Low-orbit satellite
Orbit solved the latency problem that geostationary never could. Capacity is still shared, and the sky is not infinite.
01Where the ground runs out
Geostationary satellites sit roughly 36,000 kilometres up. The round-trip delay — 600 milliseconds or more — made them useless for anything interactive, and adequate only for broadcast or desperate last-resort connectivity. Low-earth orbit changes the geometry entirely: shells at 500–1,200 km cut latency to 20–40 milliseconds in practice, which is workable for VoIP, video conferencing and real-time applications that would have choked on GEO lag.
The engineering trade-off is coverage. A single GEO bird covers a third of the globe; a single LEO satellite sees a narrow, fast-moving footprint. Viable service requires hundreds or thousands of satellites in coordinated constellations, continuously handing off sessions as they arc overhead. Building and launching that infrastructure is extraordinarily capital-intensive — in the billions before a single customer is served.
The user terminal is a phased-array dish that tracks satellites electronically rather than mechanically, which is what makes the system practical for non-specialist installation. A clear view of a substantial portion of the sky is still required: trees, buildings and steep-sided valleys cause outages, and mounting position matters more than most installers expect. The dish communicates with ground stations that connect onward to internet exchange points, so the final terrestrial hop still has to work.
Capacity is shared across every terminal within a satellite's beam cell, and those cells move. A densely populated area under a beam momentarily shared with thousands of users will see throughput degrade — the physics of shared spectrum applies just as it does on a fixed wireless sector. Rural and remote deployments, where user density is low, are where LEO performance holds up best: the exact market segment where fibre economics never close and copper never reached.
For access-network planners, LEO satellite is a genuine tool for scattered premises, island communities, vessels and temporary infrastructure — not a substitute for terrestrial build where terrestrial build is viable. The terminal cost and monthly capacity pricing still exceed most fixed-line equivalents, and the service-level ceiling is set by shared spectrum, not by the fibre into the exchange.
Where it wins and where it doesn't
- GEO latency — 600 ms+ round trip, fatal for interactive use
- LEO latency — 20–40 ms in practice, usable for voice and video
- Best deployment case — scattered rural premises, islands, vessels, temporary sites
- Key installation constraint — unobstructed sky view; trees and valley walls cause real outages
- Capacity limit — shared beam; dense use degrades throughput, sparse rural use performs best
- Cost position — terminal and monthly pricing above most fixed-line equivalents
| GEO latency | 600 ms+ round trip, fatal for interactive use |
| LEO latency | 20–40 ms in practice, usable for voice and video |
| Best deployment case | scattered rural premises, islands, vessels, temporary sites |
| Key installation constraint | unobstructed sky view; trees and valley walls cause real outages |
| Capacity limit | shared beam; dense use degrades throughput, sparse rural use performs best |
| Cost position | terminal and monthly pricing above most fixed-line equivalents |
