I got 'derailed' into focusing on satellite TV when this thread is about internet.
TV and Internet are different beasts altogether, TV is pretty high bandwidth that only goes in one direction, so high powered troposcatter towers are needed ,with troposcatter the more power you use the further you can broadcast and the higher the bandwidth.
Perhaps up to a couple hundred miles. Beyond that it doesn't work, no matter how much power you use, except under very unusual conditions.
Satellite internet is pretty low bandwidth and incredibly expensive. Looking at the antenna used for MARITIME satellite internet it seems they don need dishes,but can be used with an antenna that doesn't require an exact angle like Sat TV. Not 100% sure though still looking into it.
Please let us know what you find.
Maritime satellite internet could be provided by super pressure balloons, they can hold 8000lbs of equipment[citation needed], you can't use dishes with them because they don't stay still
If you're using balloons, that wouldn't be "satellite internet". Beside that quibble, though, how high can your proposed balloons carry four tons of payload, and how long can they stay at that altitude? If they're at 60,000 feet, they would have to be within about 600 miles of each other or within about 300 miles of a ground terminal in order to relay the data somewhere useful. How many would it take to cover the entire Pacific Ocean
Inmarsat's SwiftBroadband
(pdf) covers the entire world between about 65° north and south latitude, and much of it up to 70°, with three satellites. The entire Pacific Ocean is covered by two satellites, which also cover about half of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans at the same time. Their low-gain aircraft blade antenna provides up to about 200 kbps over a smaller area (complete coverage to about 35° latitude, and partial coverage to about 55°. The highest-gain antenna allows up to 1728 kbps.
http://www.globalmarinenet.com/satellite-internet-at-sea-hardware-airtime-and-pricing/
None of these boat antenna seem to be dishes
What's inside those radomes?
I see
Woody beat you to it. According to you, those antennas are not satisfactory for using balloon relay. Troposcatter won't reach far. That pretty much leaves satellites, then.
[Edit to add consequence of information in Woody's post.]