Hughes satellite Internet
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@morbiuswilters said:
The slant range is negligable. Most satellite Internets use tricks for speeding up browsing that bypass the latency-sensitive parts of TCP. However, yes, it ultimately will take approximately 0.473 seconds just for the round-trip radio communication with a geosynchronous satellite. Of course, there are plenty of lower orbits that can be used for much faster communications, but those cover less distance and require more power for omni-directional transmission and hence are more expensive.
That's not the only problem with low Earth orbit satellites. With geosynchronous satellites, one satellite can cover a good chunk of North America. With low Earth orbit satellites, you need more than 10 just to be sure you always have one in view over all of California. Until someone can afford to build and maintain a sizeable constellation, or people are happy with "11 minutes on, 17 minutes off" Internet, we're stuck with 22,000 miles or so.
For browsing, with the clever latency hiding tricks, it's not a problem. Fade and congestion may make browsing painful, but the geosync latency doesn't. However, the latency hiding tricks don't work with SSL, and playing games ranges from painful to impossible.
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@joelkatz said:
That's not the only problem with low Earth orbit satellites. With geosynchronous satellites, one satellite can cover a good chunk of North America. With low Earth orbit satellites, you need more than 10 just to be sure you always have one in view over all of California. Until someone can afford to build and maintain a sizeable constellation, or people are happy with "11 minutes on, 17 minutes off" Internet, we're stuck with 22,000 miles or so.
Hence why I said "cover less distance". I suppose "cover less area" would be more accurate but I was in a hurry.
@joelkatz said:
For browsing, with the clever latency hiding tricks, it's not a problem. Fade and congestion may make browsing painful, but the geosync latency doesn't. However, the latency hiding tricks don't work with SSL, and playing games ranges from painful to impossible.
Right.
