The FCC decided it wouldn’t be the “best” use of limited funds.

Starlink loses out on $886 million in rural broadband subsidies::The FCC reaffirmed a decision not to award Starlink a nearly $900 million subsidy for offering 100Mbps/20Mbps low-latency internet service in 35 states.

  • Ilovethebomb@lemm.eeEnglish
    157·
    1 year ago

    This is the kind of dumb statement that really gives this platform a bad name. I know people who were quoted a six figure sum to get mains power to their property, fibre would have been a similar cost. And this is people who are at a fixed location, we also have those who are mobile to consider.

    There are people for whom a wired connection to anything is out of the question.

    • echo64@lemmy.worldEnglish
      44·
      1 year ago

      If only someone like a government would subsidise the installation just like the subsidised starlink because that also isn’t profitable. But a lot of money today is cheaper than an infinite amount of money from launching infinite rockets forever.

      How do you think everything got built thus far? Only in America do you get this logic repeated. Everyone else just builds infrastructure. Yes, even in places with very remote peoples.

      • Ilovethebomb@lemm.eeEnglish
        65·
        1 year ago

        First, I’m not in America.

        Second, I don’t think you comprehend just how remote some people are. I live in New Zealand, where over 90% of the country has fibre broadband thanks to a government initiative to get everyone connected, and we still have a large number of people using Starlink or other systems to get online, because it is simply not cost effective to wire them in.

        Reality does not align with your smug one-liners.

        • echo64@lemmy.worldEnglish
          55·
          1 year ago

          Hey, look, I can instantly downvote you too even though downvotes mean nothing on this platform, and it just antagonises any hope of conversation! Woo. Here’s where you say you didn’t do that. Though probably all hope for a normal conversation went out the window when you started your part by just flatout calling me dumb, funny!

          My entire point is that starlink is not more cost effective, it’s paid for by American subsidies and investors. It’s a money losing scheme. But laying infrastructure instead of burning the money up with infinite rockets full of infinite cell towers forever gives you a better return on the money spent as you can continue using that infrastructure for hundreds more years