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Balloons have the potential to much cheaper than shooting a armada of satellites into space.

• Ajedi32 7y ago
  An armada of satellites can provide coverage over the entire planet, whereas balloons are limited to a relatively small geographical area. If you consider the cost of covering the entire planet with balloons, I highly doubt Loon is cheaper. If there's any advantage to be had by Loon, it's that they _might_ be able to better serve densely populated areas better thanks to their denser cell coverage, and that they are able to provide service over regular 4G signals rather than requiring specially designed (and slightly bulkier) radio equipment.
  • quasse 7y ago
    For anyone who is wondering, I looked up the operational height for both systems to compare. Project Loon is about 18km-25km, while Starlink is currently deploying at 550km high.
  • toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Densely populated areas are going to get 5G microcells; maybe 5G backhauls on StarLink if they're remote.