Japanese government officials said they will develop a new communications satellite to provide broadband services that are as fast as fiber-optic cable.

Japan's Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry said the new satellite will make it possible to send and receive data at a maximum speed of 100 MBps in mountainous areas and remote islands, as well as aboard Shinkansen bullet trains, airplanes and ships.

The satellite will have a dish antenna measuring 66 feet in diameter. It will be four times larger in diameter and 16 times larger in surface area than a conventional satellite antenna.

said by TKJunkMail :

One thing that the news item left out of this wonderful product is that the average latency of about 800 msecs for a satellite connection( »Satellite Forum FAQ »What are the average ping times for satellite? ) makes the product a poor supplier of interactive internet browsing. It will suffer the same problems that the Direcway( »HughesNet Satellite ) system does.

That doesn't mean it doesn't have a lot of uses. It just means that when the marketing types start hyping the product they conveniently overlook its limitations. And in comparing it to fiber optic without mentioning latency issues, they are doing just that.