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Comment by efnx | Hacker News Reader

Kinda sounds like they want to be able to give more money to the muskrat through subsidies for starlink instead of focusing on fibre (fibre would be a better investment), while also being able to charge whatever they want, while also “owning the libs”.

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It's possible, but more likely it's the issue of wireless providers who have tried to make dubious claims about speeds and coverage to claim government funds: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-02-16/fcc-invest...

I think you're just throwing a link out without understanding the topic in the title.

It's talking about opening up scoring system for BEAD to let the best technology for the market win based on features and costs.

Right now it is heavily weighted for fiber, and is done in a way that wouldn't require 25% matching funds for something like the middle of Wyoming, Montana, Alaska, etc.

But if you want to fiber up, say, Alaska - you're going to need a lot more money than $45Bn for just /that/ state alone. That's a lot of tax dollars better spent elsewhere when other sufficient technologies exist.

Honestly she could have done better putting it in those terms rather than attacking it the way she did but you nailed it. It's really expensive to cover large and disparate geographic areas with that kind of thing. There's definitely examples of smaller companies emerging and wiring up their entire rural towns with fibre optic, although the one I'm most aware of kind of foundered when the town ended up selling it to the big phone company after they couldn't pay something like 18 million in debt which gives an idea of scale and challenges for getting lasers to homes in just one town [1]. And on the other hand I've lived in much smaller third world countries where you can get FTTH pretty much everywhere even in small towns, mostly doable because the area to cover is just super small.

[1] https://www.thealbertan.com/olds-news/town-of-olds-selling-i...

I’m guessing Terms are designed to appeal to the most common denominator.

So - all communication must be the most incendiary? Or the most competitive ?

Which would explain much about side effects of outrage arms races?

There are requirements for throughput and latency that must be met for ~10yr regardless of the technology used.

And a more "industry friendly" government is going to let the wireless companies provide crappy service, lie about it, and take the funds.

You clearly have a bone to pick with large lte carriers, but there's a lot of licensed and unlicensed wireless providing service to millions of people all over the world.

They have admited in court to lying to both consumers, and the government, about their products. Fines have been issued for the same.

This is just reality I'm afraid.

"Wireless" seems to mean seemingly something like Verizon to you, as opposed to thousands and thousands of regional wireless providers using microwave radios and things like 3.65Ghz CBRS.

Do you mean that the Trump administration is not an "industry friendly" government? I don't know if Trump and his agency heads care about industries so much as specific companies.

Also, in regard to broadband, Trump and FCC chair Brendan Carr are quite industry friendly. Carr wrote a Project 2025 chapter in which he favored decreasing the FCC's regulations even further, and prioritizing subsidies toward satellite internet from Starlink and Kuiper [1]. (Let's not forget Ajit Pai, but Pai had a filter compared to Carr. I don't think Pai would've written a Project 2025 chapter.)

[1] https://www.newsnationnow.com/politics/brendan-carr-fcc-proj...

You read it backward. I expect them to be more than just friendly.

WISPA in particular has been strongly anti-fiber and lobbying that things like 50 x 10 Mbps on a contended-access wireless point to multipoint system is good enough.

https://www.wispa.org/

I would be more willing to accept that state of affairs if StarLink had better competition.

If compared to the alternative, Musk makes more money, but then substantially more of the underserved population get access to high speed Internet, would you consider that to be bad?

I would rather have fibre built out as a utility. People can always opt for starlink or whatever wireless they want on their own dime, but I think tax dollars should pay for infrastructure to be built in the places we live.

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