Satellite Internet access Satellite Internet access Satellite Internet access is Internet access provided through communications satellites. Modern consumer grade satellite Internet service is typically provided to individual users through geostationary satellites that can offer relatively high data speeds, with newer satellites using to achieve downstream data speeds up to 506 Mbps. Following the launch of the first satellite, Sputnik 1, by the Soviet Union in October 1957, the US successfully launched the Explorer 1 satellite in 1958. The first commercial communications satellite was Telstar 1, built by Bell Labs and launched in July 1962. The idea of a geosynchronous satellite—one that could orbit
American Satellite Corporation Defense communications systems and built the first digital satellite route from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland via a land base in California. The corporation also invented a shipboard antenna that could connect military vessels to satellite communications despite the pitch and yaw motion of the ship. By 1978 ASC "established the first wideband digital data transmission service via domestic satellite for the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program". 1984 saw the corporation control the largest U.S. transceiver satellite communications network. American Satellite Corporation American Satellite Corporation (ASC) was one of many Fairchild Industries subsidiary companies, and was established in partnership with Continental