high speed internet – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Stories filed under: "high speed internet"

Republicans Killed A Low-Income Broadband Program For The Poor, Now Charter Is Being Sued For Misrepresenting Its Impact

from the get-what-you-pay-for dept

Last year Trump Republicans killed a popular program that provided poor people with $30 off of their monthly broadband bill. The FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) had broad, bipartisan support, and more than 23 million Americans received the discount at its peak.

At the time, the GOP claimed they were simply looking to save money. The real reason, of course, was that the ACP was popular with their constituents (the majority of ACP participants were in red states) and they didn’t want Dems to use it as an election season issue. Follow up studies showed the program more than paid for itself via other benefits (like reduced health care costs).

When Republicans killed the program, it immediately resulted in millions of struggling Americans suddenly facing much higher broadband costs. This, in turn, resulted in a lot of folks ditching their broadband access entirely. At some major providers, like Charter (Spectrum), the impact was fairly significant.

Now Charter is facing a class action lawsuit by an investor who claims that Charter executives misrepresented the impact that the death of the ACP would cause the cable giant. The lawsuit claims that Charter CEO Christopher Winfrey and CFO Jessica Fischer made “materially false and misleading statements” downplaying the scope of the ACP-related losses:

“Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) the impact of the ACP end was a material event the Company was unable to manage or promptly move beyond; (ii) the ACP end was actually having a sustaining impact on Internet customer declines and revenue; (iii) neither was the Company executing broader operations in a way that would compensate for, or overcome the impact, of theACP ending”

The Charter investor who filed the complaint (Mark Sandoval) isn’t much of one; he bought just two shares of Charter in April and 2 shares in May, then sold the shares on June 9. Charter has been bleeding cable broadband subscribers due to the popularity of 5G home Internet and modest improvements in fiber deployments (many from city utilities or municipalities).

Charter lost 140,000 cable broadband customers during the last quarter of last year. Last quarter Charter lost 117,000 broadband subs, which included roughly 50,000 ACP-related disconnections. Charter’s stock has been down up to 20 percent this year as investors respond to the losses. As per telecom tradition, Charter’s focus is primarily in greater consolidation via a proposed merger with Cox.

Like many telecoms, Charter is a heavy campaign contributor to Trumplican lawmakers who seem dedicated to making the entire sector worse by destroying functional corporate and consumer protection, gutting already modest programs aimed at helping the poor (and rural students), or rubber stamping terrible deals that make U.S. broadband less competitive and more expensive in the first place.

Filed Under: ACP, broadband, cable, fcc, high speed internet, lawsuit, low income, mark sandoval
Companies: charter

Trump Infrastructure Bill Revamp To Net Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk Billions In New Subsidies For Broadband They Can’t Really Deliver

from the naked-cronyism dept

Fri, Aug 1st 2025 05:22am - Karl Bode

There’s $42.5 billion in broadband grants are headed to the states thanks to the 2021 infrastructure bill most Republicans voted against (yet routinely try to take credit for among their constituents).

But Republicans, despite a supposed feud between Trump and Elon Musk, have been rewriting the grant program’s guidance to eliminate provisions ensuring the resulting broadband is affordable to poor people, and to ensure that Elon Musk gets billions in new broadband subsidies for his expensive and increasingly congested satellite broadband company, Starlink.

The rewrites delayed the underlying grant program, forcing many states to revamp their plans for the already earmarked funds. That includes a new bidding process. Unsurprisingly, in states like Tennessee and Colorado, Jeff Bezos’ Project Kuiper and Elon Musk’s Starlink are now poised to dominate the bidding process, resulting in a lot of taxpayer funds likely going toward satellite services… instead of fiber:

“SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper flooded the Tennessee office with applications, submitting more than twice as many broadband grant applications as fiber builders, while requesting on average about 10 times less in funding – at least according the application areas.”

Republicans revamped the program to make billionaires happy. Though they claim they revamped the program because they were looking to cut costs. But we’ve noted repeatedly how these Low-Earth orbit satellite broadband efforts have massive problems that make them ill-suited to tackling America’s digital divide at any serious scale.

