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A comment on The Xkcd thing, now interactive. Parent comment

Re:The Xkcd thing, now interactive by rtkwe on Tuesday March 03, 2026 @12:50PM (#47236057)
No. They're not setup to be a principal route between two nations and most satellite networks until very recently didn't even route messages through other satellites but instead retransmitted them to a ground station with access to hardline internet. Even Starlink mostly does this still because it's way cheaper and easier.
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Re:The Xkcd thing, now interactive by rtkwe on Tuesday March 03, 2026 @03:52PM (#47238798)
You can see an unofficial tracker [0] of the Starlink downlink network and see how outside of some areas your data is only moving a few tens of miles away most of the time before it's sent down to a ground system. Their sats have 3 200 Gbps laser communicators for intra constellation routing which is pretty small for the task of replacing fiber optic links.

[0] https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1805q6rlePY4WZd8QMO...

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Re:The Xkcd thing, now interactive by gzread on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @07:51AM (#47246732)
God, those nicknames. The Algo of Power GW (gateway?) the Pew Pew GW? Elon chose these.
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Re:The Xkcd thing, now interactive by rtkwe on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @10:36AM (#47249037)
It's all so pick me. Like his insistence that he's a top level gamer.
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