I can imagine some use cases for faster ping between two low orbit satellites could be important but my imagination begins and ends at rocket guidance. I don’t see that ever being useful for 99.9% of networking. The signal has to go down to earth receiver at some point and atmosphere and dish overhead will always lose to a cable.
It’s a boring answer - but cable will remain undefeated until some magic breakthrough in physics comes along. It’s simply just that good.
Well with the new hollow optic fiber you would be right.
Average ping time between Europe and US is 100-150ms, which is high for e.g. gaming. Satellite constellations could cut that down by 33%. Which was a huge promised benefit of starlink, even just for HFT stock trading which is like cheating and mining gold.
But yeah with hollow optic fiber being able to do the same, much of the value of Starlink should be wiped out! SpaceX stock should take a massive nosedive lol!
Afaik you’re wrong about overhead with atmosphere and dish.
The only value internet constellations now provide is universal coverage. But that could be achieved cheaper with a higher orbit of 2000 km instead of 500km. Coverage goes up to 12% instead of 3.6% so you need like 9 times (square) less satellites? I think? And the ping would be worse but still acceptable like 200ms between EU and US if you live somewhere off grid or on the ocean.
I can imagine some use cases for faster ping between two low orbit satellites could be important but my imagination begins and ends at rocket guidance. I don’t see that ever being useful for 99.9% of networking. The signal has to go down to earth receiver at some point and atmosphere and dish overhead will always lose to a cable.
It’s a boring answer - but cable will remain undefeated until some magic breakthrough in physics comes along. It’s simply just that good.
Well with the new hollow optic fiber you would be right.
Average ping time between Europe and US is 100-150ms, which is high for e.g. gaming. Satellite constellations could cut that down by 33%. Which was a huge promised benefit of starlink, even just for HFT stock trading which is like cheating and mining gold.
But yeah with hollow optic fiber being able to do the same, much of the value of Starlink should be wiped out! SpaceX stock should take a massive nosedive lol!
Afaik you’re wrong about overhead with atmosphere and dish.
The only value internet constellations now provide is universal coverage. But that could be achieved cheaper with a higher orbit of 2000 km instead of 500km. Coverage goes up to 12% instead of 3.6% so you need like 9 times (square) less satellites? I think? And the ping would be worse but still acceptable like 200ms between EU and US if you live somewhere off grid or on the ocean.
Ok this is pure marketing bullshit. Source? The physics simply doesn’t check out.