Eli5: Why are fiber optic cables still used if we can use satellites for communication?

Question

Pardon my lack of knowledge about this.

In: 11

Answer 1

So here’s my boxed explanation for bandwidth;

Picture all the information you’re sending and receiving as literal printed out paper, put into manilla envelopes and then stuffed inside bankers boxes.

If you want to send and receive that data, you have to load it into your car and take it somewhere and drop it off/pick it up

The bandwidth (commonly, erroneously referred to as speed) of your plan determines how many boxes fit in your car. If you’ve got a 100 Mbps plan you can fit 10 boxes in the back of your car. If you’re on 1gbps you can fit 100 boxes in the back of a pick up, that kind of thing.

The actual speed (this is what ping measures) of your connection is determined by the medium. Think of that as the speed limit on the road for your car/truck full of boxes.

A higher bandwidth plan isn’t “faster” than a low bandwidth one on the same style of connection because it’s strictly faster, it’s “faster” because it’s more.

If you have a car and a truck on the same road but you have 200 boxes to move the truck will get it done faster, not because the truck itself gets to the pickup/dropoff point faster, but because it gets it all done in 2 trips instead of 20.

So essentially in this example fibre optic has a much better highway and a much better pick up/drop off point. Satellites are very expensive and because they’re broadcasting over the air instead of a nice private cable they have to contend with interference, capacity and so many more issues that people have already covered here.