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The thing is people have already built most of those microwave tower paths here on earth and in addition SpaceX probably isn't going to set it up as a mesh wher
by rtkwe 7y ago
The thing is people have already built most of those microwave tower paths here on earth and in addition SpaceX probably isn't going to set it up as a mesh where intra-Starlink traffic stays goes directly. And even if they do you have to go up then across (probably in a zig zag) then back down which will always be higher latency than the point to point microwave distance.
- mikeyouse 7y agoI don't know enough about their infrastructure, but presumably SpaceX could offer that as a premium service? "Most direct" path for your data at a much higher dollar-per-MB cost vs the mesh offering?
- desdiv 7y ago>people have already built most of those microwave tower paths here on earth I can assure you that lucrative paths like New York-London and New York-Tokyo have not been built yet. In fact, the vast majority of lucrative trading paths have not been built yet due to geographical restrictions. Yes, fiber optic links exist, but those only go up to 0.7c. To a trading firm, the choice between a satellite link that does ~0.9c and a fiber optic link that does <0.7c is obvious.
- rtkwe 7y agoThat all depends on Starlink supporting point to point inside their network. Also that path will be more zig-zaggy than the great circle fiber path and importantly will vary during the day as the satellite tracks shift relative to earth. [0] [0] Unless their in a harmonic orbit I guess not 100% sure abou that one. There should always be some jitter in the connection time just from the satellites moving even if their ground tracks are very stable.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]