In rec.arts.sf.science Eivind Kjorstad wrote:
If you can use a very narrow signal, this problem goes away, it's a bit
hard to imagine a swarm of LEO-satelites, each maintaining a large
number of very narrow-beam signals (say laser) with independent receivers.

Keep in mind that the lower a satelite is, the faster it zips by, from
the POV of the receiver. So the satelite would need to be constantly
tracking with all of its beams, and there'd be a constant stream of
handovers from one satelite to the next.

Using a phased array would probably help a lot. Then everything comes down
to a problem of computing power, something which becomes less of a problem
with each passing day.

And at the end of the day you get internet to the few places where it
-doesn't- pay to do it the land-based way. Which means there's few users
and/or the ones that are there have low ability to pay for it.

This is the lesson of Iridium. Non-satellite works well enough for 99.99%
of the people, so you'd better be able to make money off only 0.01% of the
people.

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software