Starlink has been criticized for harming astronomical research and the ozone layer. Starlink customer service is largely nonexistent. It’s too expensive for the folks most in need of reliable broadband access. The nature of satellite physics and capacity means slowdowns and annoying restrictions are inevitable, and making it scale to permanently meet real-world demand is expensive and not guaranteed.

One recent study found that Starlink struggles to deliver the FCC’s already flimsy definition of broadband – 100 megabits per second (Mbps) down, 20 Mbps up – in any areas where Starlink subscribership exceeds 6 households per square mile. In many areas, these capacity constraints are causing Starlink to issue “congestion” charges as high as $750.

So yes, it’s technically cheaper for taxpayers to fund expensive, congested satellite broadband service, but it results in slower, more expensive service that can’t actually deliver on the promises it’s going to be making. Republicans don’t really care about that, and later on, after the subsidies have been doled out and public is frustrated by the substandard result, they’ll just ignore the problem they caused.

The other problem is money directed to Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk is money directed away from a lot of locally owned municipal and cooperative broadband providers that have been recently using taxpayer money to deploy “future proof”, symmetrical gigabit fiber for prices as low as $60 a month.

Many states had only just started funding these promising emerging competitors, but the Trump revamp of this BEAD (Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment) program means that if the Trump administration doesn’t like your proposal (it doesn’t reward Musk, it tries to help the poor, or it funds community broadband access) your state could lose millions or billions in funds, permanently.

Another problem: the Trump administration’s lower standards means that companies like Comcast that had originally been encouraged to deploy fiber, are now deploying slower (but still as expensive for consumers) cable broadband service. From Tennessee:

“In the initial round of funding, Comcast applied for funding for 27 project areas. In the Benefit of the Bargain round, Comcast applied to serve 39 project areas. The key difference is that, in the initial round, Comcast proposed to serve these areas with fiber broadband and is now proposing to serve them with cable broadband at a lower cost.”

Fiber providers may have higher up front construction costs, but they’re fixing the problem permanently and properly. As opposed to throwing the lion’s share of taxpayer money at a technology that literally and technically can’t accomplish what’s being asked of it. And, in at least one case, into the lap of a company owned and run by an overt white supremacist with a head full of conspiracy theories.

Ideally, you want taxpayer money going primarily to fiber. After that, to stuff like fixed wireless and 5G wireless. After that, you fill in the gaps with LEO satellite service. LEO satellite service shouldn’t be the primary choice. But because the U.S. is too corrupt to function, that logic’s flying right out the window, and most of the funding is now poised to get dumped into the laps of Trump’s favorite billionaires.

Filed Under: affordable, bead, broadband, cable, environment, fcc, fiber, gigabit, high speed internet, infrastructure bill, leo, project kuiper, satellite, starlink
Companies: amazon, spacex, starlink

from the take-me-to-the-limit dept

Thu, Jul 31st 2025 05:28am - Karl Bode

A new study from researchers at X-Lab shows that Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite broadband service lacks the capacity to put a serious dent in U.S. broadband. Despite recent efforts by the Trump administration to rewrite a $42 billion subsidy program with an eye on giving Musk billions in taxpayer dollars.

The researchers found that given the limited nature of satellite physics, the more people that use Starlink, the slower the network is going to get. That’s not a surprise to users who have increasingly seen slowdowns on the network over the last four years, resulting in speeds that often don’t even meet the FCC’s fairly weak definition for broadband (100 Mbps down, 20 Mbps up).

The researchers estimated that pushing the network past any more than 6.7 Starlink customers per square mile results in significant slowdowns that will get worse. That’s why, they note, it’s a terrible idea for the Trump administration to redirect infrastructure bill grant money from more reliable (often fiber-based and locally owned) ISPs and instead give it to Elon Musk:

“Many State Offices are concerned that Starlink proposals may be the lowest bid and alternative proposals may not be within the 15% window for consideration. What this analysis presents is that across many geographic areas Starlink may not be a qualified bidder as it may be unable to attain the required 100/20 Mbps service level (and, in deploying Starlink services, may actually degrade pre-existing users’ services to the point that they no longer receive minimal broadband speeds).”

