Until somebody cuts launch costs ($ per kg to a 450 x 450km orbit) to 1/10th of its current price, satellite will always be the worst option unless you're in a truly remote place. For example a mountainous region of Idaho in a town with population 70 people.
o3b is a step in the right direction, and has been revolutionary for some pacific island nation states. I think I've said this before: You can aggregate all of the transponder capacity of ALL the C and Ku-band transponders on a single large (6000 kilogram) geostationary telecom satellite, and even if you're generous by assuming that everything operates at very tight 16QAM or 32APSK modulations with huge dishes on the ground, the total throughput of that satellite is less than you can push through two strands of fiber with a few thousand dollars of DWDM gear on each end, and some $150 SFP+ modules. On Mon, Nov 9, 2015 at 8:06 AM, Ken Hohhof <[email protected]> wrote: > I’m waiting for the geniuses at Google Fiber to show us dummies how to > solve that one. > > You could say advertising supported or walled garden services like > Facebook is promoting in the third world might be the answer, but with > those trees, drones and balloons might not be a solution, even satellite > might be tough. And if people can’t afford or don’t want a computer, > connectivity is not the only obstacle. Schools sending kids home with > Chromebooks might break through that. > > > *From:* Eric Kuhnke <[email protected]> > *Sent:* Monday, November 09, 2015 4:12 AM > *To:* [email protected] > *Subject:* [AFMUG] Unsurprising news: Rural Mississippi broadband sucks > > http://www.wired.com/2015/11/the-land-that-the-internet-forgot/ > > > yeah you're not going to get a lot of subscribers in a county where 90% of > the children qualify for free school lunches... no matter what the > population is, hard finding a sufficient number of people to pay $50/mo. >
