Update 2021-05-25 - I now consider this article Starlink, Part 1 of a series. For the entire series, click on the Starlink tag.
Melissa Santos writing at Seattle tech blog Geekwire on March 9, 2021:
You might think Russ Elliott would be pleased about private companies winning $223 million in federal subsidies to expand broadband in rural Washington state. Instead, Elliott — the director of the state’s broadband office — is frustrated.
He’s under direction from Washington’s Legislature to bring the entire state up to superfast internet speeds by 2028. Yet in December, the federal government announced plans to award hundreds of millions of dollars to companies Elliott is afraid won’t meet the state’s standards.
One of those companies is SpaceX, whose satellite internet service Elliott says has yet to prove capable of meeting the state’s 2028 internet speed goals. The space exploration company is in line to receive $80.4 million to expand rural broadband in Washington state, out of about $886 million in federal broadband subsidies the company is expected to receive nationwide.
For Elliott, the awards to private-sector companies such as SpaceX and CenturyLink pose another problem as well. In the geographic areas where those companies received federal awards, public agencies like his will have a harder time getting federal funding to improve broadband connectivity any further.
In effect, Elliott said, his office will be limited in what it can do to close any service gaps the private companies leave behind.
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Read the rest at https://www.geekwire.com/2021/federal-money-spacex-may-hurt-public-broadband-efforts-washington-state/
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(Update 2021-05-31 - I found the quote - now correct below.)
In the 2011 movie Captain America, the First Avenger, there's a brief conversation that goes something like this regarding Red Skull, the primary villain in the movie and his dastardly plans for bombing the US:
Col. Phillips: "You do realize that's nuts, don't you?"
Herr Zola (very soberly and emphatically): "The SANITY of the plan is of no consequence.
Col. Phillips: "And why is that?"
Herr Zola: (again, very soberly and emphatically): "Because HE can DO it".
That's how I feel about the situation discussed in this article. Lots of broadband companies promise (threaten) to provide universal broadband in rural areas - if only the subsidies and grants are sufficiently generous. The reality is that subsidies for rural broadband have generally done no good at all because the same old cast of broadband companies all have long histories of getting away with doing the minimum and collecting the subsidies. It's amazing how little those minimums are, until you realize that the same old cast of broadband companies had a hand in the wording of the requirements to "earn" the subsidies.
The US government just pays out the subsidies, even when it's provable that the broadband companies did little... and many times nothing to meet the "required" metrics for the subsidies. Cable redlining. DSL low speeds and poor reliability (but trying to improve, at least on paper). GEO satellite "available everywhere" but miserable performance and frequent outages. Cellular optimized for mobile handheld devices and rarely offer a fixed wireless option that works ("hotspots" sitting on the kitchen table don't work any better than a handheld phone does). Independent Wireless and Fiber ISPs, God Bless 'Em, are energetic, but capital starved and spectrum starved in rural areas.
Many broadband advocates for rural broadband propose that the answer for the lack of broadband options in rural areas is to deploy fiber broadband. The problem is... the solution of fiber broadband in rural areas has been proposed remedy for the rural broadband divide for decades now. From my perspective, the widespread deployments of fiber broadband in rural areas are perpetually "within the next decade". With better technology (cheaper to deploy) and added impetus from COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021, fiber deployments are accelerating, but at current deployment rates, we might have ubiquitous rural fiber by 2030 - 9 years away.
Into this largely stagnant situation of rural areas desperately needing a good-enough choice for broadband now, comes Starlink. Everyone who's gotten onto Starlink loves it because even in its professed "beta" state, works far better - faster and more reliable than any of the other options for rural broadband (other than fiber). Unlike fiber, it's available anywhere in a rural area. Starlink is good enough for rural broadband, it's available everywhere in rural areas, and it's available in 2021.
To paraphrase Herr Zola, the DIFFERENCE (against all those other companies that "offer Broadband in rural areas") is that Starlink can DO it.
And everyone but Starlink, and us Starlink believers, are struggling with how to accept that "YES, Starlink can provide reasonable broadband in rural areas for a reasonable price, and can do it now (2021). Rural broadband has been a unsolved problem for so long, it's hard to accept that Starlink makes rural broadband a largely solved problem.
No, Starlink is as not as good as fiber. But just like Jeff Hoel and I plainted at David Isenberg's WTF Conference in 2004... Where's the Fiber? Largely, we're still waiting... for the fiber. Yes... Fiber is better... arguably best... type of broadband... when you can get it. In rural areas, until there's a serious reset between US Government and rural electrical power providers, akin to the Rural Electrification Act, to "JUST DO FIBER EVERYWHERE YOU RUN POWER LINES", it boils down to Starlink providing more-than-good-enough, affordable, everywhere rural broadband... and the six also-ran broadband options for rural Broadband - cable, DSL, GEO satellite, cellular, WISP, and fiber-if-you-can-get-it.
If you dig deep enough (follow the money) most or all of those also-rans are only providing "broadband" service in rural areas because they can get subsidies from the US government. Starlink is playing an entirely different game in leveraging their broadband network across many different customer bases, including US (and other) government customers, rural retail customers, businesses, remote operations, and most recently proposed, larger vehicles such as semi trucks and vessels. Not surprising when you stop to consider that Starlink is a product of a SpaceX, a company that values results above all.
If you want good-enough (by 2021 standards - Zoom, multiple users, Netflix at HD, no transfer caps, etc.) broadband in rural areas in 2021, take Starlink for an answer instead of holding out for fiber. If fiber comes, take it, but until then, Starlink is good enough.
Thanks for reading!
Steve Stroh
Bellingham, Washington, USA