Elon Musk has argued that a fourth generation of Starlink satellites, known as V4, could take long-haul internet traffic away from the undersea fibre-optic cables that carry most of the world’s data today. He made the case in a post on X and in a fireside chat with Ron Baron, the longtime Tesla investor whose firm is a major SpaceX shareholder, in remarks reported by BigGo Finance on 9 November and by Yahoo Finance on 12 November.
Key facts
- Musk wrote on X: “~100 lasers per satellite, each operating above 10 Tb/s, with over 100k satellites should be able to outcompete undersea cables.”
- He said the speed of light in space is about 40% faster than in cable, and that the orbital path is direct rather than following the outline of land masses, according to both outlets.
- Musk described V4 as roughly 10 times the capability of V3, which he called 10 times better than V2, BigGo Finance reports.
- A day later he framed the 100-laser number as an engineering target, not a specification, the same outlet says.
- Yahoo Finance notes that V4 depends on Starship, whose next flight — Flight 15 — was set for 13 November.
What Musk actually promised, and what he walked back
The written claim and the spoken one do not match. BigGo Finance reports that in the Baron conversation Musk put the next-generation inter-satellite link at 10 Tbps each and said SpaceX would fit 10 of them per satellite — a tenth of the figure in his X post. He then wrote that reaching 100 would depend on shrinking the hardware, assuming the satellites fly roughly 10 times closer together and the in-plane links need only a small gimbal angle.
That caveat goes to the heart of it, because Starlink’s laser links are the whole basis of the backbone argument.
The arithmetic, and its limits
BigGo Finance says the world’s subsea telecommunications cables together carry roughly 6.4 petabits per second, citing industry estimates, while 100,000 satellites carrying 100 lasers at 10 Tbps would yield a theoretical aggregate of about 100,000 Pbps. The outlet cautions that this sums nameplate capacity rather than deliverable throughput once routing, contention and ground links are counted.
What it would mean for prices and availability
For households buying satellite internet in Africa, Latin America and South Asia, V4 is not a new dish or a cheaper plan. The backbone pitch is about selling capacity between continents to carriers and cloud operators — revenue that does not depend on signing up more subscribers in cheaper markets, where Starlink’s average revenue per user fell to $69 in the third quarter from $83 a year earlier. Yahoo Finance frames that as the attraction: a growth line that does not require winning more low-ARPU households.
What is missing from both accounts is the part a subscriber would care about. There is no commitment that backbone revenue would subsidise consumer pricing, no coverage or availability target attached to V4, and no figure at all for satellite-to-ground or ground-station capacity — which is what decides how many users a constellation can actually serve in a given country, since traffic from a terminal still has to pass through a gateway to reach terrestrial networks. On the published record, V4 would improve the economics of the network before it changes what anyone pays to use it.
Why cables look vulnerable right now
The timing is partly geopolitical. Reuters reported, in an account relayed by BigGo Finance, that two senior Iranian officials said Tehran would target subsea cables in the Gulf if the United States and Israel strike again; vessels suspected of links to Iran were seen lingering near cable routes in the Gulf of Oman, among them the Celestial Sea, which stayed near the 2Africa cable for more than four hours on 14 October. Seven major cables pass through the Strait of Hormuz, and the single-route problem is not confined to the Gulf: South Korea sends most of its international traffic through Japan and Taiwan, and Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications put about 99% of the country’s international communications on subsea cables in its 2023 white paper. The scale check comes from TeleGeography, the research firm whose cable data both outlets draw on: it counts roughly 600 in-service and planned cable systems carrying more than 99% of international traffic, and puts bandwidth crossing Hormuz at under 1% of the world total. That makes the strait a chokepoint for the countries behind it rather than for the internet — and makes a satellite backbone a hedge for specific regions, not a replacement for the cable map.
The V3 hardware, generation by generation
More than 11,000 working Starlink satellites were in orbit as of October 2026, flying between roughly 330 and 500 kilometres, BigGo Finance reports. V3, the generation now moving toward mass production, is a different machine from V2:
- Mass: about 2,000kg, against 575kg for V2
- Operating orbit: about 350km
- Downlink: 1 Tbps per satellite
- Uplink: 160–200 Gbps
- Combined radio-frequency and laser backhaul: estimated at about 4 Tbps per satellite
- Launcher: Starship — the mass is why nothing smaller will do
- Status: first 26 V3 satellites deployed on 28 September 2026
The investment case
Yahoo Finance reports that Starlink consumer revenue rose 57% year on year to $3.12bn in the third quarter and enterprise and government revenue rose 91% to $2.13bn, while consumer subscribers grew 89% to 13.6 million; the service has passed 10 million users, per BigGo Finance. Baron has modelled Starlink at $1 trillion of revenue and a $14–15 trillion valuation within 10 years and now considers that light, Yahoo Finance says. Its Connectivity segment brought in $11.4bn in 2025.
Wall Street consensus for all of SpaceX reaches $335bn by 2028. Yahoo Finance notes SpaceX trades at 13x forward sales against a 28x average since its June listing, and that for now investors are valuing the company on its compute business, whose quarterly revenue went from $2.56bn to $7.56bn. Musk has conceded that if compute becomes plentiful and cheap, SpaceX revenue will drop.
And the schedule keeps moving: in August Musk expected Starship to fly once a day within a year, and by the October earnings call he guided to weekly flights in the first half of 2027, Yahoo Finance reports. The undersea cables, the outlet points out, are already in the water.
Frequently Asked Questions
Has SpaceX been approved to launch 100,000 satellites?
No. The 100,000 Gen3 figure is an application filed with the US Federal Communications Commission, not an approval, according to BigGo Finance. The largest number SpaceX has actually been cleared for is 15,000 Gen2 satellites.
When would V4 satellites fly?
No date has been given. SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell expects a few hundred V3 satellites in orbit by mid-2027, Yahoo Finance reports, and V4 comes after that.
How fast are Starlink’s current satellite-to-satellite laser links?
Roughly 100 Gbps, Musk said in remarks reported by BigGo Finance. The 10 Tbps link he describes for the next generation would be a 100-fold jump per link.
Would V4 make satellite internet cheaper where Starlink is already available?
Nothing in the reported remarks says so. Neither outlet reports a price cut, a subsidy from backbone revenue or a coverage target attached to V4.
Which countries are most exposed if Gulf cables are cut?
Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, because every subsea cable they use lands inside the Persian Gulf, leaving no submarine route that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz.
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