Techdirt has been noting for years how Starlink is a niche service. The nature of satellite physics and capacity means slowdowns and annoying restrictions are inevitable, and making it scale to permanently meet real-world demand will be challenging if not impossible.

Some Wall Street analysts have been talking about the Starlink capacity crunch since at least 2001 (and mostly getting ignored). Those same analysts have raised questions about whether Starlink can meet its satellite launch goals in order to meet projected targets (spoiler: no).

But Starlink has also been criticized for harming astronomical research and the ozone layer. Starlink customer service is largely nonexistent. And the service is also too expensive for the folks most in need of reliable broadband access. It’s getting even more expensive as Starlink applies up to $750 “congestion charges” in areas where it knows it can’t meet demand.

This is all before you get to the fact the company’s CEO is an overt white supremacist who basically purchased his own authoritarian U.S. government before his ego ruined the fun.

So yeah, Starlink is a good option if you’re in the middle of nowhere with no other access, can afford it, and have no qualms about doing business with a white supremacist.

It’s not so great if you care about the environment, like to shop ethically, are on a fixed budget, or want to use taxpayer money to ensure widespread broadband availability. Still, because many Republicans still worship at the feet of Elon Musk, they tend to view Starlink as almost akin to magic, helping them justify throwing billions in undeserved subsidies at their billionaire benefactor.

The first Trump FCC tried to give Musk nearly a billion dollars in subsidies to deliver Starlink to some traffic medians and airport parking lots. The Biden FCC reversed the funding, stating (correctly) that Starlink’s bid gamed the system and they weren’t sure that Starlink could consistently meet program speed requirements.

That rollback by the Biden FCC resulted in no limit of crying and teeth-gnashing by Elon Musk and Republicans, who have since dedicated themselves to throwing billions more at the billionaire.

There’s always waste in these programs. But some of the money being directed toward Elon Musk’s congested and expensive satellite service is money directed away from popular community-owned and operated fiber providers, or many local small businesses with a genuine, vested interest in bettering the local communities they serve. In short, it has the very real potential to actually make U.S. broadband worse. Under the pretense that we’re fixing the problem for good.

Filed Under: bead, broadband, capacity, elon musk, fiber, high speed internet, infrastructure bill, leo, low earth orbit satellite, telecom
Companies: spacex, starlink

Two Michigan Men Hated Comcast. So They Built Their Own Broadband Alternative.

from the do-it-yourself dept

Tue, Jul 29th 2025 03:09pm - Karl Bode

We’ve noted repeatedly how the U.S. is dominated by regional telecom monopolies like AT&T and Comcast that have spent decades working tirelessly to crush regional broadband competition, and have also spent millions of dollars to crush state and federal regulatory oversight. The result is a patchwork of monopolies that don’t try very hard on availability, price, customer service, and speed.

Increasingly, communities that are left stuck under substandard monopoly access are taking matters into their own hands. Like Michigan residents Samuel Herman and Alexander Baciu, profiled by Jon Brodkin at Ars Technica, who used their expertise in construction to build their own fiber broadband provider:

“All throughout my life pretty much, I’ve had to deal with Xfinity’s bullcrap, them not being able to handle the speeds that we need,” Herman told Ars.”

Now locals can get much faster broadband at much lower prices, which is almost always the case when it comes to locally-owned broadband alternatives. Herman and Baciu’s new provider, PrimeOne, offers locals symmetrical 500Mbps for 75,1Gbpsfor75, 1 Gbps for 75,1Gbpsfor80, 2Gbps for 95,and5Gbpsfor95, and 5Gbps for 95,and5Gbpsfor110. Prices well ahead of what most Americans pay even in major tech-centric cities like Seattle.

Unlike Comcast, there are no pesky usage caps (though Comcast does finally appear to be taking some inconsistent steps back from the practice).

