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Comment by throwaway90999 | Hacker News Reader

No, the latency for traditional satellite internet is between 600ms to 1000ms (one full second). Cite: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/02/satell...

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The whole point of the original comment is that these are LEO satellites, rather than the geosynchronous satellites in use for previous internet service. These won't be traditional; they'll be about a thirtieth as far away.

There were mentions of both technologies and I was replying to devindotcom who was talking about how high latency satellites are still useful. Here's a link to that comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8920059

That is why I was careful to specify traditional satellite internet services. It appears the distinction was lost.

For geostationary orbit, yeah it's high latency. That's like >22k miles up. Low-earth orbit is a few hundred miles. The difference in latency is huge.

The highest cost is that you will lose sync with the satellite, since they will be rotating over the horizon frequently. If you can launch enough satellites, then you can have multiple in view at any given time and thus keep a continuous link.

The distance between geosynchronous orbit and low earth orbit is huge. One is ~22,236 miles and the other is 99 miles to 2,000 miles.

That article is about satellite internet using geostationary satellites. Those satellites are as much as 200 times farther away than satellites in LEO.

22,236 miles up, opposed to LEO which starts at about 100 miles up.

Yes I am aware. I am discussing the replies above me, not the article.

That's because geostationary orbit is at 22,000 miles. These will be more like Irridium, which is at 485 miles. You can go lower, but it's more expensive because of extra fuel costs.

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