[wolrah]

> And that was transmitting at or near the speed of light. Somehow, I doubt bouncing on a roundtrip to a satellite is worth it.

That's the thing, the speed of light in fiber is actually significantly slower than the speed of light through air, which itself is slightly slower than the speed of light through a vacuum.

Over long enough distances this adds up to the point that high frequency traders already have built radio relay networks between New York and Chicago. You can't easily build radio towers across oceans, but a satellite relay network that could follow a nearly line-of-sight path is almost the same thing.

Also fiber isn't run as the crow flies, sometimes it has to take a winding path which adds even more distance to the run than you might think, on top of the reduced speed of light.

If Starlink manages to get their satellite to satellite laser link tech working, which is a MASSIVE if, they're in a very good place.