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

Satellites are great for “send out a signal that every TV dish and every phone GPS can pick up” but the actual bandwidth, the number of bits they can transmit per second, is relatively low. Thus, they aren’t great for sharing two-way communications among millions of pairs of computers.

Fiber optics have fantastic bandwidth. It’s also a lot easier to lay additional cables than to launch additional satellites.