We’ve noted how the frustration with substandard broadband during COVID lock-downs in particular resulted in a massive surge in community-owned networks, whether it’s a cooperative, city-owned utility, municipally-owned network, or public-private partnership between locals and a regional provider.

Locally-owned providers not only statistically offer better, faster, cheaper service, as residents of the communities they’re often more directly accountable when something goes wrong. It’s a trend big ISPs like Comcast obvious don’t like, resulting in all sorts of dodgy behaviors ranging from lawsuits and state bans to the use of fake local consumer groups to try and scare locals away from the idea.

The Trump administration’s approach to U.S. broadband has generally been to destroy what’s left of consumer protection oversight, illegally dismantle laws trying to improve broadband access, and rewrite remaining government programs to the benefit of billionaire benefactor Elon Musk. The GOP has also repeatedly tried to ban communities from building their own broadband networks.

Some states have made community-owned and operated broadband a centerpiece of their broadband efforts, and were poised to use a large chunk of the looming $42.5 billion in federal infrastructure bill broadband grants to help fund this sort of access. But those efforts are also increasingly in question as the Trump NTIA attempts to de-prioritize fiber, and re-prioritize kissing Elon Musk’s ass.

Filed Under: alternatives, broadband, competition, fiber, high speed internet, monopoly, municipal broadband

California Proposed A Law Making Broadband Affordable For Poor People. Telecom Lobbyists Have Already Destroyed It.

from the this-is-why-we-can't-have-nice-things dept

Wed, Jul 16th 2025 05:27am - Karl Bode

Last January, Democratic California Assemblymember Tasha Boerner introduced the California Affordable Home Internet Act (AB 353), which mandated that large ISPs in the state needed to provide broadband service at speeds of 100 Mbps down, 20 Mbps up for $15 a month to California residents who qualify for existing low-income assistance programs.

“Right now, families are struggling to afford essential services, like the internet,” Boerner said when the law was unveiled. “Households in our state don’t have support to pay for a basic home internet service plan. We are talking about kids not being able to do homework at home, parents having to go to libraries to apply for jobs, and people not having access to do basic things, like telehealth.”

But six months later and the bill is already on the cusp of being destroyed by telecom industry lobbyists and Boerner herself.

On June 4, a vote moved the legislation through the state assembly and on to the state senate by a 52-17 margin. But numerous sources in and out of government tell me that Boerner has introduced a long list of telecom-industry-friendly amendments behind closed doors that destroy the whole point of the proposed law. And she’s refusing to hear any complaints about the covert moves.

Among the changes is a halving of the planned speeds from 100 Mbps down, 20 Mbps up, to 50 Mbps down, 10 Mbps up (a big favor to cable broadband providers that have long struggled to modernize their upstream speeds). The new definition doesn’t even meet the federal government’s already flimsy definition of “broadband.”

Also dead are absolutely any sort of enforcement or reporting requirements, basically allowing ISPs to ignore the law, even if it was passed.

The bill also actively prohibits the California Public Utilities Commission — the state’s most capable watchdog on broadband — from overseeing broadband affordability issues, and refuses to exempt smaller independent providers and municipal alternatives, which could actively undermine creative efforts to improve broadband competition.

In many ways the new bill is worse than doing nothing. Shayna Englin of the California Community Foundation recently laid out the changes on a podcast for the Institute For Local Self Reliance, noting that Boerner has been completely unwilling to discuss any of the changes with community leaders:

The original bill had significant potential to reshape affordable broadband in the state. A recent study by the CPUC’s Public Advocates Office found that offering 100/20 Mbps service for 15amonthwouldonlycostthestate’sfourlargestISPslessthan1centonthedollarinrevenue,whileprovidingnearly15 a month would only cost the state’s four largest ISPs less than 1 cent on the dollar in revenue, while providing nearly 15amonthwouldonlycostthestate’sfourlargestISPslessthan1centonthedollarinrevenue,whileprovidingnearly100 million per year in savings to low-income state residents.

The low-income requirement was genuinely not a large ask for major California providers like Xfinity, Cox, Verizon, and AT&T. Reporters have found that big ISPs routinely charge low income and minority customers higher prices for lower-quality service. These same providers have worked tirelessly to erode competition and oversight, resulting in artificially high broadband prices in the first place.

