HigherSpeedInternet

06/20/2026

So You Got Your LEO Satellite Dish in the Mail. Now What? — Part 2

Last week we talked about the cable pinching problem. This week: two more things the quick-start guide doesn't mention, but your equipment will thank you for knowing.

☀️ THE NEW MEXICO SUN — INVISIBLE CABLE DAMAGE

The standard cable that ships with LEO kits is not rated for extended UV exposure the way outdoor-rated cable would be. It's designed to be protected — either inside conduit, or in shade, or both.

Run it along a south-facing roofline here for two years without protection and the insulation degrades faster than most people expect. The sun does the work slowly. You won't see it happening. But eventually you get the same result — connection problems, service drops, replacement cable.

One long-term user documented his installation: cable ran along the roof line in full sun for 18 months. At month 16, intermittent connection issues started. By month 20, the cable had to be replaced. He's now running it through proper conduit. Problem solved.

🐿️ WILDLIFE AND THE CABLE YOU CAN'T EASILY REPLACE

Up here on the East Mountains we have squirrels, mice, ravens, and the occasional bear making infrastructure decisions for us without consulting anyone. The proprietary cable from the dish to the router is a single point of failure.

PCMag's lead analyst documented his own dog chewing through a LEO satellite cable — watched it begin smoking before the connection died. Out here that's not a dog story. That's a squirrel story waiting to happen to half our neighbors. Our squirrels are ambitious. They have opinions. They do not respect proprietary cable specifications.

A replacement cable costs money, ships from a warehouse, and requires repeating the installation work. There is no local tech who drives out and fixes it.

The solution is straightforward: protect the exposed cable. PVC conduit, cable wrap, or routing it through areas where wildlife can't access it. It's not complicated. But it's not in the box.

🎯 WHAT TO CHECK THIS WEEK

Is your cable running exposed along a south-facing roof line? Consider protecting it with conduit or wrapping. It's cheap insurance against UV degradation.

Is your exposed cable accessible to animals? Route it differently or protect it. Squirrels don't negotiate.

These aren't complicated fixes. They're just not advertised. But they're the difference between a system that works reliably for years and one that develops problems down the road.

As for your internet connection — whether it comes through a satellite dish, a fixed wireless antenna, or fiber — Higher Speed Internet is always happy to have a straight conversation about what will actually work for your situation.

(505) 867-3298 | higherspeed.net

— Steven Grabiel
Higher Speed Internet | East Mountains, New Mexico | Since 2005

"Believe in Jesus Christ as your King, Lord and Savior and repent of your sins."

Honest, sincere local internet by HigherSpeed. Engineered fiber & fixed wireless for Moriarty, Edgewood, Estancia, and the East Mountains.

06/13/2026

So You Got Your LEO Satellite Dish in the Mail. Now What? — Part 1

The box arrives. You open it. There's a shiny dish, a cable, a router, and an instruction guide that is approximately four pages long. If that ratio seems slightly optimistic to you — well, that instinct is worth following.

One of the things that genuinely impresses me about LEO satellite services is the unboxing experience. The app walks you through setup and a lot of people are online within 10 to 15 minutes. For someone who had nothing before, that moment is real and I respect it.

But I want to share something the quick-start guide doesn't cover. I've been running broadband infrastructure in the East Mountains since 2005, and that experience shaped how I look at installations. This is about your equipment performing reliably long-term.

🕳️ THE CABLE AND THE CRACKED WINDOW — WHY IT MATTERS

To get the cable into your home properly you need to drill a hole through your exterior wall and seal it. What many self-installers do instead is run the cable through a cracked window or under a door threshold.

Here's why that matters: A cable carrying data and power that gets pinched in a doorway or window experiences repeated pressure every time the door opens or closes. That pressure degrades the cable insulation over time. You don't notice it at first. But after six months or a year of that, the insulation breaks down — and you get a dead connection and a replacement cable that ships from a warehouse.

The manufacturer's own help documentation warns this exact scenario out. They see it constantly. It's the #1 DIY installation problem they document.

🎯 CHECK YOUR INSTALLATION RIGHT NOW

If you have a LEO dish installed: Is your cable pinched in a door or window? If yes, fix it. Drill the hole. Seal it. It takes an afternoon and it's the difference between a system that works reliably for years and one that develops problems at month 16.

