Higher bandwidth means more noise, which means you need either higher gain or more sensitive detection (until you hit thermal limits). They're very interrelated issues.
The overall discussion in this sub-thread is the cost of being able to point at fast-moving satellites.
For straight bandwidth, how the the price of phone modems go up from the first analog phones to 5G? Seems to have not been much of a burden to phone prices. (Edit: shaped beams in the cell towers make a huge difference.)
I'm addressing your point that it's a solved problem. The issues around making high bandwidth data interconnects are not just "straight bandwidth". I'm explaining that there are fundamental interconnections between bandwidth and SNR that make large bandwidths harder to build at sufficient SNR:
The iridium satellite receivers use low-gain antennas, so reception is limited to small bandwidths. This means they don't care where the satellites are. New technology will enable high-gain antennas that can track the motion of satellites, enabling much higher channel rates.
I think you misunderstand what I meant by "it". I added a few notes to my earlier comments; you're assuming that the new satellites don't have higher power or tighter beams? Not to mention that low-end WiFi equipment now has shaped beams, so it's not exactly rocket science to have that in an Iridium receiver. As a former radio astronomer who did some VLBI, solid state phased arrays are easy to understand, I'm mostly glad that I don't have to be the person making them affordable in a few-hundred-$ ground station!