These telecom giants are terrified of federal or state governments doing absolutely anything to seriously address a broadband market failure monopolization problem they themselves created. They’re particularly terrified of government engaging in any sort of rate regulation, even if it’s only to help the poorest among us.

Boerner saw significant campaign contributions from telecom providers last election cycle, and may have been chosen to usher this bill forth specifically with an eye on ensuring it doesn’t actually do what it’s supposed to do. And keep in mind this is purportedly progressive California; the lion’s share of U.S. states care significantly less about telecom monopolization — or the public interest.

California’s law was attempting to copy a recently passed New York State law passed during the height of pandemic lockdowns. The telecom industry sued to overturn that law but failed to have their challenge heard by the Supreme Court (which was too busy creating unaccountable kings, apparently). That opened the door to other states to follow suit with their own, similarly legislation.

Thanks to lobbying, California appears to have shot their own effort at equitable broadband access in the foot. With the Trump administration giving up on broadband affordability and consumer protection, states are filling the void. Massachusetts, Vermont and Minnesota are pursuing similar legislation. Hopefully their state legislatures can demonstrate something vaguely resembling ethical integrity.

Filed Under: ab 353, broadband, california, california affordable home internet act, fiber, high speed internet, low income, Tasha Boerner, telecom

Comcast Forced To Retreat From Broadband Data Caps (Sort Of) Due To Competition From 5G Wireless And Community Fiber

from the hoisted-with-his-own-petard dept

Fri, Jul 11th 2025 05:35am - Karl Bode

Techdirt has always made it very clear that broadband usage caps on fixed-line broadband are bullshit.

The costly and confusing restrictions serve no legitimate technical function. They don’t help your ISP “manage congestion.” They exist simply as a way for giant companies like Comcast to nickel-and-dime captive customers in uncompetitive broadband markets. Market failure created by their own tireless efforts to kill competition and government oversight.

But there’s been a small wrinkle over the last few years. Trying to gain market share, wireless giants have been offering home 5G wireless connection for lower prices. We’ve also been seeing a rise in community-owned broadband networks and cooperatives offering cheaper gigabit fiber. The combination has resulted in Comcast losing a growing number of broadband subscribers in some markets.

So Comcast is trying something new. They’re retreating from broadband caps on the new service tiers being offered new customers. According to a press release, they’re offering to eliminate usage caps for new users who sign up for four new tiers of service:

“Following the successful launch and positive consumer reaction to Xfinity’s new 5-year guarantee, the nation’s largest Internet Service Provider (ISP) has launched its everyday pricing (EDP) structure with four simple national Internet tiers that include unlimited data and the advanced Xfinity WiFi Gateway for one low monthly price.”

This being Comcast, there are, of course, some caveats. For one, this is primarily being offered to new customers. And you have to sign up for Comcast’s WiFi gateway, which precludes you simply owning your own modem and router, making it easier (and more profitable) for Comcast to track you and monetize your online behaviors.

The company is claiming to reporters that existing customers can also sign up for these new uncapped plans, but Comcast historically says a lot of things that don’t wind up being true in practice.

It sounds like Comcast wants its cake and to eat it too; it wants to maintain some semblance of pointless caps to soak up extra profit in less competitive markets, but keep itself from losing customers in more competitive areas. It’s the sort of predatory bullshit you can get away with in a country so corrupt that it destroys its own consumer protection regulators for fun.

A more honest and serious approach would be to eliminate usage caps entirely. We’ll see if 5G wireless continues to provide competitive incentive. Wireless giants are temporarily selling 5G home service at a steep discount; but given the congestion-plagued nature of wireless, as those networks see subscription growth eventually those networks will see their own slowdowns and restrictions.

Still, it’s an indication that Comcast is finally being forced to acknowledge that usage caps are anti-competitive bullshit. Hopefully it’s a trend that accelerates for years to come.

