2 ms·

There is a solid business case here in manufacturing these (assuming the technology plays out as we expect). The reason is that beyond having better loss rates

There is a solid business case here in manufacturing these (assuming the technology plays out as we expect). The reason is that beyond having better loss rates (so a single cable can got at least an order of magnitude farther). ZBLAN itself has a "higher bandwidth" associated with it, allowing more light frequencies, making it a MUCH wider pipe. Relatively recently, there was a new cable laid to go from Halifax, VA to London at about 4,500km. For this cable, they paid about $300M to shave milliseconds. If you can have a cable to span that same distance using 1/20 the repeaters you should in theory save even more time. 4,500km of ZBLAN fiber is roughly 500-900kgs (5 - 9km/kg). Using the #s I have seen before quoted from Made In Space ($2M/kg), that same cable would notionally cost between $1 - $1.8B. While I can't answer whether there are companies that really would be willing to pay 3 - 6X the price for the better performance... I suspect there might be especially given the faster speed + higher bandwidth.

PeterisP 9y ago
It's more like an indicator that it's not a good business case yet, but if (when!) someone gets the launch costs down, then there will be a solid high-volume business case to pay for these launches.
- aerophilic 9y ago
  I may need to edit my original post, but I think I didn’t clearly make a few points. The first is that Made in Space said they could sell fiber at $2M a kg. Now, I believe this number for specialty, high power optical cable applications (laser surgery). However, even in the case that they couldn’t sell at that number, I suspect that by the time you get to where you can creat 100s if not 1000s of km strands, your total costs will be MUCH lower than $2M/kg. I suspect maybe 1/10 that cost. If that is the case, and assuming you sell for around $1M a kg, you now are extremely profitable, and only marginally more expensive then current cables.

PeterisP 9y ago

It's more like an indicator that it's not a good business case yet, but if (when!) someone gets the launch costs down, then there will be a solid high-volume business case to pay for these launches.

aerophilic 9y ago
I may need to edit my original post, but I think I didn’t clearly make a few points. The first is that Made in Space said they could sell fiber at $2M a kg. Now, I believe this number for specialty, high power optical cable applications (laser surgery). However, even in the case that they couldn’t sell at that number, I suspect that by the time you get to where you can creat 100s if not 1000s of km strands, your total costs will be MUCH lower than $2M/kg. I suspect maybe 1/10 that cost. If that is the case, and assuming you sell for around $1M a kg, you now are extremely profitable, and only marginally more expensive then current cables.