I think the bigger headline should be the huge conflict of interest between Musk being a megadonor and "advisor" / leader of DOGE (depending on if you ask Trump or his minions) and being the CEO of Starlink owner SpaceX.
Add it to the list including lease of Starlink services and kits to the FAA.
As someone that lives in the rural US and has no option for internet besides Starlink, I'd much rather have fiber. Starlink isn't bad, but it's garbage compared to fiber.
Plus I don't want to give Elmo my money. I really wish I had other options.
It sucks to even be in partial agreement with the broligarchs, but as a rural American, I have zero sympathy for this fuckhead or anyone else involved in the broadband fund.
The government has been pouring money into broadband expansion for decades, and for decades, internet providers have been sopping up that money while doing exactly nothing to actually earn it.
There is absolutely no reason the US government shouldn't be launching their own public satellite internet.
Look at North Korea. People get killed for smuggling in flash drives with western media into the country. We could be streaming it from uninterruptible satellites. We could be fighting the global information war on a level most other countries could only dream of.
On the domestic end, if we get Internet access to every corner of the country, it opens up remote work to every American. That could bring an incredible economic boost to impoverished rural areas.
Satellite internet is simply never going to best the throughput and stability of fiber. Just another corrupt action so this administration can line their pockets.
Starlink makes sense on the top of mountain. If you have electricity from the grid, you should get fiber.
And it totally won't be monitored or censored ... promise! /s
Wow I’m shocked. This is my shocked face.
USA has always been corrupt. What's chocking is the brazenness of this administration. Former administrations at least had the decency to do it in the shadows.
Regardless of the obvious moneygrab corruption, It's not like the fiber program was ever going to work in the first place as long as private ISP's were involved.
Fiber backbone got installed along 25 miles of rural county highway out in the valley my parents live in. The company paid to do it marks the area as "service coming soon".
That was in 2018. The fiber is still dark with all the distribution boxes empty and not hooked up to anything, the only other options being $110/mo DSL in a very few select spots, a local mountaintop microwave wireless service that is basically turned off from November until April, or Starlink... and I'm guessing it'll forever remain that way until the coming collapse of the USA.
I never expected the US to go down this way...
Wouldn't 4G make more sense for most rural locations, its not like its a single house with nothing for 1000 miles in all directions
Can starling even come close to the speed of fiber? I’m getting a gibabit a second for 50 bucks a month
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