Filed Under: broadband, cable, competition, high speed internet, network, overage fees, telecom, usage caps
Companies: comcast

Ted Cruz’s Dumb Plan To Punish States That Regulate AI By Withholding Broadband Grants Falls Apart

from the failed-extortion-plan dept

Wed, Jul 2nd 2025 05:28am - Karl Bode

While the GOP budget bill continues to include no limit of corrupt garbage that will kill millions of Americans (the cuts to Medicaid and rural hospitals being particularly brutal), one key component of the GOP agenda didn’t quite make the cut. Ted Cruz had proposed withholding billions of dollars in federal broadband grants for states that attempt any oversight of AI.

The proposal was one of several cut to try and get the hugely unpopular GOP bill across the finish line. As it turns out, Cruz had a tough time getting enough support for his ignorant plan, and ultimately joined 98 other Senators in a 99-1 vote shooting down the amendment (Sen. Thom Tillis was the one dissenting vote):

“Facing overwhelming opposition from both Democrats and Republicans, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) accepted defeat and joined a 99-1 vote against his own plan to punish states that regulate artificial intelligence.”

States are poised to get more than $42.5 billion dollars in broadband deployment subsidies as part of the 2021 infrastructure bill. The Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD), a key component of the bill, had taken years of collaborative work between state and federal governments. In part because we needed to remap broadband access across every county in the United States.

A lot of this money is poised (as usual) to get dumped in the laps of telecom giants, which is a major reason Cruz’s gambit failed (AT&T drove heavy opposition by longtime AT&T ally Marsha Blackburn, who initially worked with Cruz on a “compromise” offering, before that collapsed entirely). But much of this money is also poised to go to really useful fiber upgrade proposals via efforts like regional cooperatives or community-owned broadband networks.

If the bill had passed states would have been faced with choosing between funding rural broadband, or avoiding oversight of increasingly reckless AI giants keen on ignoring what’s left of U.S. labor and environmental standards. They would have definitely taken the broadband money.

Cruz and the GOP have also been busy “helping” American broadband connectivity in other ways, like his recent successful effort to kill an FCC program that helped give poor rural schoolkids access to free Wi-Fi. As well as killing a program that made broadband more affordable for low-income Americans. And the illegal dismantling of the Digital Equity Act and its protections against broadband discrimination.

So while it’s nice Ted Cruz’s latest dumb effort failed, it’s hard to be celebratory. Republicans have been taking an absolute hatchet to every last federal effort to ensure our monopoly-dominated broadband networks are affordable. They’ve also effectively killed all federal consumer protection; policies that will reverberate in negative ways for decades to come.

The budget battle followed the fairly typical Republican playbook: make your initial offer so extremist and awful that any concessions are disguised to feel like a victory. But the final GOP budget bill remains a giant and unpopular piece of shit, and one of the most corrupt and disgusting attacks on vulnerable Americans in the history of modern politics.

Filed Under: ai, bead, broadband, high speed internet, infrastructure, moratorium, regulation, ted cruz, telecom, texas
Companies: at&t

from the unavoidable-slowdowns dept

Tue, Jul 1st 2025 05:27am - Karl Bode

Republicans are rewriting an infrastructure bill grant program to redirect billions of dollars to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite broadband service. The claim is that this is necessary because Starlink is the perfect solution for the country’s rural broadband users and deserves this money. The reality is that Starlink continues to show that it lacks the capacity or affordability to actually accomplish the job.

Low-Earth Orbit satellite broadband services like Starlink have their uses, but will always be dealing with capacity constraints. That means higher prices, weird restrictions, and, as of November 2024, a $100 “congestion charge” for a service that’s already too expensive for many of the rural Americans who could most benefit.

It didn’t take long for that “congestion charge” to soar to 500insomeareas.Nowit’s[alreadyrisenashighas500 in some areas. Now it’s [already risen as high as 500insomeareas.Nowit’salreadyrisenashighas750 in states like Washington as Starlink is forced to try and deter users in some markets from using the increasingly congested network:

“The change can crank up the starting price simply to own the Starlink dish on a residential plan to $1,099.”

