[hattmall]

Really? How is it hard to fathom that building something on Earth is far more simple than sending a satellite up into space. Running wires isn't as expensive as a rocket generally. Also rural towers can use line of sight antennas to get backhaul from other towers that are connected to the wires.

A simple google search for cost to launch a satellite comes back with "between $10 and $400 million dollars". And cost to build a cell tower being "around $250,000."

If it costs $100k to run a mile of fiber, which would be very high, then you could run about 95 miles to a new tower before you even get to the low end of satellite costs.