Broadband satellite solutions and services provider Hughes (News - Alert) Network Systems  has expanded its offerings to include VoIP with the launch of HughesNet Voice. This feature-rich home VoIP solution is available immediately to subscribers in the U.S.

In fact, this new offering can be bundled with the company's HughesNet high-speed satellite Internet service; allowing customers in remote regions to benefit from significant savings in long distance calling and advanced telephony features such as call forwarding and enhanced voicemail.

HughesNet Voice is the latest deployment of VoIP over satellite deployments based on Hughes' satellite network and technology. Most notably, the company helped Telefonica Spain provide VoIP in remote areas of the country back in 2009. Similarly, Hughes has helped Telkom South Africa reach around 5,000 customers who lack landline phone services.

HughesNet Voice in North America, meanwhile, offers high quality of service (QoS) calling thanks to Hughes' past experience delivering satellite VoIP, culminating in the HughesNet Gen4 service delivery system. Indeed, HughesNet Gen4 establishes dedicated bandwidth for voice traffic, eliminating various types of interference commonly experienced when running data over a satellite Internet connection.

Hughes received a 2012 Satellite Spotlight Product of the Year Award from Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC (News - Alert)) earlier this year for HughesNet Gen4 because of its unique capabilities.

"We've been delivering high quality public network VoIP services to our enterprise customers for many years and have now leveraged that experience to deliver a compelling voice solution for consumers around the world," said Mike Cook, senior vice president of Hughes, in a statement. "Customers say they love having a new affordable phone service option with the many advanced features that HughesNet Voice offers, giving them a truly industry-leading telephony solution."

As one would expect, HughesNet Voice is available in a range of plan options, such as international calling, allowing customers to select the feature set that best suits their needs.