Anyone else questioning why data lines being cut in the ocean cause so much chaos? Am I the only one that was led to believe satellites handle the majority of our communications?
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I work for a large tier one global internet provider - We have arguably the fastest pipes across the Atlantic. Sure, you can get a lot of data down from a satellite but the upload is poop compared... but not at all as bad as the latency. The latency over satellite can't touch what we can accomplish with channelized fiber frequencies.. coupled with the far greater capacity and its going to be a long time before satellite can match it... but maybe not too long before the low-cost of use outweighs the speed and latency shortcomings. Still, telecom is an amazing industry to be part of.
As a trained Satellite Communications Tech for the USAF, I can tell you the amount of Data of the fiber optic cables undersea is massive. So when those are cut or disrupted you can rely on the Satcom, but it comes at a price. That price is delay. Now with the Starlink much of that delay is removed or reduced, but the world is not all Starlink yet.
The vast majority of data is sent via fiber.