bgum wrote:
After Katrina in south Louisiana land lines were out of service as poles and wires were down, cell phones were out of service due to cell towers and equipment being out. This was not a short term problem. My employer sent a satellite phone for my use. I was only able to connect to one site and then only for a matter of seconds before disconnect. While discussing the problem I was informed that the military had sucked up all the satellite time.
Now when the general population is trying to use this what do you think will happen?
Maybe additional satellites will be deployed to meet demand?
SpaceX is going to be spitting these new bigger satellites into LEO like a PEZ dispenser - they're going to be mass-produced, in the thousands. (Their FCC filing specified up to 30,000 of them.)
Compare that number with the dozen or so satellites currently being used for satellite phone service.
