3 ms·

The demand is not limited to americans, most third-world countries will benefit from having high speed internet unconstrained by local infrastructure and lack o

The demand is not limited to americans, most third-world countries will benefit from having high speed internet unconstrained by local infrastructure and lack of investment. Having stayed in South East Asia I know the locals would very much appreciate having more than one option: pay-as-you-go mobile data bundles. Even in rural parts of Scandinavia where I spent my vacation, 4G signal was too weak and ISP's refuse to lay fiber unless the whole neighborhood commits to subscribe. This may concern millions of people who need basic or better internet access, meanwhile there are only a few thousand astronomers in the world.

DoingIsLearning 6y ago
The demand that exists is tackled by an increase and expansion of the existing ISP and public infrastructure. A satellite based internet provider is inneficiently duplicating the existing fiber/copper/cellular infrastructure but more importantly cannot scale to serve the billions of people you mention in your comment. Do the maths you cannot keep up this alleged 50Mbps link if you add more than a few million users, there is a finite amount of satellites they can add in contiguous trajectories. The capacity issue means this will never be affordable but to a few select few or state/defense actors. I agree with your problem statement but this unfortunately is just not the solution.