SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites – for 100x the bandwidth

Re:SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites – fo... by inglor_cz on Saturday July 11, 2026 @02:58AM (#48869485)

When I was a teenager in early post-Communist Czechia, Internet connection was also expensive. So what we did was that we pooled resources. Five or ten households had a common connection and shared it.

I don't doubt that similar schemes will be used in Africa or India.

BTW Median income in India is about $3K a year.

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Re:SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites – fo... by laughing_man on Saturday July 11, 2026 @03:29AM (#48869653)

That's exactly what's happening. Entire villages are sharing one connection.

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Re:SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites – fo... by yxhuvud on Saturday July 11, 2026 @04:43AM (#48870100)

That is great, but it also sets the stage for actual fiber to be drawn as it is vastly cheaper to connect to an existing end user network than to build it up from scratch. When a critical mass of villages have built internal networks it will be worth drawing cable for them as well.

Lack of sufficient population density and political instability is what would stop this.

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Re:SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites – fo... by inemesitaffia on Saturday July 11, 2026 @10:37AM (#48872440)

Money

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Re:SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites – fo... by darth_avocado on Saturday July 11, 2026 @12:20PM (#48873367)

> BTW Median income in India is about $3K a year

I explicitly mentioned income per person. This is household income, which obviously will be higher than individual income.

And as far as connection pooling goes, India already has 88% 4G and 80% 5G coverage in the villages. Far cheaper connections are already available that are already being leveraged in a way that you describe. The market where Starlink is appealing is much smaller.

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