I took it to mean the laser would be based on the station and so could transmit directly to a ground station cutting out the extra 22,000 mile extra hop to the geosync satellite?
The geosync satellites are very high, 5.6 Earth radius above the Earth surface. (The radius of the orbit is 6.6 Earth radius.) And you have to multiply it by 2 because the signal has to go from the ISS to the satellite and then to Earth.
The ISS is only 0.06 Earth radius above the Earth surface approximately. So in this case, most of the latency will come from horizontal travel (and the latency of the usual congestion in the net).
I wonder how they expect to be able to use this for regular internet access though, I can't imagine the ISS constantly has line of sight of a terrestrial station, as it's not very high up. Even less so with laser since clouds probably block the signal.
The geosync satellites are very high, 5.6 Earth radius above the Earth surface. (The radius of the orbit is 6.6 Earth radius.) And you have to multiply it by 2 because the signal has to go from the ISS to the satellite and then to Earth.
The ISS is only 0.06 Earth radius above the Earth surface approximately. So in this case, most of the latency will come from horizontal travel (and the latency of the usual congestion in the net).