Next week we're talking about UV protection and wildlife damage. But this one is first because it's the most common and the easiest to fix.

As for your internet connection — whether it comes through a satellite dish, a fixed wireless antenna, or fiber — Higher Speed Internet is always happy to have a straight conversation about what will actually work for your situation.

(505) 867-3298 | higherspeed.net

— Steven Grabiel
Higher Speed Internet | East Mountains, New Mexico | Since 2000

"Believe in Jesus Christ as your King, Lord and Savior and repent of your sins."

Honest, sincere local internet by HigherSpeed. Engineered fiber & fixed wireless for Moriarty, Edgewood, Estancia, and the East Mountains.

06/06/2026

One More Thing About LEO Satellite Internet Nobody Is Talking About Yet — Part 2

Last week we talked about SpaceX going public. This week: what history tells us happens when internet companies answer to Wall Street.

📊 WHAT HAPPENS WHEN INTERNET COMPANIES GO PUBLIC

History is clear. Every major telecom that went public followed the same pattern:

Introductory pricing ends. The loss-leader rates that attracted customers were bankrolled by private capital. Public shareholders need quarterly earnings growth. The free samples stop.

Unlimited data gets redefined. The throttle thresholds drop. The fine print expands. This is the documented pattern of every publicly traded ISP in history.

Customer service gets squeezed. Automation replaces people. Ticket systems replace phone calls. When shareholder value becomes the legal obligation of every corporate decision, responsive support becomes a cost to minimize.

📎 Sources: Motley Fool: Public ISP History — fool.com | Satellite Today: Analyst Commentary — satellitetoday.com | Wall Street Journal: Telecom Industry Analysis — wsj.com

🏔️ WHAT HASN'T CHANGED

Now stack that on top of everything we covered this month — the 5-year satellite lifespan. The aluminum oxide accumulating in the stratosphere. The spectrum ceiling. The throttle cliff in the fine print. The collision clock ticking at 5.5 days.

A $1.5 trillion IPO doesn't solve any of those things. It adds Wall Street to the list of stakeholders those physics problems have to be balanced against.

Internet Services LLC is not going public. There are no shareholders to answer to. No earnings calls. No analysts in New York deciding what your internet bill should be. Just a guy on the East Mountains who has been showing up since 2005 — through the wind, the lightning, the tower tweaks, and yes, the squirrels — because this is home and you are neighbors.

That's the whole story. It was never more complicated than that.

🎯 THAT'S THE SERIES

Six weeks of plain language and cited research — not to sell you anything, but to make sure you have the full picture. You deserve to make informed decisions about something as essential as your internet connection.

Questions? Call us. (505) 867-3298 | higherspeed.net

— Steven Grabiel
Higher Speed Internet | East Mountains, New Mexico | Since 2000

"Believe in Jesus Christ as your King, Lord and Savior and repent of your sins."

The Motley Fool has been providing investing insights and personal finance to millions of people for over 25 years. Learn how we make the world Smarter, Happier & Richer.

06/02/2026

One More Thing About LEO Satellite Internet Nobody Is Talking About Yet — Part 1

We saved this one for last because after five weeks of ozone science and satellite collision clocks, you deserved something that feels a little closer to home. This one is about money. Specifically — Wall Street's money. And what happens when Wall Street shows up to your internet bill.

🚀 THE COMPANY BEHIND THE LARGEST LEO CONSTELLATION IS GOING PUBLIC

In December 2025, Elon Musk confirmed what the financial world had been speculating for months — SpaceX is planning an IPO, likely in mid-2026. The target valuation is between $1.5 and $1.75 trillion dollars. If it happens at that size it would be the largest public stock offering in the history of financial markets.

This is not speculation. Musk confirmed it himself, and prediction markets currently show an 81% probability of an announcement before August 2026.

📎 Sources: Elon Musk IPO confirmation, X — December 10, 2025 | Motley Fool: SpaceX IPO Analysis — fool.com | Morningstar: SpaceX Valuation Analysis — morningstar.com

💰 HERE'S WHY THAT MATTERS TO YOU PERSONALLY

Right now, over 70% of SpaceX's revenue comes from its satellite internet service. The moment SpaceX goes public, it stops being a privately funded space mission and becomes a publicly traded internet service provider — answerable to Wall Street shareholders every single quarter.

