According to the New York Post, the SpaceX Project and Project Kuiper might mean cheaper broadband prices and more money in the bank for end users.
Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites from Elon Musk’s SpaceX project and Jeff Bezos’ Project Kuiper could save American households more than $30 billion per year, the New York Post says.
The reason for high savings comes with the increase of broadband competition. The “more broadband internet services available in an area, the lower the price consumers will pay on average,” the New York Post says. For example, Americans with one wired broadband might pay $68 for services per month, whereas Americans with two choices could see the price drop to something like $59 per month; Americans with five or more may pay $47 per month.
Aside from thicker wallets, both satellite projects, which feature low-latency satellites, might bring with them better quality of service.
Traditionally, high latency can cause disruptive delays in connections, which is detrimental to video chatting or live streaming content. Low latency will minimize delays and other connection problems, which the New York Post says will particularly benefit gaming.
“No single activity relies on low latency like gaming does,” Tyler Cooper, editor at BroadbandNow, said in a previous interview with Fox News. “In online video games, players often interact directly with each other and in the case of competitive games, these interactions are often split-second exchanges. In this scenario, low latency can actually mean the difference between ‘playable’ and ‘unplayable.’”
The goal of both projects is to provide millions of people, especially those from underserved and rural communities, with access to the internet from space. Musk announced his SpaceX project back in 2017; after filing with the International Telecommunications Union, Bezos announced last month that he received permission to launch 3,236 satellites into low orbit to provide internet services globally.
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