works closely with various government agency partners to solve some of their most pressing IT challenges. Some notable highlights from this past year include:

• Keeping soldiers connected via high-speed satellite Internet service as they quarantined before being able to return home to their families during the pandemic.
• Supplying managed satellite and wireless services and SD-WAN gateways at National Weather Service (NWS) locations across the U.S., together with ERT, Inc., one of NOAA’s largest science and technology contractors; and
• Powering modern digital signage solutions at more than 200 Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals and outpatient clinics across 11 states, helping to issue critical information in real time to patients and employees.

As a result of efforts like these, Hughes was recently named a 2020 Industry Innovator by the Government Innovation Awards, which celebrate the transformative government projects, individual change agents and industry partners that are reimagining public-sector IT. Hughes was selected as a winner for our work at the forefront of government network modernization—and we could not have done it without customers like those listed above and many more.

Looking ahead to next year and beyond, there are some exciting innovations on the horizon. For instance, our JUPITER 3 satellite – currently under construction – will enable us to deliver service plans of up to 100 Mbps down. We’re also investing in the new OneWeb Low Earth Orbit consortium with the U.K. Government and Bharti Enterprises. Hughes is exploring additional AI and machine learning applications such as our industry-first AIOps self-healing feature that automatically remediates network issues in WAN edge devices.

My experience at Hughes has taught me the value of eco-system partnerships. Vendors and competitors alike, are increasingly teaming up to provide co-managed government solutions. At Hughes, our focus has always been delivering customers the best results without limit to vendor or platform. For example, when it comes to developing network solutions such as managed SD-WAN implementations for customers with lots of locations, we have relationships with more than 400 carriers across the U.S. We really mean it when we say we bring the ‘best of breed’ connection to every site.

In a year that was nothing less than extraordinary, the government technology sector continued to display what I like to call “vigor and rigor.” That kind of resiliency and commitment will carry all of us through the rest of 2020 and well into the new year.