The $8,000 satellites are put into low-earth orbit (160–1,200 km), where as these would require a geosynchronous orbit (35,786 km). The increased mass and orbit requires a lot more lift, i.e. fuel, i.e. money.
If you had a swarm of them, they would still not be viable telecom satellites.
Why not?
Well, because they'll die in a matter of weeks, for one. Sending up a swarm of them just makes the loss costlier and thus strengthens the case for sending up a proper satellite.
Not only that a swarm would function like space junk. Imagine NORAD trying to track 100 satellites eventually one will probably hit something important.