Well... Let's look at costs.
Satellite in space = $500,000,000
17 Ground Stations = Probably around $1,000,000 a pop if not more
The monthly connection fee for fiber = I have not the closest clue, but it certainly can't be cheap.
Life expectancy of Satellite is 15 years... Hughes is also a company looking to make profits, it's not a charity.
so, at a minimum, $517,000,000/15 years = $34.4 Million per year that Hughes has invested towards a single satellite. Now, consider that this thing has to be replaced more like every 10 years to be on the safe side, then consider the difference between a cable line and satellite.
In all honesty, that $50 to $60 for 5GB of data a month isn't that bad of a deal, especially when you sit and look at the likes of AT&T charging anywhere from $5 to $50 for every 1GB over (this depends on location, plan, blah blah blah).