2 ms·
Perhaps it will not be as efficient , however we cannot control the power consumption of the transit on wired or satellite, satellite by its design is going to
by manquer 6y ago
Perhaps it will not be as efficient , however we cannot control the power consumption of the transit on wired or satellite, satellite by its design is going to be solar though. I don’t think ISPs are look at carbon footprint for their equipment at the moment
I am side stepping the entire argument on cable laying v sat launch for setting up the infra . Likely satellites are have lesser carbon footprint than cable laying, but there are lot of variables .
- ClumsyPilot 6y agoIf we consider carbon CapEx - Falcon 9 is 500,000 kg of fuel. For that amount of fuel you could lay down a trans-atlantic cable. Then conside that sattelites still need to be serviced by large base-stations across the globe linked by optic fiver. Then consider that a single cable lasts much longer than sattelites do in orbit and carries more data. Then conder the fact that radio transmission across almost a thousand kiloneters is a lot more power intensive than optical transmission. Satellite internet is cool, but energy efficiency is not one of it's features.
- manquer 6y agoMost cable laying ships are in 10,000 tonne size , ships this size use typically 50 tones of fuel a day at cruse speeds , cable ships travel much slower than that. The fuels ship typically use is one of the dirtiest as compared to RP-1 kerosene a falcon 9 uses. I am not so sure rockets are not cleaner approach. On the downside The life of a cable is 20 years or more , as compared to only 5 years of a starlink sat . Definitely lot more data can go through a cable , it is not apples to apples comparison .