WashingtonTimes: Residents of rural America are eager for high-speed Internet access under a $42.5 billion state-of-the-art plan, but not a single home or business is connected to new broadband networks nearly three years after President Biden signed the funding into law, and no. the project won’t start until sometime next year.
A big part of the problem is the accumulation in any government system of a number of ongoing wish list items including:
• Preference to hire union workers, who are less likely to come from other rural areas.
• Requires providers to prioritize “certain segments of the workforce, such as people with past criminal records,” when building broadband networks.
• Requires eligible businesses to “limit current cash only [climate-related] risk but also how the frequency, severity, and nature of these extreme events may evolve as our climate continues to change in the coming decades. “
If this sounds familiar, remember my post on Building Back Key Bridge Better (note the date).
However, the FCC estimates that 7.2 million locations, namely homes and businesses, do not have broadband access. $42.5 billion is enough to give all 7.2 million locations a 4-year subscription to Starlink (7.2 million locations * $120 per month * 48 months = $42.7 billion), and I’m sure Elon will give us a discount so I didn’t include the setup cost. Of course, the FCC ruled that Starlink was ineligible for the program citing “SpaceX’s failure to successfully launch its Starship rocket.” Note that the FCC is making its decision in 2022, years before the plan is released.
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