# Why do Americans think satellites are required for Internet to function?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-think-satellites-are-required-for-internet-to-function/843115>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [November 7, 2019, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-think-satellites-are-required-for-internet-to-function/843115 "2019-11-07T11:44:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![MacSpon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@MacSpon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacSpon)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2019, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-think-satellites-are-required-for-internet-to-function/843115/41 "2019-11-11T22:26:50Z")

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> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#):
>
> Just finished reading _Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet_ by Andrew Blum, which was written in 2012, so it may be somewhat outdated now, but gives a clear picture of the physical aspects of how the Internet works, at least back then. Interesting stuff.

To be fair, _most_ internet connections don’t require climbing Icelandic volcanoes.

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**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2019, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-think-satellites-are-required-for-internet-to-function/843115/42 "2019-11-11T23:08:00Z")

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> [@Qwertol](#):
>
> How did this misconception even start? I mean when I’m thinking “international network of computers” I don’t really think about space or satellites, it seems as a barely connected concept to me…

The idea that satellites would be involved goes back to at least the 1960s. In 1964 David Sarnoff (head of RCA) predicted: “The computer will become the hub of a vast network of remote data stations and information banks feeding into the machine at a transmission rate of a billion or more bits of information a second. Laser channels will vastly increase both data capacity and the speeds with which it will be transmitted. Eventually, a global communications network handling voice, data and facsimile will instantly link man to machine–or machine to machine–by land, air, underwater, and **space circuits**. [The computer] will affect man’s ways of thinking, his means of education, his relationship to his physical and social environment, and it will alter his ways of living… [Before the end of this century, these forces] will coalesce into what unquestionably will become the greatest adventure of the human mind.”

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**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2019, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-americans-think-satellites-are-required-for-internet-to-function/843115/43 "2019-11-11T23:59:13Z")

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relevant news story, spacex launching more satellites for it’s network:

> **[SpaceX launches another 60 Starlink satellites while setting two rocket reuse...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/11/watch-spacex-livestream-launching-second-starlink-internet-mission.html)**
>
> SpaceX launched another 60 of its Starlink internet satellites on Monday morning from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

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