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The bandwidth possible in the terahertz size "channels" in singlemode fiber is incredibly larger than the channel size and modulations needed for rf to/from geostationary.

If you look at the per cpe traffic charts for each of the 32 customers on your typical 32:1 oversubscribed GPON connection, each individual one doesn't move that much traffic at all, relative to a chart that's scaled to 1Gbps on the Y axis.

With very basic CWDM you can push a ridiculous amount of data through just one strand of good sm fiber.

Docsis3/3.1 cable internet is worse because it's reliant on asymmetric use of downstream rf channels and much more limited bandwidth in the coax (though, they do still achieve 2048 and 4096qam!)

If you have a very small piece of rf spectrum like some tiny fraction of one 36MHz satellite transponder and you then oversubscribe it 32:1 or worse and also have to use fairly rudimentary loose modulations (very poor bps/Hz compared to terrestrial wired line modulations) at geostationary link budget distance, yeah, it's gonna suck.

It's more like, imagine you had fifteen people with laptops all connected to a single 802.11n AP from 12 years ago and you're all trying to torrent the latest 5GB debian install iso at the same time.



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