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I appreciate the arguments on both sides of this, but it's hard for me to get past the point that the satellites are temporary infrastructure, whereas Earth-bas
by sfblah 6y ago
I appreciate the arguments on both sides of this, but it's hard for me to get past the point that the satellites are temporary infrastructure, whereas Earth-based fixed wireless or fiber/wire lines are fairly permanent. It's hard for me to understand why the solution here is the temporary one.
A decade ago I think my opinion would have been different, because technology didn't make offering gigabit bandwidth via wire/fiber and fixed wireless pretty straightforward. So, back then you could have argued everything was temporary. Nowadays, I suspect gigabit fiber/fixed wireless will last a very, very long time before being outmoded (if it ever is).
So, I'm asking myself whether it isn't just more sensible to put up the fixed investment to connect remote areas using existing technologies rather than blasting off satellites again and again to do it.
- lutorm 6y agoIf you think you can competitively install fiber to all the areas that will be served by Starlink, then it seems you should be able to outcompete them. No one's preventing you from giving it a try.
- sfblah 6y agoWell I mentioned Fixed Wireless as well. Also, there's room for government in this. That's like suggesting highways, high-speed rail and airports should all be privately funded. In most cases, societies have chosen to make those projects the purview of the government.
- lutorm 6y agoI agree, but that doesn't affect the question of competitiveness between satellite and ground options. A few thousand satellites sounds like a lot, but the amount of ground installations that would have to be done to give the same area of access is staggering.