So, my parents livr in an area where the only internet available is satellite. It sucks.
However, they also have satellite TV and can watch that no problem.
What’s the difference? Is it just a scale issue where TV has more money and resources compared to satellite internet companies?
In: Technology
Satellite TV is a one-way broadcast. Satellite internet is point-to-point.
Broadcast works by having a single sender that sends the same signal to everyone. It doesn’t matter whether there’s one receiver or two million receivers, you’re all watching the same set of channels and the infrastructure cost and complexity doesn’t change. When your device is “tuning” to to watch particular channel, what it really does is filter out the signal that you’re not watching.
Point-to-point connection need to be scale with the number of users; you’re competing for a limited resource with all the other users.
Secondly, satellite TV is doesn’t care about latency; if you saw a show 5 seconds later than your neighbor who watches the same show using cable, you would never notice it.
Satellite internet is much more latency sensitive. Sending internet signal up the atmosphere and down again takes a much longer time than through copper/fiber optic, even at the speed of electromagnetic radiation (i.e. speed of light).
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