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Comment on SpaceX says states should dump fiber plans, give all grant money to Starlink

Alright. Let’s clear this up.

Are satellite links easier to take down than a fiber link? No. It takes specialized weapons manfactured by state level actors to take out a a single satellite, let alone a whole constellation. I can take a pair of wire clippers, and take out every cable link in my neighborhood in a afternoon. Russia fairly regularly sabotages undersea cables just by “accidentally” dragging an anchor over them.

Is Starlink funded partially by public money? Absolutely yes, along with every other telecom provider. Hell, we gave them the public TV bands as compensation for builfijg a public fiber network (which they never even fucking did!)

Do Starlink satellite need to be replaced at extreme cost? Yes, but so does terresrrial network infrastructure. There is a reason why your internet isn’t 12kbps anymore… As far as the cost goes, the consumers determine if the cost is worth the benefit, and so far the answer is ‘yes’.

Ever wonder why Ukraine was using Starlink for network connections in the first place? Maybe it’s becuse the vulnerable terrestrial based networks were damaged or taken out of service months ago, and you can’t exactly get a contractor to go into a warzone and lay down new cables.

Your points, that satellites based networks are more vulnerable and prohibitively expensive is simply not compatible with reality.

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ubergeek@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

Are satellite links easier to take down than a fiber link? No

Depends on what we’re talking about.

Is it easy, in any conceivable scenario, to take out an entire nation’s web of cabled infra? No, not at all, and would require the same state actor level threat it would to take out a satellite train. It’s just cheaper to do it in space, and less prone to failing than it would be to try a land-based infra attack.

Do Starlink satellite need to be replaced at extreme cost? Yes, but so does terresrrial network infrastructure.

We do not need to replace all the fiber, and all the coax, and all the transceivers every 5 years, at a cost of 10s of billions. At most? You need to replace stuff in a DC/DSLAM/termination point and the client side. All the fiber and coax in between is still usable for 20 years, even. And the endpoints don’t need to be upgraded physically, most times, it’s a software update pushed.

Ever wonder why Ukraine was using Starlink for network connections in the first place?

Because Russia bombed their power plants, all the cabling, and it was a literal war zone. And relied on infrastructure that was terrestrial outside of the war zone. And to replace all the infra (Outside of the power plants) will still be cheaper than a couple of trains being launched for StarLink.

Your points, that satellites based networks are more vulnerable and prohibitively expensive is simply not compatible with reality.

You do know StarLink can be taken down by targeting their ground stations, right?

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- Bytemeister@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  To put into scale how wrong you are about taking out a satellite, the last satellite the US shot down was in 2008, and it took a specially modified 9 million dollar missile to shoot it down. A Starlink satellite with launch costs included is just under 2 million dollars. Not only is it technologically difficult to take out a satellite, but it’s much more costly to shoot them down than it is to put them up.
  
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Burnt_Frost
  
  It’s not a trivial thing to take out a single satellite, let along a whole constellation of satellites.
  
  You literally could not be more wrong about this.
  
  …Russia bombed their power plants, all the cabling, and it was a literal war zone.
  
  Here you are acknowledge that ground-based systems are very vulnerable to attack. Guess what still works in Ukraine right now (or at least when Elon allows it to work). You got it. Starlink.
  
  How about another comparison. Starlink has a full project estimated cost of ~10 billion dollars, that’a with launches and satellites. The estimated cost to rebuild Ukraine’s telecom network is 4.7 billion dollars. Starlink has already generated 72 million in profit (not revenue, but profit!)
  
  We gave telecom providers 200 billion in tax breaks to build a fiber network in the US, and they didn’t even finish the job. 20x what Starlink’s estimated cost is.
  
  Serioualy, the scale of how wrong you are about all of this is staggering.
  
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  - ubergeek@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    
    Here you are acknowledge that ground-based systems are very vulnerable to attack.
    
    Which includes the ground stations that Starlink uses.
    
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    Bytemeister@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Still works over Ukraine somehow… Maybe that fancy satellite network just carries it to the next available ground station?
    
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