Fierce Starlink Competition is coming: Amazon to invest over $10 billion in its own satellite internet network

submitted by FediNetizen from cnbc.com

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[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Come on, man. Are you seriously not aware that the speed of light is dependent on the medium it's traveling through?

The differences between traveling in a cable, and traveling in air, are not important. In fact on the contrary the refractive index in the sky, especially on humid and cloudy days, is immensely greater obviously. The cable will almost certainly always be faster. What I was trying to explain is the reason for less latency between the satellites is the distance, not the medium change.

[–]FediNetizen[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

You can't beat the speed of light in a vacuum, and you're only passing through about a few 10s of km of atmosphere before you're basically in a vacuum. By contrast, in a fiber cable light is at about a constant ~0.7c. You've got a headstart because you don't need to bounce up to to the satellite first, but even if you had a single cable that circumnavigates the globe in a straight line, you'll still get there faster if your signal is traveling in space, purely because your light is going about 40% faster.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Since you're not listening to me I'll just link other articles: https://www.zdnet.com/article/spacex-starlink-internet-prepares-for-beta-users/

The listed latency times for Starlink are greater on average than the listed latency range for fiber. As I said, the refractive index in the sky is going to be an issue. And, unlike fiber, cloud cover will completely disrupt service. (I consider Musk's version-2 claims to be pure marketing puff like he always does)