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Old 11-11-2019, 06:00 PM   #3
aaron_huber
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Join Date: Dec 2016
Location: Portland
Posts: 43
Just to correct a few technical details, Hughes satellite Internet has very high latency because their satellites are in geosynchronous orbit which is 22,000 miles above the earth (https://www.hughesnet.com/about/how-it-works). That means that your signal has to travel a round trip of 44,000 miles and even at the speed of light the latency across that distance is over half a second.

Starlink is putting their satellites in low earth orbit (200-700 miles, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starli...constellation)) and obviously at that distance the latency will be much lower. At that height any individual satellite will be moving rapidly over you which is why they need so many to provide coverage. It will basically be the opposite of driving with a cell phone - you'll be stationary and the "towers" will be flying rapidly over you at all times.

The only thing we don't know is the price (and bandwidth caps), but if it's reasonable then it would be a great way to get Internet bandwidth literally anywhere on the planet.

Assuming they actually get it launched, like you said. Given that they already have hardware in orbit and are launching more soon, it's already gone beyond theoretical so I'm keeping an eye on it to help fill in the gaps of cell coverage.
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