[mlyle]

Most of us are not talking about Starlink. I'm talking about this optical uplink technology, which can push tens of terabits per second through the atmosphere between each uplink and satellite pair.

No, a single uplink can't replace a subsea cable.

[foobiekr]

Any free space optical approach you can imagine will be slower and noisier than the equivalent technology in a fiber. You are not going to get DWDM channel density in free space or throughput.

This is not real.

[mlyle]

> Any free space optical approach you can imagine will be slower and noisier than the equivalent technology in a fiber.

Granted. More path loss, dispersion, potential for interference. The question is how well can you do?

> This is not real.

I believe ETHZ; of course there's more to do to make a practical system.