[rfolstad]

Seems like Starlink has potential to completely disrupt undersea cables once the network is larger. Obviously it wont ever be the same latency or bandwidth as an undersea cable but it would be near impossible to tap and much cheaper.

[Gasp0de]

Why would it be near impossible to tap? Couldn't you just fly a drone around one of the ground stations and intercept all the communication?

[nobody9999]

>Why would it be near impossible to tap? Couldn't you just fly a drone around one of the ground stations and intercept all the communication?

Why bother with a drone? Just drive a van/truck/ATV with appropriate receivers near such ground stations.

[AnimalMuppet]

You might need a drone with an antenna the same size as the ground station's. I haven't seen the ground stations, but that might be hard to put on a drone.

[kimburgess]

You're right that it won't be the same - it has the potential to be faster.

Speed of light in a vacuum is higher than what can be achieved in a fiber-optic. Combine that with a more direct path than what can be achieved with an undersea cable and things start to get interesting.

[anotherboffin]

Genuinely wondering why you mention “in a vacuum”, as the signal would have to go through the atmosphere.

[kimburgess]

For the inter-satellite links. First and last hop still need to pass from the ground to LEO.

The obvious solution is to start yeeting compute and/or users into space.

[notakio]

I vote for users. I'll stay down here with compute, I know how this ends.

[BenjiWiebe]

Atmosphere is practically vacuum as far as speed of light goes.

Fiber optic: 0.67c Atmosphere: 0.9997c Vacuum: 1c