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They're claiming lower latency than existing satellites due to lower altitude orbits and are using more satellites to compensate for the decreased coverage from each satellite.

Presumably this setup would also help with the cloud coverage issue due to the shorter travel distance and higher likelihood of redundant satellites to connect to.

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To be more precise, some of the lowest flying Starlink satellites will be at 340km, which is very low — lower than the ISS, even. By contrast, traditional internet satellites orbit at ~35,700km.

550km, actually, or 340 miles. Still a couple orders of magnitude closer to Earth than satellites in GSO.

v2 is planned to have satellites as low as 328 km. https://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs/download.do?attachment_key=...

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