[Spktyr]

You might get higher transfer speeds, but you’re still looking at a minimum 250ms or so latency which will screw anything that involves streaming - like VOIP.

[MediaMole]

This would be a great option for a backbone provider that pre-caches files locally.

An organization like Akamai could transfer large multimedia files to a local server in a place like Guam or Okinawa using the satellite, then serve them to home users from a local server.

[m1911]

Yep.

Geostationary orbit = 35,786km up
Speed of light = ~300,000km/sec
voice travel from you to satellite = .12 sec
voice travel from satellite to ground station = .12sec

250 msec total would be very fast or absolutely minimal switching and routing.

Everyone has seen actual satellite conversation - on CNN or Fox with a remote reporter. “Over to you Jim”... pause ... pause ... pause “Yes Bill, it’s quite hot here!”

[TommyDale]

"You might get higher transfer speeds, but you’re still looking at a minimum 250ms or so latency which will screw anything that involves streaming - like VOIP."

Exactly! There is no way around the 186,000 miles per second limitation. Assuming the satellite is stationary at 22,400 miles altitude, one only needs to calculate that round trip time.

[Balding_Eagle]

You might get higher transfer speeds, but you’re still looking at a minimum 250ms or so latency which will screw anything that involves streaming

That was one of the reasons I quit DirecWay as soon as DSL became available. It doesn't seem like much lag, but it gets really annoying.