As of mid-2025, Starlink is available in over 110 countries and territories. In the United States, Starlink began with limited trials in August 2020 and the public beta “Better Than Nothing Beta” in November 2020, and now has nationwide commercial coverage including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, with over 2.5 million subscribers as…
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Radar altimeters on TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1, Jason-2, Jason-3, and Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich have provided a global mean sea level record since 1992, showing a rise of about 3.3 millimeters per year and roughly 10 centimeters over 30 years. Arctic summer sea ice extent has declined by about 12% per decade since the 1980s, with the Arctic…
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As of early 2025, about 73.5% of Cape Verde’s population were internet users, roughly 387,000 people out of ~526,000. Fixed broadband subscriptions totaled about 38,000 in 2023, approximately 7 per 100 people. Cape Verde Telecom (CVTelecom) reported passing over 22,000 FTTH homes by the end of 2021, primarily in urban areas. There were over 600,000…
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Geostationary orbit sits at about 35,786 km above the equator and completes a sidereal day (~23h56m), so satellites appear fixed over one longitude; Arthur C. Clarke popularized it in 1945, giving the region the nickname the Clarke Belt. A GEO satellite remains stationary relative to the ground, allowing ground antennas to point at a fixed…
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L-band MSS terminals, such as Inmarsat FleetBroadband and Iridium Certus, provide global coverage with compact antennas but limited data throughput. Ku-band VSAT (12–18 GHz) has been the maritime workhorse, Ka-band HTS (26–40 GHz) offers higher capacity, while C-band deployments are restricted near shore due to interference and large dish requirements. GEO satellites offer broad coverage…
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As of early 2025, about 12.4 million Cameroonians were internet users, representing 41.9% of the population. As of 2024, roughly 60% of Cameroonians live in urban areas, with internet access heavily concentrated in cities and rural areas almost inaccessible. Cameroon’s fiber backbone extends over 12,000 kilometers and is connected to five landfall cables: SAT-3, WACS,…
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LEO satellites orbit at roughly 500–1,200 km, delivering latency of about 20–50 ms and broadband speeds comparable to terrestrial networks, versus GEO’s ~600 ms latency. SpaceX Starlink has launched over 7,000 satellites since 2019, provides coverage in about 130 countries, had more than 4 million subscribers by late 2024, and offers 50–200 Mbps to rural…
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Starlink has launched over 8,000 satellites since 2019, serves 125 countries, and by April 2025 reached the 250th dedicated Starlink launch, establishing SpaceX’s network as the largest in orbit. OneWeb, founded in 2014, began Gen1 launches in 2019 with 618 of 648 satellites deployed by March 2023, filed for Chapter 11 in 2020, was rescued…
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In May 2023 the U.S. FCC sided with Starlink over proposed uses of the 12.2–12.7 GHz band, preserving it for satellite services and preventing two-way 5G interference. In August 2022 the FCC denied Starlink’s $885 million Rural Digital Opportunity Fund subsidy due to performance concerns and high equipment costs, including a roughly $600 dish. By…
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Starlink launched its first batch of 60 satellites in 2019, and by late 2024 the constellation numbered nearly 7,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit. In 2022 Starlink introduced laser inter-satellite links, enabling data to hop between satellites and extending coverage to oceans, polar regions, and remote locales. By mid-2023 Starlink declared global coverage aside from regulatory…
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