[DISCLAIMER - I run Transcelestial which is building laser comms and we think about this question quite a lot] Some background maybe first. There is a massive

[DISCLAIMER - I run Transcelestial which is building laser comms and we think about this question quite a lot] Some background maybe first. There is a massive Global Internet Distribution challenge which works around the cost/bit equation. They are: 1. Undersea cable networks - USD 0.5-1B to deploy over a multi-year project. 10s of millions to maintain with regular cable cuts. Typically now only deployed through consortiums of Internet and Telecom companies. Carry 99% of world’s international data. 2. Inter-City Distribution - National Fiber and Copper networks which connect tier 1-3 cities, towns and villages with a backbone to the nearest Internet Exchange OR telco data center (which in-turn would have a hard line back to Undersea landing stations). 3. Last Mile or within city/urban connectivity - last & middle mile within a city/town connecting homes, offices, towers and DCs. IMHO the challenges still remain but get worse from top to bottom, costs and complexity often jumping in orders of magnitude from one to the other, with Last mile obv being the craziest. Telcos nationally in most countries still own most of inter-city distribution and tier 2/3/4 POPs (point of presence), leasing out capacity from POPs to ISPs and Enterprises. The investment in laying these cables is EXTREMELY prohibitive and is the main cause for high Mbps rates, high latency and onerous terms when it comes to in-country network distribution (big e.g. is South Africa). Numbers range from orders of magnitude more expensive (e.g. $1.6B for Telstra Australia in Phase 1, $130-150B for US) than Undersea cables primarily due to Right of Way and operational costs of deployment. People are now moving from Rural to Tier2-3 cities/towns and also there is reverse-migration from megacities like Manila to Tier2-3 cities/towns (as evidenced by rising cities like Cebu, Bali, Miami, Austin, Pune, etc where housing is more affordable and earning potential remotely is nearly the same). Bandwidth and latency demands are going up 100% Y-on-Y in Tier1-3 cities, especially in WFH COVID times. Starlink & others in LEO wil definitely help with most rural unconnected places (<1-2% of total bulk). Telcos will eventually build out Tier1 cities with fiber more robustly (since they have to deliver on 5G small cell and potentially 6G). Mid-tier cities & towns where by far the larger total bulk is accumulation will need a LOT of attention and more latency optimized, cost/bit minimized backbones. Finally, humanity's push to get into deep space in the next decade will require building out infra to support robotic and autonomous missions. Thinking of deep space objects as islands or continents is a helpful model and tightbeaming laser comms to them as "undersea cables but in space" could help address some bandwidth allocation problems in the early days (but local distribution will again have challenges)