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
Communications satellite to develop satellite communications, it was launched by NASA from Cape Canaveral on July 10, 1962, in the first privately sponsored space launch. Relay 1 was launched on December 13, 1962, and it became the first satellite to transmit across the Pacific Ocean on November 22, 1963. An immediate antecedent of the geostationary satellites was the Hughes Aircraft Company's Syncom 2, launched on July 26, 1963. Syncom 2 was the first communications satellite in a geosynchronous orbit. It revolved around the earth once per day at constant speed, but because it still had north-south motion, special equipment was needed to