1) Practical quantum computing seems to have made little practical progress this decade. This is mostly a gut feeling on my part since I have no professional experience in the field.
2) Starlink will be a major competitor in the rural ISP space. The extremely low maximum density of ground stations means that they can't possibly be a major competitor in a dense urban core or even a dense suburban community.
3) I don't see any particular reason to believe this will happen anymore than that it won't.
4) In the sense that 1 is "more common" than 0, this one is probably true, but I have a suspicion that the economics don't work out nearly as well as we hope. The second half is already true (I work on research that supports making those new regulations)
5) ~~Not much of a prediction. It's already true in some circles.~~
Edit: I should say that it's already stylish in some circles to not own a smartphone. So far everyone I've met in that category still caries some kind of cellular device capable of making emergency calls at the very least. With a near-ubiquitous cellular network available, it's very hard to articulate a reason why you wouldn't use it in an emergency situation. Furthermore, with the rise of the cell network, payphones have fallen out of fashion, meaning that there's even less infrastructure today that there once was for those who wish to eschew cell phones entirely for whatever reason.
6) Again, not my area of professional expertise, but I don't think solar on every roof in the US would actually be enough affect this change. Wind is likely to meet push-back from neighbors, and I don't even know why hydro is listed. The grid will change radically over the coming century, but the next decade is going to see continued incremental change to draw down coal generation and increase storage capacity.
Is there a quantum solution for one of the popular proof-of-work algorithms?
What makes you think this? It’s hard to see anyone ever using satellite as backhaul except where strictly necessary; fibre will always win there.
> Hard to see how it competes with the ~infinite bandwidth offered by fibre for normal usage, tho
1.) Wouldn't be surprised to see ISP's cap bandwidth per individual user and create additional "bandwidth" and "data usage" pricing tiers. Thanks to net neutrality being wiped out, it's now permissible to charge via "fast lanes" and "slow lanes" what makes you think this behavior will stop on the commercial side of things?
2.) You will have secure internet access basically everywhere you go, rather than jumping around different untrustworthy wifi networks. Also, won't need to deal with annoyances of being just outside your wifi network. (e.g. when you're doing yard-work or something)
3.) I could see StarLink encrypting data transmissions out of the box, so you wouldn't need to worry about getting a VPN, or ISP's selling your browsing history, etc
The low-latency customers would generally not actually care very much about bandwidth, tho. And it's in practice hard to increase bandwidth beyond a certain point with something like this. The LEO satellite essentially acts like a large cell tower; everyone in its range has to share a limited amount of physical bandwidth. Actually, worse; the cell tower generally has dedicated backhaul, whereas backhaul for the LEO satellites is shared to some degree. Whereas fibre is point-to-point (modulo some loop-based last-mile systems, but those tend to have lots of capacity).
1) Net neutrality being wiped out _in one country_. Perhaps temporarily. I really don't buy a future scenario where the US has a bunch of LEO satellites, and the rest of the developed world has fibre everywhere. And if StarLink et al were actually competitive, conventional ISPs would just cut prices and improve service (which they can in many cases do almost for free due to overprovisioning; my ISP has increased my bandwidth from 120Mbit/sec to 500 over the past four years by essentially adjusting some config in their DOCSIS system), such that it was no longer competitive.
2) LTE is a thing (and don't these LEO satellite internet things require fixed antennae?)
3) I would certainly _hope_ they'd encrypt data transmission out of the box! All wireless and shared wire (eg DOCSIS) systems have done so for decades. And you'd still absolutely have to worry about your ISP (StarLink, or similar LEO sat company) selling your browsing history.
LEO satellite broadband may have a place, but its place will largely be in places where there is no fibre infrastructure, and where there's no LTE/5G tower in range. In the developed world, that's getting to be a rare condition. Plus the weird ultra-low-latency edge case (which I would maintain is largely not relevant to consumers, and will be beaten by edge computing in many cases anyway). Whether that will be enough to sustain it commercially remains to be seen.
2.) Tesla/SpaceX StarLink will become a major competitor in the ISP space. Most transmitted data throughout the world will touch a StarLink satellite.
3.) Financial downturn/semi-recession in mid-late decade primarily caused by excessive corporate stock buybacks artificially inflating stock prices. (Stock buybacks will be driven by executive compensation/bonuses continually being linked to earnings per share)
4.) Drone deliveries will become more common as drone automation tech improves. Airspace will become more regulated to facilitate this.
5.) It will be considered stylish and/or a power move to not own a cell phone.
6.) Solar/wind/hydro electricity generation will become much more commonplace on personal properties. As electricity prices turn negative and not enough cost effective battery capacity to efficiently store it, power plants will be built/redesigned to turn electricity into hydrogen fuel. This will lead to auto companies creating electric/hydrogen cell hybrid cars.
7.) In January 2030, people will comment on this post with their predictions for the following decade, not realizing this post is 10 years old.