When that happens, the incentives change. Private capital can play a long game. Public shareholders play a different game — it's called the quarterly earnings call, and the only score that matters is the one they report every 90 days.

Next week we'll talk about what history tells us happens when internet companies answer to Wall Street. But this week: understand that the introductory pricing, the free hardware, the "unlimited" promises — all of that was funded by private money willing to wait. That's about to change.

See you next week.

— Steven Grabiel
Higher Speed Internet | East Mountains, New Mexico | Since 2000

"Believe in Jesus Christ as your King, Lord and Savior and repent of your sins."

05/23/2026

LEO Satellite Internet Is Impressive. Here's What the Brochure Leaves Out. Series Continued...............

? So What Does This Mean for You?

For truly remote locations with no other options, LEO satellite internet is a legitimate solution right now and I will be the first to say so. Technology that connects people who had nothing is a good thing, full stop.

But for most of the East Mountains, there is a local operator who has been running fiber and fixed wireless infrastructure here since 2005 — with no satellites to replace, no throttle cliff at the end of your billing cycle, no ozone concerns from his equipment, and no government rocket contract keeping the lights on. Just towers, fiber, and 20 years of showing up when something breaks.

I'm not asking you to take my word for it. I'm asking you to ask good questions of whoever is selling you internet service. Read the terms. Understand the technology. Know what you're buying. That's what informed neighbors do for each other.

Questions? Call us. (505) 867-3298 | higherspeed.net We pick up the phone.

— Steven Grabiel Higher Speed Internet | East Mountains, New Mexico | Since 2005

05/16/2026

LEO Satellite Internet Is Impressive. Here's What the Brochure Leaves Out. Series Continued...............

? The Sky Is Getting Crowded in Ways That Matter
Aerospace researchers published a metric called the CRASH Clock — it measures how quickly a catastrophic satellite collision could be triggered if collision-avoidance systems went offline. In 2018 that window was 121 days. As of June 2025 it is 5.5 days.
I don't know about you, but I find it mildly concerning that the thing keeping my GPS working is essentially a very complicated game of bumper cars happening 340 miles above my head at 17,000 miles per hour. But here we are. A close approach between two satellites now occurs in LEO every 22 seconds. GPS, weather monitoring, military communications, and emergency infrastructure all share that orbital shell. This is peer-reviewed concern from researchers at Princeton, University of British Columbia, and University of Regina.

? Sources: ScienceDaily: CRASH Clock Research Jan 2026 — sciencedaily.com | IEEE Spectrum — spectrum.ieee.org | Phys.org — phys.org

? One More Thing: Who Pays for the Rockets?
The LEO business model has a circular dependency. The same companies launching the satellites also own or depend on the rockets that put them there. Government launch contracts are a meaningful pillar holding up the cost structure that makes satellite replenishment affordable. In April 2025, SpaceX secured a $5.9 billion Pentagon contract for national security launches. Local infrastructure — built without dependency on government rocket contracts — is a different kind of stability.

? Sources: SpaceNews: LEO Launch Cost Economics — spacenews.com | Sacra — sacra.com

— Steven Grabiel Higher Speed Internet | East Mountains, New Mexico | Since 2005

05/09/2026

LEO Satellite Internet Is Impressive. Here's What the Brochure Leaves Out. Series Continued...............

? Wireless Has a Ceiling — Physics Doesn't Negotiate
Think of radio spectrum like the parking lot at McCall's Pumpkin Patch. There are only so many spaces. Every new satellite, every new subscriber competes for the same lanes. Researchers have noted that even with 12,000 active LEO satellites in orbit — roughly eight times current numbers — the technology still would not replace terrestrial broadband at scale without a fundamental leap in capability. More users sharing the same sky means less for each of them. That's not an opinion. That's math.

? Sources: APNIC Blog: LEO Bandwidth & System Capacity — blog.apnic.net | Bipartisan Policy Center — bipartisanpolicy.org

? "Unlimited" Still Means What It Always Meant
If you've had HughesNet or ViaSat before, you already know this song. It goes: fast, then slow, then a letter explaining that "unlimited" is a flexible concept. The melody is familiar. Only the album cover has changed.

