WildBlue Communications, Inc

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WildBlue Communications, Inc. wanted to keep the cost of its services and equipment affordable for subscribers while providing secure "last mile" communication and protecting itself against potential theft of service. WildBlue achieved this by leveraging DOCSIS/BPI+ standards and X.509 digital device certificates for device authentication. It turned to VeriSign for guidance and deployed VeriSign® Device Certificate Service. In three years 750,000 digital device certificates have been issued by the VeriSign hosted CA to vendors producing satellite modems for WildBlue. WildBlue has been steadily growing its satellite broadband service offering while living up to its promise to provide a secure and affordable broadband service in virtually every corner of the continental U.S.

Leveraging the open security standard DOCSIS digital device certificate authentication mechanism has been much more cost-efficient to deploy than a proprietary security solution. By utilizing VeriSign Device Certificate Service, device manufacturers avoid a costly Certification Authority set-up. Our customers benefit because WildBlue's equipment and services are far more attractively priced, and they can enjoy the same reliable secured communications that subscribers of DOCSIS-based cable broadband service have come to rely on

Aakash Sahai,
Senior director of access technologies,
WildBlue Communications, Inc

Industry

• Telecommunications and Internet Services

Challenges

• WildBlue wanted to enhance security and integrity by leveraging open standards-based X.509 PKI digital certificates for device authentication.
• Needed to keep the cost of equipment and service attractive and affordable for rural subscribers.
• Had the operational requirement to restrict service registration by subscriber to WildBlue's network in the presence of other spatially overlapping networks.

Solution

• VeriSign® Device Certificate Service

Results

• The VeriSign-hosted shared device manufacturers' CA has already issued 750,000 digital certificates for use in devices deployed in WildBlue's network.
• WildBlue is poised to make even larger gains in subscriber numbers.
• Cost-effectiveness of the VeriSign® public key infrastructure solution is one of the key contributing factors to maintaining low cost of equipment and service.
• Successful service coexistence with concurrent spatially-overlaid services operating in North America.