I think a large part of HN success was their ability to advertise directly 24/7 on their own Direct TV channel (misleading as it was). That advertising reached millions of rural customers and was the perfect target market.
The falling out between Charlie and Starband also did not help matters, he deliberately held back hundreds of thousands of dollars in monthly subscriber revenue and severely crippled them for close to a year. Starband had to go into chapter 11 to get Charlie to fork over the cash and negate the contract. To its credit Starband came out of chap 11 a few years ago a leaner meaner company and now that it is a subsidiary of Spacenet it has significant financial means and support. Remember the famous car rental commercials, "because we are number two we try harder"
I think the new Nova Sky edge modem is proof of their continued commitment to the residential and SOHO market.
BTW Spacenet today had it's 25th year anniversary.