You'll find satellite internet available from at least one provider in just about every part of the US. This FCC coverage map from December of 2020 shows universal availability for HughesNet (blue) and near-universal availability for Viasat (orange). If you squint at the Pacific Northwest, those yellow dots are the first areas of availability for Starlink, and coverage has undoubtedly grown in the two years since.
FCC/MapboxMost areas of the US can receive satellite internet signals due to the proliferation of satellites attuned to those latitudes. HughesNet, for instance, offers service in all 50 states. Viasat offers universal coverage in the US, except for Alaska, where service is only available in certain regions. Meanwhile, Starlink is still expanding its coverage map, and Project Kuiper is working on getting off the ground.
Some satellite internet companies are also exploring coverage in other parts of the world and experimenting with new deployment approaches, like using community hot spots instead of residential dishes and connections.
Recent advancements have helped satellite internet to hit baseline broadband speeds. However, it's still more expensive than most other common modes of internet, and in most cases, other options will offer better speeds with lower latency. If you aren't sure what your current internet speed is, you can check your connection to put the various numbers in context; uploads and downloads are measured in megabits per second or Mbps.
For instance, DSL and cable internet are very common, with DSL download speeds ranging from 3 to 50Mbps and cable typically providing anywhere from 10 to 940Mbps, depending on your plan. Satellite internet generally comes in at 12 to 100Mbps, though Musk promises that speeds of up to 300Mbps will be possible when Starlink's infrastructure is complete.
Fiber internet, which uses fiber-optic cables, can offer blazing-fast download speeds as high as 5 or even 10 gigabits per second (5,000 or 10,000Mbps). With fiber, your uploads will typically be just as fast as your downloads, which isn't the case with cable, DSL or satellite. However, installing fiber cable is expensive, and deployments aren't cost-efficient in areas with low population density, so there's no telling if or when fiber will become a viable option across most of rural America.
No. Satellite internet does not require a phone line, a cable connection, or any other special wiring in your home. All that's required is electricity to power the receiver dish, a place to mount it outside your home and an unobstructed view of the sky. From there, you'll use an Ethernet cable to connect the dish to a router and broadcast the signal throughout your home as a Wi-Fi network.
In most cases, yes. With HughesNet, the cheapest plan comes with a monthly data allowance of 15GB, while the most expensive plan comes with 100GB. You won't be charged a fee or cut off once you use more data than that, but you will experience extreme slowdowns. It's the same story at Viasat, where plans are more expensive but come with more data, with caps ranging from 40-150GB.
Starlink is the exception, at least for now -- the service does not currently enforce data caps on any of its customers.
Yes. You can stream video from the web over a satellite connection. Streaming in standard definition doesn't require download speeds much faster than 3Mbps, and streaming in 4K requires download speeds of at least 25Mbps. All HughesNet satellite internet plans come with download speeds of 25Mbps, while Viasat offers plans as fast as 100Mbps. Meanwhile, the speed-testing site Ookla found that satellite service from Starlink hit average download speeds of 105Mbps in the US during the fourth quarter of 2021. Remember that your speeds will dip if you're connecting wirelessly over Wi-Fi, especially if you're more than a few rooms away from your router.
Source: cnet.com