logoalt Hacker News

dylan604today at 5:09 AM1 replyview on HN

> in a state actor, or in a private operator.

multiple satellite operators are coming on line. what are the odds all of them coordinate to shut down in one region invalidating using the other providers as fail over?


Replies

ursAxZAtoday at 5:47 AM

I might be mistaken, but as far as I know there is currently no other LEO broadband provider that is meaningfully comparable at a global scale.

Starlink is often treated as the reference point not because it is perfect or fully resilient, but because there is no second network at a similar scale that could realistically serve as a failover today.

If we imagine a hypothetical future where three mature operators exist, then yes — absent coordinated political or geopolitical action, at least one network might remain online.

However, even that surviving operator would not necessarily provide full coverage of the affected region. Global redundancy is extremely hard in practice, because maintaining continuous, worldwide LEO coverage is not free — it requires massive capex and opex, ground stations, regulatory permissions, and local political approval.

True worldwide failover remains more of a theoretical construct than an operational reality.

show 1 reply