[lxgr]

Neither are trivial, the two just scale very differently.

I do see the benefit in resilience of building out fiber even to moderately unprofitable (from a unit economics point of view) regions, just like we also build roads to communities that will never "pay the investment back" in taxes. But there are cases where it just can't be justified.

But it's also not a simple either-or: There are other technologies than fiber and satellite; there can be more than one high-throughput LEO provider; we can have a few GEO satellites for redundancy (although with significantly worse latency) etc.

[snuxoll]

Outside of truly rural areas the question with fiber is how long is the payback period, not "will it be profitable". Especially if deployment is integrated with routine highway re-pavement projects (roads need torn up and redone roughly every 30 years, after all), the majority of the cost becomes the fiber bundles themselves - perfect for even a smaller county or city government to handle with a modest bond issue.

[lxgr]

> the question with fiber is how long is the payback period, not "will it be profitable".

The "payback period" might well be infinite (with non-zero interest rates), in which case we're talking about a subsidy, not an investment. (Which might still be a good idea! It won't "pay for itself", though.)