[evil-olive]

the "original" satellite internet [0] used geosynchronous satellites.

geosynchronous satellites (~35,000km) have an inherent speed-of-light latency of ~250ms. that means even if every other link along the route imposes <1ms latency, you've still got that absolute minimum quarter of a second on every single packet.

Starlink is in LEO (~500km) with a corresponding reduction in the minimum possible latency. that lower altitude also requires much more complex antennas and other ground hardware, compared to just pointing your antenna at a (relatively) stationary point in the sky.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_Internet_access#Hist...