this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2025
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Spoken like a true spoiled city person Good luck getting the necessary infrastructure built (cables, towers, et al) to really remote places. It's probably more expensive in the long run than having a satellite constellation.
Good luck? Most of the world is already there. I had 3g in deep jungles of Thailand last weekend and even in the most remote places in China have wire these days.
The main point is that sat is limited by physics so cell towers and wire are upgrades over sat so it makes much more sense to start with better technology now as we'll never need less connection.
Counterpoint: even an hour out from Oslo there are people relying on Starlink
Seems like a skill issue tbh
And wires are not bound by physics? To run cables over such long distances you have to boost the signal at periodic distances to avoid voltage drops and noise
If we can figure out how to put them on the bottom of the ocean and pipelines over just about any terrain, I think we can figure this out
Yes and we can also use a solution which requires absolutely no cables and digging at all, and that doesn't disrupt any natural environments and occupies land.
And yes I'm aware of the impact satellites have on the atmosphere. There's no free lunch.
Because building space ports and rocket launches have 0 impact as well.
But you acknowledge this, so what's your point? Why pay a techno billionaire when we can publicly fund cables way cheaper and more friendly?
Oh I'm all for Musk to eat shit. I was arguing that satellites are better, not starlink in particular. Lemmy seems to have issues separating their (valid) hate for muskrat with some of his companies or related technologies. And OP was arguing that cell towers are an improvement over satellites? Wth
Why can't we have a publicly funded satellite constellation?
How are satellites better if they will never be faster? Do we just accept life in 300ms latency? We will always need better communication so it makes no sense to invest into inferior product even if it's more accessible currently.
Unless quantum communication becomes real thing nothing will match fiber and cell towers in the foreseeable future.
Sat is a fringe technology for war and extreme remote areas, everything else is already solved.
Yes and if you read carefully my answers you'll see that my arguments were all related to this, not the "normal case"
And my OP clearly stated that sat has uses but it's compleyely overhyped otherwise. So I'm not sure what are you even talking about here if not just goal post moving.
Clarify where I did goal post moving
It's has its place for sure.
But the physics are far more against satalite.
But the reason I don't believe in large scale satalite systems for consumers is because they're disposable. They all fall down or contribute to the growing space junk problem.
So it's not really any better at the end of the day than just burying a fibre cable for 40 years.
Idk i live in a country where we have wifi in some forests and free wifi in every large city. And we're an ex soviet shithole.
Americans honestly think their shitty infrastructure is the best in the world.
To be fair america is massive and a 3rd world shithole. If even russia can't pave its main highway how could a backwoods place like america have enough infrastructure to make cash obsolete?