[tymekpavel]

Satellite links are orders of magnitude slower than fiber.

[blendergeek]

> Satellite links are orders of magnitude slower than fiber.

Minimum end-to-end latency for communications from opposite points of the earth is much lower for Starlink style LEO satellites than for fiber.

[ksec]

Which is only in the case of "opposite points of the earth", otherwise you are just adding ~700KM of distance between two point. The point is even if we have perfect Speed of light Data Transfer over a direct line, we are fundamentally limited by it and nothing can be done. But Encoding, Decoding, Time Slots and quality are everything that we have control of and should be look into more seriously.

[BlueTemplar]

Aren't they still heavily expected to feature in connecting that "next billion" ?

[tymekpavel]

Yes, because they are convenient for other reasons (don't require infrastructure over land) which makes them suitable for connecting rural areas where it doesn't make sense to run fiber. But fiber will always be the fastest you can get, and if you get fiber in a vacuum, you could theoretically achieve near-speed of light communication. Satellites won't get you anywhere close to that, even if you use lasers, because there is always atmospheric disturbances that introduce latency.