Comment Re:There are none (Score 1) 175
Add to that, some satellite internet services use DSL for the upstream connection, which wouldn't work at all for a remote station in South America.
GlobalStar is a low earth orbit (about 60 miles up) satellite communications system that can do internet traffic. Latency will be much lower than a geo-stationary satellite. But speed will be low (about the same as a phone modem) unless you tie several channels together. To keep satellite costs down, the system is a "bent-pipe," so availability will depend on whether GlobalStar has a ground station somewhere near where you are using it. Having to license ground stations in hundreds of different countries is what really held back development of this system.
Iridium is also LEO, but has more complex satellites that route calls from satellite to satellite until it is over a ground station in the US, then routes the call to the ground. Last I heard it had been appropriated by the US military (they liked that all calls went through the US instead of ground stations in other countries). I don't know whether civil service is available any more. But it would probably also be a pretty slow link since it was originally designed for phone calls.