Facebook Eyes Drones, Planes and Satellites for Broadband → Re: Satellite

The question is, does it have to? Is it an inherent limitation of satellites, or just a poor implementation of the idea?

High latency is one reason geosynchronous Satellite does not work well for some common internet tasks, and is a function of the long distance (at least 45000 mile round trip) to the satellite and back. plus the ground network delays at each end (figure 2 round trips for each transaction, and it starts to add up) even at the speed of light it's a long ways and can't be shortened, that' just physics. add to that the multi billion dollar cost of each satellite with limited bandwidth and lifespan, makes the cost of heavy use prohibitive for most non commercial uses.
Some things satellite is very good at is broadcast/streaming media with availability to a high percentage of locations on earth. or secure commercial transactions worldwide (expensive per byte but independent of ground networks) great for money handling and password verification.

LEO helps with latency but shortens the lifespan of and requires MANY more satellites for coverage (88 for best coverage from 60º north to 60º south) meaning VERY expensive bandwidth.
stratallites and drones would require 10's of thousands for full coverage but might work for selective coverage with fairly minor latency penalties.