News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on SpaceX just got FCC approval to launch 7,518 satellites. Parent comment

Re:SpaceX just got FCC approval to launch 7,518 satellites by stephen_g on Friday November 16, 2018 @01:14AM (#18466845)
The problem it certainly going to be uplink/downlink - even with this massive constellation, you're fairly limited by the available RF spectrum. If you had a decently high subscription rate in a reasonably densely populated area, you'd probably be down to dozens of megabits per second per user at most.

This could deliver absolutely massively better internet in less populated areas like rural, shipping, etc. but I feel like people are perhaps getting the wrong idea and thinking this could supersede terrestrial networks in urban/surburban areas - in which case there will be a lot of disappointed people.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:SpaceX just got FCC approval to launch 7,518 satellites by kartickv on Friday November 16, 2018 @01:30AM (#18466913)
I didn't ask about users in densely populated areas. Imagine two villagers on opposite sides of the world communicating via Starlink. Would it be cheaper per bit for Starlink to offload the data to the nearest metro area, from where it can travel around the world by fiber, till the closest metro area for the receiver, at which point it gets sent via satellite? In other words, use satellite only as the last mile on each end, not for the backbone.
[ Parent | on HN ]