Technology

Satellite Internet Timeline 1990-2026: Starlink, Kuiper & the Space Broadband Race

Satellite internet began with massive geostationary satellites 35,786 km up, delivering high latency but reaching homes cables never could. Starting around 201…

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SPECTRUM VOTE

FCC Schedules a Vote to Unlock Over 1,000 MHz for Satellite Broadband

The FCC placed a draft order on its 30 September 2026 open-meeting agenda to open more than 1,000 MHz across the 12 GHz and 42 GHz bands for satellite broadband to homes…

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DIRECT-TO-DEVICE

Ordinary Phones Start Talking Directly to Satellites

Starlink's Direct to Cell service, built on 650+ dedicated satellites, went live in roughly 22 countries covering 400 million people, with texting live and voice calling…

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LEO GOES COMMERCIAL

Starlink Opens to the Public, OneWeb Is Rescued

Starlink opened its public beta in October 2020 and expanded to commercial availability through 2021. OneWeb, which filed for bankruptcy in March 2020, was rescued by th…

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DEPLOYMENT BEGINS

Starlink Launches Its First Production Batch

On 23 May 2019, SpaceX launched 60 Starlink v0.9 satellites on a single Falcon 9 — the first of dozens of similarly sized launches that would follow, turning Starlink fr…

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MEGA-CONSTELLATION MOMENT

Reusable Rockets, Smallsats and Phased Arrays Converge

SpaceX landed a reusable Falcon 9 first stage in December 2015, while smaller satellite manufacturing, phased-array antennas and software-defined networking matured in p…

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HIGH-THROUGHPUT ERA

ViaSat-1 and Spot Beams Make GEO Faster, Not Closer

ViaSat-1 launched in October 2011 as the highest-capacity communications satellite of its time, using spot-beam frequency reuse to multiply usable bandwidth. Throughput…

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GEO BROADBAND ERA

DirecPC and Hughes Bring Satellite Dishes to Rural Homes

Hughes launched DirecPC in the mid-1990s, an early satellite internet service reaching rural households terrestrial cable and DSL never economically reached — at the cos…

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FIRST LEO DREAMS

Teledesic and Iridium Attempt the First Low-Orbit Networks

Teledesic was founded in 1990 by cellular billionaire Craig McCaw, with Bill Gates joining early as a major investor. It proposed an 840-satellite constellation, later c…

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