Satellite links have the vertical atmospheric attenuation
only for the extent in that direction (modulated by cloud
cover or lack, etc.). Point to point terrestrial links traverse
a greated atmosphere-attenuated path. Of course the
hop distance is well less than geosynchronous orbit.
The choice of frequency band includes the absorbtion
vs divergence calculation, among other things.
Satellite transmit power is limited to what battery-
averaged solar input can support, on the down leg.
Terrestrial (other than very remote link stations)
can afford wire-line power to the limits of emitted
power levels.
Satellites do not face competition from fiber optic
links, unlike terrestrial backhaul and trunk systems.
Their cost structure is high, with launch costs and
the use of specialty products specially qualified and
unserviceable-in-the-field. The whole "ecosystem"
favors one-to-many broadcast covering regions that
do not have good, or have overpriced wire-line or
FO service (terrestrial to-the-home service is very
anti-competitive, other than phone vs cable choice,
but you get only one of each) or cross-continent,
cross-ocean sorts of leased channels. At some point
the expensive hop beats the even more expensive
(or impractical for reasons of NIMBY / eminent domain
type stuff) laying of new cable.
Point to point microwave / millimeter wave vs P-t-P
free space optical is another competition, each has
some band-specific sensitivities to precipitation, fog
and baseline atmospheric attenuation; the optical
can also be refracted away from target by thermals
and to on.
Not all links use geosynchronous birds - the one-to-
all, tend to because homeowner dishes would be less
affordable and less reliable if they required active
pointing (either gimbaled or active array - Joe Allthumbs
isn't going up on the roof for quarterly maintenance
of the mechanicals, and phased array receiver antennas
use a lot of semiconductor content, more reliable but
way more spendy). So LEO birds tend to be used for
handset apps where proximity fixes the power problem
and most calls don't outlast the time-overhead slot or
can be handed off to the next bird flying over, without
too much concern for continually re-pointing.