Yeah, things and people tend to work better if hosted
on land...
Agreed.
Having ran a satellite-based ISP longer than I have my current
fibre-based one, I can safely say that with satellite, speed tests
generally tend to be the least of you or your customer's worries. Just
simply having a working transmission to/from the bird, and looking for
all the cash in the world to service that satellite space segment, is
enough of a drama.
Would having local CDN caches help satellite-based providers? Sure,
particularly in this day & age where classic caches (Squid et al) have
nothing against the type of content that's out there.
There is a direct relationship between the existence of (submarine)
fibre into a country/region, the availability of infrastructure, the
eyeball density, the telecoms regulatory regime, and the desire for
content operators and CDN's to invest. Even in Africa, parts that now
have (submarine) fibre lack the rest of these elements, and are
suffering the disinterest from those that create and distribute the content.
Mark.