this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2025
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Unpopular opinion: we don't need freaking internet from satellites, just get cat6 in every home and everyone is happy. I'm sure the cost would be lower then having to launch 999999.91 satellites to have similar speeds
Exactly! Amazon can ship it to you for like 10 bucks. Problem solved!
cat 6 in every home lol. you have any idea about range of cat 6? I mean, any?
~50m for cat6, ~100 cat6a, enough to get you to a switching box where you connect to fiber.
oh I didn't know there's a fiber box in 100m at any place in the country! tell that to my ISP who cant serve any internet through the landline telephone cable because it's too far from distribution! oh and also to all the customers of microwave wireless networks.
and this doesn't even need to be on the countryside! It's a problem here even in villages that the ISP is not allowed to run any cables on the high voltage electric poles!
Oh so now there's also fiber is there?
Obviously there is fiber, copper is usually "last mile". Its cheaper to have a long fiber and short copper. Copper more or less anyone can install, fiber is more specialized.
I'm not proposing to reinvent the wheel, just continue what has proven to work.
The Australian government is heavily criticised for half-assing fibre internet because they did copper to the house in most cases. We still, a decade later, have one of the worst internet in the western world.
I think satellites are likely much cheaper to deliver internet to a whole continent than trying to run bloody copper.
You do if you're fighting a war against Putin and the ketamine troll is threatening to turn off your internet.
Now get rid of the home and the cable, how do you cover 99.9% of the earth? Nomads need satellite, and so do rural homes too far from an isp fiber/copper endpoint But yes, if starlink has it done, why double the satellites to do it again with a different name? Because it's easier to launch 1000 more satellites than dismantle the system that enables such feats.
There are remote areas where cable won’t reach. For example, I need surveillance on a remote farm and I would love to get internet there.
Cable will reach anywhere. There is not such a place that cable "will not reach". Is there a profit incentive to serve you as a customer in a capitalist system? Maybe not. But cable will reach.
Not sure if you are in Europe, but in the US there are places where you could walk the width of Germany and see 100 houses. It does not serve to be technically correct here. Also, how would that work with boats / other vehicles and places without infrastructures?
There are exceptions, but in most cases (in Europe) hardwire should work fine. The problem is that starlink is advertised for any use case.
Their are villages in rural England who don't have fiber. It wouldn't be cost-effective delay it for the six customers that require it.
Well, cable will not reach a warzone which is a rather pertinent use for a satellite communication system at present.
I know plent of places in my European country where cable does reach, but was made for landline phones and cannot carry any data for internet because its so far from the nearest distribution center. even wireless like microwave can't sustain more than a quality camera feed
You'd need signal boosters at regular intervals, which need power... so now you're running multiple cables.
But you can't run them too close together as the power will induce noise in the data cable.
And after a long distance even the power needs boosting.
And to protect the cables, you'd need to bury them or put them on poles. Separately.
At a certain point, cable becomes the expensive option...
Usually fiber is used between cities and in cities and copper is for the "last mile". Usually there is a switching box for the street / building complex
One broken cable can result in a city/town without internet. Speaking from experience.
Also satellites have other uses like GPS
I doubt they use the same satellites for GPS
I understand, but that is the exception. Even in your case probably getting 4G / 5G to that area would be cheaper / easier long term. Also Europe has a relatively high density compared with other continents
I’m in Italy and outside cities, the Internet is still horrendous. And as I said, if you have a remote farm or garden, which are fairly common here, then you are on your own. Sim based internet is a thing, but there are monthly limits which are risky when you need surveillance and automation to be always live.
4G or 5G would still be a better cheaper alternative, I'm not sure what bandwidth a starlink / whatever other alternative but my guess is that is much lower then a classic cell tower.
Cell towers usually have multiple directional antennas, smaller coverage but much cheaper to maintain. Also can be fixed, can be upgraded to next generation. Satellites are pretty much one time use, can't be upgraded, can't be fixed, if something goes wrong the solution is to burn and send another one.
Cat 6A caps out at like 330 ft. Also thats a ton of copper.
Fiber optic nonprofit utilities makes more sense in cities and in rural areas we should just subsidize cell phone data plans.
I didn't say that cat6 should be used everywhere, usually is just for "last mile delivery" get it from your home to a switching box that has fiber.
Bring back ethernet jacks on phones!
supporting this motion
Not unpopular but I think they are just trying to grab some of SpaceX market share in this space (no pun intended). I agree cable is better but these folks are trying to make money.