Re:FCC approves SpaceX plan for satellite broadband network
by Robotbeat on Friday April 06, 2018 @08:27PM
(#16778680)
The path taken by fiber optic cables is at least as bad, though. Even before you count the slower speed of light in glass.
Re:FCC approves SpaceX plan for satellite broadband network
by bpd1069 on Friday April 06, 2018 @07:37PM
(#16778454)
The satellites will be meshed over 83 orbital planes starting around 1100km up. The satellites will connect to the farthest satellite it can see that makes the shortest path to the egress. So 2~3 hops verse a datacenter hops to the fiber ingress..then out the fiber across the atlantic.
Presuming a flat surface of 200 X 200, and a random line across half of that, and presuming that satellites only communicate with nearest neighbours you can guesstimate that the extra distance is significant (ignoring other factors).
If they can communicate with more distant satellites then distance could decrease (short cut segments around great circle).