The speed of light in glass-fiber is about 1.5 times slower than the speed of light in a vacuum. Hence the extra distance for lower-orbit systems can be cancele

The speed of light in glass-fiber is about 1.5 times slower than the speed of light in a vacuum. Hence the extra distance for lower-orbit systems can be canceled out by the extra speed of signals. This is only talking about latency. Bandwidth is a different game. Sure, any given fiber link will probably have better bandwidth than any satellite link. Cause the medium in between is much more consistent, leading to less signal degradation. However, fiber needs to be placed, connected, maintained. Moreover, fiber needs a physical space. Meanwhile wireless just needs access-points at both ends, well-aimed antennas, and little interference in between. Notably, I believe star-link will use laser communication for inter-satelite communication, which essentially means perfect directional antennas. This stuff might be able to scale faster. It can certainly scale further because you don't need the space for all those cables.