and what’s in those few kilometers? not atmosphere? Sure the signal travels a bit faster between satellites themselves but this is not relevant in modern networking. Almost everything is cached on edge in your regional server these days so only “the last mile” is what matters for latency. Even if you ignore all this the math would still favor cable every time - 66% reliable speed of light will always beat “potential 100% speed of light sometimes for some part of the distance”
I can imagine some use cases for faster ping between two low orbit satellites could be important but my imagination begins and ends at rocket guidance. I don’t see that ever being useful for 99.9% of networking. The signal has to go down to earth receiver at some point and atmosphere and dish overhead will always lose to a cable.
It’s a boring answer - but cable will remain undefeated until some magic breakthrough in physics comes along. It’s simply just that good.
Well with the new hollow optic fiber you would be right.
Average ping time between Europe and US is 100-150ms, which is high for e.g. gaming. Satellite constellations could cut that down by 33%. Which was a huge promised benefit of starlink, even just for HFT stock trading which is like cheating and mining gold.
But yeah with hollow optic fiber being able to do the same, much of the value of Starlink should be wiped out! SpaceX stock should take a massive nosedive lol!
Afaik you’re wrong about overhead with atmosphere and dish.
The only value internet constellations now provide is universal coverage. But that could be achieved cheaper with a higher orbit of 2000 km instead of 500km. Coverage goes up to 12% instead of 3.6% so you need like 9 times (square) less satellites? I think? And the ping would be worse but still acceptable like 200ms between EU and US if you live somewhere off grid or on the ocean.
The speed of light in fiber optic cable is ~66% of what the speed of light in vacuum is (or radio signals in atmosphere). Signal first has to go up but then travels faster than in fiber optics cable and arrives faster. Hence faster ping.
and what’s in those few kilometers? not atmosphere? Sure the signal travels a bit faster between satellites themselves but this is not relevant in modern networking. Almost everything is cached on edge in your regional server these days so only “the last mile” is what matters for latency. Even if you ignore all this the math would still favor cable every time - 66% reliable speed of light will always beat “potential 100% speed of light sometimes for some part of the distance”
Ping
I can imagine some use cases for faster ping between two low orbit satellites could be important but my imagination begins and ends at rocket guidance. I don’t see that ever being useful for 99.9% of networking. The signal has to go down to earth receiver at some point and atmosphere and dish overhead will always lose to a cable.
It’s a boring answer - but cable will remain undefeated until some magic breakthrough in physics comes along. It’s simply just that good.
Well with the new hollow optic fiber you would be right.
Average ping time between Europe and US is 100-150ms, which is high for e.g. gaming. Satellite constellations could cut that down by 33%. Which was a huge promised benefit of starlink, even just for HFT stock trading which is like cheating and mining gold.
But yeah with hollow optic fiber being able to do the same, much of the value of Starlink should be wiped out! SpaceX stock should take a massive nosedive lol!
Afaik you’re wrong about overhead with atmosphere and dish.
The only value internet constellations now provide is universal coverage. But that could be achieved cheaper with a higher orbit of 2000 km instead of 500km. Coverage goes up to 12% instead of 3.6% so you need like 9 times (square) less satellites? I think? And the ping would be worse but still acceptable like 200ms between EU and US if you live somewhere off grid or on the ocean.
Ok this is pure marketing bullshit. Source? The physics simply doesn’t check out.
The speed of light in fiber optic cable is ~66% of what the speed of light in vacuum is (or radio signals in atmosphere). Signal first has to go up but then travels faster than in fiber optics cable and arrives faster. Hence faster ping.