Someone on my town Facebook page complaining about not having any options for internet (Comcast only in our town) and someone chimes in not to worry because wired internet is dead and everyone should just 4G through T-Mobile SMH

  • luxurypranda@alien.topB
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    11 months ago

    Starlink is already there. It gets over 100 mbps with latency as low as 20ms. Why worry about line of sight cell phone towers on Earth when we already have satellites in low-earth orbit?

    The only reason to keep cable and fiber is just in case China, Russia, India, or the US decide to blow up a low-earth orbit satellite just for funsies like they have in the past. This would create large amounts of “space junk” that we would have to calculate decades of trajectories for, and move satellites that are equipped with thrusters to avoid them putting holes in other satellites.

    Both Russia and Ukraine are using StarLink for the war, and Elon Musk has straight up turned off all of StarLink for like 30 minutes when either side is beginning a pivotal engagement to show that he is not taking sides. He provided Ukraine with starlinks, but does not fully support their cause anymore. If anything, he did it to prove to the US the military capabilities of his network.