As I understand it, HFT justified digging new tunnels between NYC and Chicago to take advantage of the shorter distance the signal would have to go. And that was transmitting at or near the speed of light. Somehow, I doubt bouncing on a roundtrip to a satellite is worth it.
> And that was transmitting at or near the speed of light. Somehow, I doubt bouncing on a roundtrip to a satellite is worth it.
That's the thing, the speed of light in fiber is actually significantly slower than the speed of light through air, which itself is slightly slower than the speed of light through a vacuum.
Over long enough distances this adds up to the point that high frequency traders already have built radio relay networks between New York and Chicago. You can't easily build radio towers across oceans, but a satellite relay network that could follow a nearly line-of-sight path is almost the same thing.
Also fiber isn't run as the crow flies, sometimes it has to take a winding path which adds even more distance to the run than you might think, on top of the reduced speed of light.
If Starlink manages to get their satellite to satellite laser link tech working, which is a MASSIVE if, they're in a very good place.
Mark Handley[1] has done a number of videos running the numbers based on published Starlink numbers, both with and without the inter-satellite laser links.
It's been a while since I watched them, but I recall that even without laser links, they can beat any of the terrestrial links over a certain distance - because the terrestrial links can't get direct-LOS.
Based on what math? Tokyo and New-York are 10,848.68 km apart, terrestrially (though cables don't go as the crow flies), but LEO is only 2,000km off the surface. If Starlink can get connect Tokyo to New York in fewer than 3 hops, and thus over shorter distance, then you can bet that HFT firms will be falling over themselves to sign up.
The speed of light in fibre (I.e. glass) is substantially slower speed of light than near vacuum .
So yes bouncing up a few hundred km is faster for medium and long range connections .
It will not be faster than fibre for Manhattan to Princeton , but it would be faster for London - New York or London-Frankfurt
