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by raducu 2116 days ago
The fiber is a fixed geometry.

The satellite mesh is not, a straight line from point A to point B is not possible most of the time, given the number of satellites available and range of laser communication in space.

1 comments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEIUdMiColU is an animation of how it's supposed to work, including latencies

There are enough satelites and low enough routing on the lasers to mean packets will arrive from London to NY faster than even a great-circle fibre.

In reality how much bandwidth is available is a function of money, and HFTs tend to have a lot of money.