What is latency in satellite internet?

The greatness of satellite internet is its capacity to reach the furthest ends of the country.

It’s the kind of internet that goes where no other internet technology can go. It’s very impressive like that. It means that people in the most rural and remote parts of Australia can access the internet like anybody else.

But even the most brilliant diamonds have flaws.

For satellite internet, it’s flaw is unavoidable latency. That doesn’t mean it’s not still incredibly valuable to those that have it. 

What is satellite latency and what causes it?

Satellite latency is the slight time delay you’ve probably already experienced when loading a page or streaming a video.

It’s completely normal, occurs irrespective of supplier, and is part of Satellite technology.

You see, the satellites we have in New Zeland are 36,000 kilometers above the Earth.

That’s fine. That’s where they’re meant to be.

But every time you take an action on the internet and get a response, the signal from your computer needs to make its way across that 36,000 kilometres into space and back again. Twice.

Now that – impressively – only takes 600 milliseconds (0.6 seconds)!

Let’s face it, you’d probably be a little laggy too if you travelled that far that fast.

What’s the difference between bandwidth and satellite latency?

Bandwidth is the maximum data capacity of your connection. For example, if your service can achieve 25 Mbps, you can expect to download a maximum of 25 megabits (just over 3 MB) and upload 5 megabits (625 kB) every second.

Latency is the delay you experience in seeing the results of your internet action. In practical terms, that could be the round-trip delay in receiving that email, the delay in your video loading, the delay in opening a web page properly, for example.

It’s also the thing that will get your virtual-self killed if you are an online gamer attempting MMO games like Call of Duty: Black Ops, Fortnite, Counter-Strike or PUBG. The latency you’ll experience in games like this will mean you’re dead before you realise your opponent is even in frame.

Finally let’s talk about some other impacts of satellite latency

Latency can affect high-interactive applications such as certain types of games, remote desktop work and high-frequency trading.

Here’s a few example of what we’re talking about. This is not a complete list but does cover the main things to think about.

Video streaming

Streaming involves downloading your video from a server.

There will always be an initial delay in a video starting on satellite but once it’s started streaming, satellite latency will generally not cause buffering.

Video chat

Latency will show up in your video chats (Zoom, FaceTime, WhatsApp, etc.) as a delay when each person speaks. It can be a bit of a nuisance because sometimes it can lead to misunderstandings throughout your conversation. Those misunderstandings can be avoided though if you’re aware it’s a possibility.

Accessing servers or web-based applications

Things may move a little slowly when trying to work with web-based servers or applications. The latency from satellite internet shouldn’t impede your use of these sorts of products.

Website loading

You’ll notice the latency in websites loading the first time you visit them. There will be a delay in the page opening completely.

But once you’ve visited that page once, and it caches, the next time you visit will be a much smoother experience. This is because the internet is not trying to share as much data as far and as fast thanks to our good ole friend Mr Cache.