PUBLISHER: Aviation & Defense Market Reports (A&D) | PRODUCT CODE: 1383262
PUBLISHER: Aviation & Defense Market Reports (A&D) | PRODUCT CODE: 1383262
Satellite internet is a type of internet service that is delivered via communication satellites in orbit around the Earth. It is a viable alternative to traditional terrestrial internet connections such as cable, DSL, or fiber optic connections. One of the major benefits of satellite internet is its ability to provide coverage in areas where terrestrial internet infrastructure is limited or non-existent. Satellite internet can reach remote and rural areas, islands, ships at sea, and other locations where laying cables or establishing ground-based infrastructure would be difficult or expensive.
Small satellite constellations in low Earth orbit (LEO) typically provide satellite internet services. These constellations are made up of hundreds, if not thousands, of satellites that work together to provide global coverage.
SpaceX's Starlink, OneWeb, and Amazon's Project Kuiper are examples of such constellations. Satellite internet works by sending signals between a ground-based user terminal, such as a satellite dish or phased array antenna, and the satellites in space. The user terminal sends requests to satellites, which relay the information to gateways, which are ground-based stations. Users can access the internet through gateways that connect to the internet backbone.
The latency or delay in signal transmission caused by the distance between the user terminal, satellite, and ground-based stations is one challenge with satellite internet. While traditional terrestrial internet services typically have low latency, satellite internet can have higher latency due to the time it takes signals to and from space.
However, when compared to traditional geostationary satellite internet, the use of LEO satellite constellations has significantly reduced latency.
Satellite internet speeds have improved over time, but they are still generally slower than terrestrial broadband connections. Satellite internet speed and bandwidth are determined by factors such as the design of the satellite system, network capacity, and user demand. However, with the deployment of large-scale satellite constellations, available speed and bandwidth have increased, resulting in faster internet connections than with previous satellite systems.