That’s a good point, the difference between vacuum and atmosphere isn’t so significant, but then it’s not really a new tech or “lightspeed internet” it’s just a satellite link.

With the addition of satellite-to-satellite optical connections, which will greatly improve latency and bandwidth.

If SpaceX pulls off their swarm of telecom satellites, we might get to see how it really works in widespread practice. Exciting prospect!

Indeed. And what I'm most interested in is all the cash they're dumping into commercial phased-array antennas. If they manage to scale enough to get them to a low enough price they will be amazing for all sorts of other stuff.