
Gilder's Law - dedalus
https://www.netlingo.com/word/gilders-law.php
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jessriedel
With Google Fiber having mostly failed to induce typical broadband in the US
above 200 Mbps, what is the conventional wisdom on when the next significant
shift in speeds will come, and what the enabling tech will be?

Is it just going to be a glacial rollout of fiber along the last mile to
homes? If so, what are the estimates for, say, the date when the median US
home has a gigabit connection?

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hugh4life
I live out in the middle of nowhere. 10 miles away from a post office, 15
miles from the nearest town with a high school, and 20 miles in a different
direction from a city with any major retail outlets. And right now they're
laying fiber in our area and should be available sometime next year. This
really surprised me and I wasn't expecting it for another decade at least.

I'm actually not too hopeful about Starlink and LEO satellite internet for
rural areas without some kind of government subsidies(which already exist for
rural areas... at least phone ones IIRC). I'm a little more hopeful that that
it may spook rural DSL monopolies into building out fiber.

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killjoywashere
Satellite internet is more interesting for truly remote locations, like ships,
islands, and, at least for the time being, rural Africa. Fiber + cell solves a
staggering number of problems. My daughter was streaming movies an hour into
the mountains outside Chang Mai. Source: the uncomfortably warm phone in my
pocket serving as the family hotspot.

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jessriedel
I think satellite price/availability in rural areas is expected to advance
much faster than cell service in the coming decade or two, so you shouldn't
expect your current intuitions about which is appropriate where to hold. My
impression is that almost all of the upcoming cell tech comes from packing
tighter cells to enable higher bandwidth in crowded urban environments without
much changing the cost of providing service over wide rural areas. Have you
heard different?

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killjoywashere
Coverage will increase, but bits/human, particularly uplink, is going to be
harder. I can see streaming 500 channels of video, but 10-20 async sessions
per household over the entirety of North America sounds like a lot of bits.
Even with, say 100 satellites overhead, that's still 5-6 million people per
satellite. let's call it a million households. Particularly during peak use
hours in the evening, that's a lot a lotta bits.

