Latency is the critical piece those networks are missing, and they are expensive. Low latency is what allows real-time connection with people, which is a big part of what’s difficult with any internet in remote areas other than Starlink today.
You can only solve latency by being closer, and being closer means a lot more smaller satellites as they’ll come down faster and will have a smaller field of view. We can’t beat the speed of light.
SpaceX is also launching cellular satellites now and will provide cellular coverage to phones globally in participating countries (canada is on Rogers) for use in dead zones, but the bandwidth is tiny compared to using their dish internet network.
Edit: sorry forgot the part where bandwidth then becomes the competing value of the LEO constellation. If someone else does it, maybe they are only 100mbs, but spacex is cheaper and offers 200mbs for example.
Latency is the critical piece those networks are missing, and they are expensive. Low latency is what allows real-time connection with people, which is a big part of what’s difficult with any internet in remote areas other than Starlink today.
You can only solve latency by being closer, and being closer means a lot more smaller satellites as they’ll come down faster and will have a smaller field of view. We can’t beat the speed of light.
SpaceX is also launching cellular satellites now and will provide cellular coverage to phones globally in participating countries (canada is on Rogers) for use in dead zones, but the bandwidth is tiny compared to using their dish internet network.
Edit: sorry forgot the part where bandwidth then becomes the competing value of the LEO constellation. If someone else does it, maybe they are only 100mbs, but spacex is cheaper and offers 200mbs for example.
I’m repeating myself a lot in this thread, but everyone seems to be sleeping on Telesat Lightspeed.