it's very low data rate but also guaranteed lower latency than the submarine cables.
Maybe with that out of the picture other uses like telepresence for remote surgery can edge in. I've been waiting for a while for that to really take off seems like an awesome way to provide services you couldn't afford to to remote places.
I have read that Starlink, given sat to sat relays, should be able to beat any possible ground based system as long as the distances are great enough. Does that match your understanding of this?
Starlink is at a disadvantage because fundamentally it's pathing across a sphere with a larger radius so even when the path is direct across the Starlink cluster it still has to traverse a longer distance than the equivalent path on the ground. Adding to that the path won't always be directly across the surface of the constellation, depending on where you are and where the destination is you'll find some pockets where the link has to zig zag across the constellation slightly adding to the additional link distance. This [0] isn't necessarily a perfect representation but it does show how starlink's linking may work and how it's not a perfect net. It also doesn't account for the acquisition times for new laser links which were on the order of 20 seconds in another laser sat link test.
[0] https://youtu.be/AdKNCBrkZQ4?t=103 (it's also comparing fiber to Starlink where the best in class now is radio links generally)
> where the best in class now is radio links generally
What would I put into a search engine to learn more about these more recent long distance radio links? Thanks!
There are atmospheric and practical effects that make going more than 50-60km with PTP microwave, and data rates above 700-800 Mbps, increasingly costly as the distances increase.
It is totally possible technologically to build very long chains of many microwave PTP radio hops, as some high frequency trading companies set up between new york and chicago, but the aggregate throughput and capacity is minuscule compared to fiber.
Would be happy to answer any more specific questions.
Here's an example of a current state of the art point to point microwave radio, for use in the common FCC licensed part 101 bands (6, 11, 18, 23 GHz, etc)
https://aviatnetworks.com/products/all-outdoor-radio/wtm-400...
if you google 'starlink train' and look at some videos, when a batch of 60 starlink satellites is launched ,they're all at the same orbital inclination. they remain at the same inclination but as the weeks go past after their launch, they are spread out to follow each other at several hundred km spacings. but they're still following each other in what is basically a strung out conga line of satellites. communications between forward/rear satellites in the same batch should not be nearly as difficult to aim.
what would be difficult to aim and maintain links on would be cross-plane links between two different sets of satellites, with very high differing relative velocities.
Right, compared to reasonable in-ground ISPs.
I think Starlink sat to Starlink sat links will also help bandwidth, specifically in the case where a given downlink connection is heavily utilized, the system can shunt traffic to another slightly less ideal but less utilized ground station.
> unlocks a very financially lucrative consumer use case
That's a bingo! I think there's a pretty good chance that this could turn into a pretty epic cash cow for Starlink.