LEO providers have updated their terms of service industry-wide to acknowledge that their networks are finite resources. Business customers who exhaust their priority data allotment can be throttled to speeds as low as 1 Mbps until the billing cycle resets — slower than a decade-old 3G cellular connection. If your business runs on cloud software, video calls, or point-of-sale systems, that's worth understanding before you sign.

? Sources: Mobile Internet Resource Center — rvmobileinternet.com | DishyCentral 2026 Guide — dishycentral.com

— Steven Grabiel
Higher Speed Internet | East Mountains, New Mexico | Since 2005

05/07/2026

System Upgrade/Outage Notice: Today and tomorrow (5/7/26 & 5/8/26) tech will be upgrading primary infrastructure in Cochit Lake. These upgrades will improve service and will create brief service outages as equipment is changed out. Your services should not be down very long.

05/02/2026

LEO Satellite Internet Is Impressive. Here's What the Brochure Leaves Out.

Last week I promised you a deeper look at LEO satellite internet — the physics, the fine print, the environmental science, and the questions worth asking before you make a decision. Here it is. Every source is linked so you can verify it yourself. No spin. Just information. You deserve to make your own call.

LEO Satellites Have a Short Shelf Life — By Design

A LEO satellite is built to last about five years. That's not a flaw — it's the business model. Your truck lasts longer. Your dog lasts longer. The cast iron skillet your grandmother left you will outlast every satellite currently in orbit. But I digress.

Operating at low altitude means atmospheric drag constantly pulls them down, and the industry has to keep launching replacements indefinitely. Right now, one to two satellites fall out of orbit every single day. Scientists expect that number to reach five per day as full constellations are deployed. The cost to put each satellite into orbit runs around $3 million. That's a replacement treadmill that never stops — and those costs have to be recovered somewhere. Usually from subscribers, usually over time, usually through pricing adjustments buried in updated terms of service.

? Sources: EarthSky / Jonathan McDowell, Smithsonian Astrophysicist — earthsky.org | Communications Daily LEO Cost Analysis — communicationsdaily.com

?? When They Burn Up, They Don't Just Disappear

When LEO satellites reenter the atmosphere at end of life, the aluminum they're built from burns into aluminum oxide nanoparticles. In 2022, satellite reentries already increased aluminum in the upper atmosphere by nearly 30% above natural levels. Published research in peer-reviewed journals now projects that ozone-damaging aluminum oxide concentrations could increase by more than 640% as full constellations deploy. Unlike the CFCs we banned in the 1980s, these particles don't get consumed when they react with ozone — they keep working for decades. NOAA researchers have flagged this as a credible threat to the same ozone layer humanity spent 40 years repairing.

? Sources: Geophysical Research Letters, USC Viterbi School of Engineering — agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com | NOAA Chemical Sciences Lab 2025 — csl.noaa.gov | AGU Newsroom — news.agu.org

— Steven Grabiel
Higher Speed Internet | East Mountains, New Mexico | Since 2005

04/25/2026

📶Here's something most wireless internet ads won't tell you — and it matters more than the speed number they're selling you with.

Radio spectrum is like the parking lot at McCall's Pumpkin Patch. There are only so many spaces. Everyone wants one. And no matter how nice your truck is, if the lot is full — you're circling.

Every device, every tower, every satellite using wireless technology is competing for space in those same lanes. This is true for your cell phone. It's true for fixed wireless like ours. And it's true for the new satellite internet services advertising on TV right now.

The speed an internet provider advertises is the best-case number — usually measured with one user, at the best time of day, under ideal conditions. It's a bit like a car dealership advertising highway MPG. Technically true. Rarely what you experience on I-40 behind a livestock trailer.

What actually matters to your daily experience is how that speed holds up when dozens — or thousands — of people in your area are using the same service at the same time. That gap between advertised speed and real-world speed is something every internet provider — including us — should be honest about.

Next week we're going to dig into exactly how this plays out with the new LEO satellite services everyone is asking about. The numbers are interesting. The science behind them is more interesting. And some of what we found deserves a wider audience than the peer-reviewed journals it's been sitting in.

See you next Saturday.