Yay, more space junk, and knowing Google they would abandon the whole thing a couple years in when it gets boring and leave them to rot.
this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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They split off from Google.
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They are not using satellites, they shine a lazer from one fixed tower to another, with range about 20 km.
Ah, see that's where not reading is a problem. Just saw star link competitor and remembered something a recently about China looking to launch a similar system.
Odd they would phrase it as a 'starlink competitor' then though rather than 'a new ISP bid'. Wireless systems with directional antenna relays are not really new, not sure if any use laser particularly but the concept is essentially the same.
Still raking in the upvotes though! Reading is for suckers!
That sounds similar to WiMax.
Yup. Now we have long-range WiFi filling that niche.
At sufficiently low orbits, the satellites would simply deorbit themselves because of the atmospheric drag. Several Starlink sats have been lost this way.
Wasn't starlink damaging the ozone layer as well?
I don't know about the ozone layer specifically, but reentry turns the satellite into danger dust -- mostly metal oxides and burnt polymers. Ozone, being a very strong oxidizer, is the most likely to react with the hot debris, so it probably does damage the ozone layer, but I can't quantify the damage, or the released pollutants.
When they say "burn up on reentry" they don't mean disintegrate, they mean burn. It's exactly like throwing thousands of home entertainment systems in a fire except that the pollution is in the upper atmosphere where normal pollution doesn't reach.
Yeah, more thinking the wasted time, resources, and emissions involved in building, launching, managing, and then whenever makes it down.
Take all that and make something useful instead, whatever happened to Google fiber being built out all over? More reliable, faster, doesn't involve sending piles of redundant satellites into space...
I think the existing telecoms tied them up in mountains of legal bullshit.
Supposedly traditional ISP's have tons and tons of lawyers and filed every single step of the way to stop Google from intruding on their local monopolies.
I guess that's better but honestly not by much.
See that guy between Bezos and Musk at the Trump inauguration? That's Sundar Pichai, Alphabet/Google CEO.
It's worse. Right now, people see the fascism in front of their eyes. They can choose to wake up or remain delusional. Before, it was masked and the average Joe wouldn't know better.
It's zero better. Every one and every thing that bends the knee to fascism is fascist, and should be treated the same.
If I were forced to pick between the two I'd take the guy who is only a white supremacist when it's profitable over the guy who is a white supremacist every waking moment.
Call it 1% better, if that.
Sure, for the list of executions at the Hague Musk should take priority, but you shouldn't buy products from any fascist. The difference between 99% fascist and 90% fascist is inconsequential.
Still a ratfucker, but ... not as high a priority target as the one activly throwing out nazi salutes.
Zuck looks like he's glitching and needs a hard reset
Yea no. This company might even sincerely want to do its own constillation yet I doubt that. This is just to give the optics of 'see! Musk isn't a monopoly!' along with 'see! we're not trump's puppets! We're fighting against President Musk!'
Same as their halfhearted attempts at laying fiber.
google laid fiber to make the others panic and impliment fiber
ok cool, whos gonna buy that? Europe wants to be independent from US big tech, elon got the US gov by the balls and china surely has their own thing.
It's different tech that doesn't suffer from starlink's latency issues.
Its not for people to buy. Companies like Google simply don't need to make profit anymore.
Its to show growth potential to investors. And when they inevitably cut the program, it will also show growth potential to investors since then it will be millions of dollars saved.
Im very much open to replacing my Starlink - but this isn’t it. Land based lasers are just going to be attached to things called cell towers - and if I have one of those nearby… then I’d use cellular.
It's still longer distance than cellular and it can get even better. Cell towers will always win.
The tech sounds useful to bridge cell towers in rural areas among each other to skip satellites and laying cables.
Back when I was still in university, dormatories' internet was established using a similar tech to the main campus. It was great, except on snowy days. Then there was just no internet at all.
That sounds like a major drawback. I guess it's still better than nothing tho. Did rain cause issues as well?
I don't think so. Cannot remember that it did. Fog did though.
At least it's not more low orbit space junk
yeah I would do this if it worked over starlink provided it gave as good or better connection.
Google/Alphabet keeping up the tradition of terrible product names I see
Musk just pissed as he was going to name one of his kids this.
a two-minute scan of products for sale on amazon will tell you that society is to the point of mashing keyboards to string letters together to come up with company names. this at least has consonants and vowels arranged in an order that resembles a word.
How do you keep birds from landing on it and shitting up the lens and blocking the laser?
It's the law of outdoor infrastructure. If it's outside, and it's high up, it will get shat upon.
You put some bird spikes around the lens. Same thing that is done for windows in cities with pigeons.
The picture of a dystopian future where feudal oligarchs are shooting down each others low orbit internet satellites in the furious competition for best coverage popped into my head.
Who are we casting as the satellite retrieval specialist with a penchant for bonsai trees living in an off grid log cabin?
Not familiar with the current crop of actors, but Honestly I'd love william shatner and nicolas cage be in this one. Cage getting to go full tilt as the CEO who's put offensive lasers on his satilites marketing them as an anti kessler syndrome measure but really jsut wanting to fry competitors.
Shatner even has the bonus of having a REALLY nice ranch they could use for location shots of shatner's home as he's talked into helping train the group of loonies that are going up there.
Heh, that's a good future.
The one we're speeding towards is where they all collude, and all the service is shitty and the same (or worse) as its ever been. If its not just monopolized. That's why Night City is a relatively good place to live in CP2077: There's still competition.
Anything to avoid laying fiber.
Zaybatsu. Japan lives in the 00s since the 80s, as they say. Since 1880s.