VSAT is often used to describe the proprietary business systems that originated as alternatives to dedicated and multidrop leased lines in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Once used predominantly for credit-card transactions, VSATs have recently been upgraded to handle intranet applications and multimedia Webcasting. There are approximately 400,000 VSATs in the world. The ability to create a packet of data once and have it sent to multiple locations simultaneously.
Satellite is one of the more efficient ways to multicast content.
The IP protocol, combined with the Digital Video Broadcasting standard, now makes it possible to multicast broadband content over satellite to a corporate terminal or Internet edge server to be cached for local users. Digital Video Broadcasting, an international digital standard used by TV, cable and satellites to format digital content. It's based on the MPEG-2 compression standard for transmission of broadband video or audio. DVB has been adopted for digital TV and radio by just about every country in the world. Geostationary orbit satellites, which are in orbit 22,300 miles from the earth.