# Today's Reading List: Space Internet (2024-01-31)

**URL:** <https://pluralist.net/t/todays-reading-list-space-internet-2024-01-31/62>\
**Category:** breadcrumbs\
**Created:** [February 1, 2024, 6:16am UTC](https://pluralist.net/t/todays-reading-list-space-internet-2024-01-31/62 "2024-02-01T06:16:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![delyan](https://pluralist.net/user_avatar/pluralist.net/delyan/32/245_2.png) [@delyan](https://pluralist.net/u/delyan)\
**Post date:** [February 1, 2024, 6:16am UTC](https://pluralist.net/t/todays-reading-list-space-internet-2024-01-31/62/1 "2024-02-01T06:16:12Z")

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- researching what folks in rural US areas are using for internet - it turns out there have been 2 choices in the past decade:
  - [HughesNet](https://www.hughesnet.com/) - satellites are positioned in a geostationary orbit approximately 35k kilometers (22k miles) above the Earth’s equator
  - [Viasat](https://www.viasat.com/satellite-internet/plans/) - same as HughesNet

- Project Kiuper is very interesting
  - [Amazon confirms 100% success rate for Project Kuiper protoflight mission](https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/innovation-at-amazon/amazon-project-kuiper-protoflight-mission-november-2023-update?clreqid=a9fd5423-7ef8-4604-a732-8d723aa0674c&kbid=88472)
  - the race is on to build the first complete optical inter-satellite link (OISL) constellation: [Amazon Fires Up Its Space Lasers - IEEE Spectrum](https://spectrum.ieee.org/amazon-kuiper-satellites)

# Comparison

| Provider | Orbit Altitude | Latency |
| --- | --- | --- |
| HughesNet | 35,786 km | 630 ms |
| ViaSat | 35,786 km | 724 ms |
| Starlink | 550-1200 km | 20-40 ms |