alt Hacker NewsThe article doesn't even mention AWS, which I think is the obvious implication being overlooked here. AWS has Government and defense contracts, with DoD notably. This enables secure private communication outside of the internet across data centers (of which there are a lot) and of course, to any point on the Earth. The idea that this is for "underserved communities" is probably a sly nod to battlefield logistics.
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> This enables secure private communication outside of the internet across data centers
How so? I'd imagine the datacenter terminal side downlink to be much more easily tappable than fiberoptics.
There are advantages in latency and potentially availability, but even there I would imagine fiber to win in an adversarial active jamming scenario.
Quick note that post-Snowden: no it doesn't. There's no such thing as "secure private communication" from magic wires.
They will undoubtedly sell some aspect of Kuiper through AWS. They already have IP addresses and DNS in the AWS product list, and they have all kinds of data transport services.
I don’t know if the government implication is as big as you think, as the US government has been doing secure satellite communications for decades and has already given SpaceX the contract for Starshield. So undoubtedly Kuiper would love a piece of the action but there is already competition and Kuiper is a bit late to the game.