Sat-sat links only save them some landline bandwidth cost, allow them to serve a...

kjksf · on June 30, 2022

It does (or at least can) improve a bandwidth of any give satellite due to load balancing.

Let's say you're in SF, served by a satellite that is currently over SF.

You're talking to a server in NY.

Your data has to go up to a satellite and come down from satellite to a base station.

Currently this uses 2x bandwidth for this one satellite.

But let's say SF satellite is maxed out but there currently is a satellite over Nevada desert with a spare capacity.

With inter-satellite links and proper routing, your data could go up in SF and come down in Nevada dessert, making more bandwidth available in SF.

The satellites have a full coverage of US area but there are large parts of land where there's very little use of available bandwidth.

If SpaceX builds enough base station scattered around US, they could almost 2x the bandwidth available in areas with high density of customers.

ncmncm · on June 30, 2022

Limiting bandwidth is the downlink to terminals. Probably the birds will have edge service contracts to proxy content, saving on uplink from hubs.

They might even be equipped to broadcast identical real-time content (e.g. world cup) once for all terminals following. (Anyway I would make that work, in their place.)