IP-over-satellite: Internet connectivity blasts off

Many emerging broadband network technologies are dependent upon terrestrial based physical wiring to support megabit- and gigabit-per-second transmission rates. But the thirst for Internet connectivity and high performance remains unquenched. It cannot, and should not, be constrained by the physical wire. Wireless radio frequency (RF) mechanisms (such as general packet radio service, or GPRS) are becoming more popular for connecting mobile and fixed end users to the Internet, but they include performance and configuration limitations posed by technical, environmental, and geographic factors. An ideal solution would be a broadband wireless technology offering performance comparable to that of terrestrial links while supporting residential, corporate, and ISP network configurations and reaching just about anybody in the world, i.e., satellite communications