> I don't think anything wireless(besides free space optics) will ever be able to match the bandwidth of fiber. This isn't really the goal of the project. Spac

> I don't think anything wireless(besides free space optics) will ever be able to match the bandwidth of fiber. This isn't really the goal of the project. SpaceX needs to create a com link with Mars. Also, it can cheaply laucnch sattelites so it will be able to connect the world via satelite uplink. The goal isn't to beat wired networks but provide redundancy and in some cases primary connections. SpaceX is betting on itself achieving reusability which will lower costs from ~$60M to a marginal cost of something like ~$600K. As a byproduct of the cellphone wars nanosats have become insanely cheap due to commoditization and miniturization of hardware. Making this more feasible The reason they are doing this is to establish communications between earth & mars. Even a 50mbps connection could bring huge swathes of the world online and create a race for infrastructure to compete. So if we could get 1-5gbps connections terrestriallydue to some market penetration and competition, it would bringlots of people online. The goal of the project is lofty, but would provide a lot of positive things. Downsides: * personal satelites and the proliferation of spying. * space debris could lock us out of orbit. * space debris/launch failures could cause issues. * something like radiation or an unexpected externality could make this non-feasible. * we could literally create skynet. I am pumped on it though, and those reasons, along with the many others I have assuredly missed make me really really excited to see this happen. We need a secondary network anyway and terrestrial speeds won't improve without competition so I would roll the dice on skynet for that.