Wheatland Communications, the satellite provider that has suffered from internet problems in the last few years, is getting another headache this week when it reported that it is facing a new set of challenges.
In a notice to its customers on Wednesday, Wheatland said that it was having to temporarily suspend its internet service, affecting about 4,400 customers.
It said the disruption is caused by a “technical issue” with its satellite system, and that it would work with the provider to resolve the issue.
Wheatland said in its notice that it believes the issue stems from a malfunctioning satellite dish.
The notice did not elaborate on the cause of the problem, but in a blog post on Wednesday it said the outage was due to a malfunction of a satellite dish, which it said was a result of “a malfunctioning component of our satellite network, which resulted in an intermittent signal from the satellite dish not functioning as intended.”
Wheatfield said in the blog post that the company has been working to repair the problem and is expected to have service back to normal shortly.
It is unclear how long the outage will last.
The outage is the latest to hit the satellite broadband industry in the past year, which has been facing challenges in recent years from the rise of high-speed internet and from a surge in smartphone use.
The satellite internet provider, which also provides voice and video services, said that the outage is unrelated to any customer complaints, but that it had been dealing with a number of issues this year.
In October, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced a proposal to regulate broadband internet service as a utility.
The proposed rules would require companies to provide “net neutrality” protections, which would require internet service providers to treat all web traffic equally, and would also require them to provide information about customers’ internet use to customers.
