[chrisser]

I’m surprised. I really thought much internet and phone communications nowadays went through satellites. I thought the Trans Atlantic cable was so 20th century. I stand corrected.

My understanding is that the distance involved is the issue with satellite communications. The information is travelling close to light speed, but having to go up to a satellite and back down introduces a delay that would not exist in the more direct route beneath the ocean.

I could be wrong, however.

[Fhios]

35,786 km is the ‘about’ distance of geosynchronos satellites. 299792 km/s is how fast light travels. So looks like a 250ms round trip packet. Not including losses. So yea, that’s slow for people playing twitch games or even moderately paced mmorpgs but still fast enough for huge amounts of data otherwise.

[A Navy Vet]

"My understanding is that the distance involved is the issue with satellite communications. The information is travelling close to light speed, but having to go up to a satellite and back down introduces a delay that would not exist in the more direct route beneath the ocean. I could be wrong."

Radio waves travel AT the speed of light. The distance between Earth bound electomagnetic waves (radio) and orbiting satellites is almost unmeasurable. Plus, it's cable communications have to deal with many choke points or amplifiers due to resistance in the physical wiring system. Fiber optic undersea cables are actually slower than bouncing the same comms off a satellite, so I've read. Although they are more difficult to intercept.

That's why many advanced nations are looking to target satellites. But then, I could be wrong.

[AustinBill]

It’s not just latency. Satellite bandwidth is extremely limited compared to that provided by fiber optic cable bundles. We’re talking tens of terabits worth of capacity. International Internet traffic would feel like we’re back in the days of dial-up modems of that all had to go via satellite.

[Pearls Before Swine]

My understanding is that the distance involved is the issue with satellite communications. The information is travelling close to light speed, but having to go up to a satellite and back down introduces a delay that would not exist in the more direct route beneath the ocean.

"Ping."

If the satellites in question are in geosynchronous orbit, a round trip would be roughly 50K miles. Since light travels 186K miles/sec, a satellite ping would never be less than about .27 seconds. You might be correct.