this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2026
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The issue with serving urban is that they need more satellites with narrower beams to handle the higher density and resulting load. Yes, they fly over, but they don’t have the capacity.
I mean I don't specifically know how much over capacity they are adding specifically so they can serve urban areas, but I do know that they are trying to reach the specifications set out by the FCC so that they can be considered broadband for rural applications. To qualify for that you need 100/20 down/up with latency requirements.
What I do know though is that they even with their full network, they aren't reaching that in all rural areas yet, only some (I vaguely recall something like 40-60% have met it?), so it's not like the existing network is over capacity specifically for urban right now, they still have more work to do on rural.
Edit: I think my 40-60 number is also about a year old, so its probably a little higher now.