Other parts of the country see no congestion charge, but there’s no guarantee that they won’t see one down the line as the network subscribership grows. It’s also very likely the company will increasingly have to resort to doing things like throttling higher definition videos, or engaging in other network management tricks to try and keep the service semi-reliable.

You might recall that Republicans and Elon Musk threw a hissy fit a few years ago when the Biden FCC prioritized “future-proof” fiber and higher-capacity 5G services over Starlink in previous government subsidy programs, (correctly) expressing concerns that the service lacked the capacity to provide consistently reliable speeds on the taxpayer dime.

Ever since then Republicans and Musk have been working tirelessly to “correct” this oversight, to the point where they’re now rewriting a major $45 billion infrastructure bill broadband grant program to ensure Starlink gets a massive portion of taxpayer subsidies. Many right wingers, like c-tier comedian turned podcaster and fashy-apologist Joe Rogan, act as if Starlink is akin to magic.

But the technology has been criticized for harming astronomical research and the ozone layer. Starlink customer service is largely nonexistent. It’s too expensive for the folks most in need of reliable broadband access. The nature of satellite physics and capacity means slowdowns and annoying restrictions are inevitable, and making it scale to permanently meet real-world demand is expensive and not guaranteed.

These are all things Republican Elon Musk ass kissers either don’t know, or don’t care about as they work to reward their billionaire benefactor. It will be up to their constituents to figure it out later. But money redirected to Starlink is money redirected to cheaper and better broadband alternatives, including super cheap gigabit fiber access and community-owned and operated broadband networks.

So again, Starlink is a nice step up if you’re in the middle of nowhere, lack any other connectivity options, can afford it, and don’t care about its potential environmental impact. But it shouldn’t be taking priority in terms of taxpayer subsidies. Unless, of course, you only care about kissing Elon Musk’s ass and don’t actually care about the constituents you claim to serve.

Filed Under: broadband, congestion, elon musk, fcc, fiber, high speed internet, low earth orbit satellite, subsidies, taxpayers, telecom
Companies: spacex, starlink

Telecoms Beg Trump Admin To Kill State Laws Requiring They Provide Affordable Broadband To Poor People

from the who-needs-corporate-oversight-anyway dept

Thu, Jun 5th 2025 05:24am - Karl Bode

During peak COVID lockdowns in 2021, New York State passed a law requiring that big ISPs (with over 20k users) offer low-income residents 25 Mbps broadband for $15. It wasn’t a huge ask. It costs major ISPs little to nothing to provide that speed over modern fiber networks, but the broadband industry sued anyway. Without success: the Supreme Court recently refused to hear their complaint.

So the law took effect, even though there’s no actual evidence that New York state is actually bothering to enforce it. Still, big ISPs like AT&T and Comcast are terrified that other states might follow suit and start forcing them to make broadband affordable. Some states, like California, are considering it.

They (justifiably) see this as a slippery slope toward the U.S. government actually doing something about the fact that these companies have spent a generation carving out lucrative regional monopolies they use to overcharge Americans for shitty, sluggish, substandard broadband access.

So telecoms have spent much of the last year absolutely begging the Supreme Court to declare such laws “illegal rate regulation.” AT&T even went so far at one point as to pretend it was going to stop doing business in New York State to try and pretend that such laws — which again don’t ask much and probably wouldn’t even be enforced by lazy states — are some kind of onerous demand on the company.

The Supreme Court, too busy destroying all corporate oversight and making Donald Trump a king, so far has refused to hear their case. The court refused to hear telecom lobbyists’ challenge in December 2024 and rejected a follow-up request by the ISPs last February.

So they’re trying again with a new filing to the DOJ that trots out some old, familiar arguments. Namely that state or federal governments doing anything to protect consumers from harmful monopolies is illegal. And somehow harms competition (which largely doesn’t exist in fixed-line U.S. telecom):

“State laws that seek to roll back the clock and impose utility-style, 1930s-era regulatory schemes that dictate the exact prices and terms at which broadband providers must offer their services threaten competition and are inconsistent with federal law.”

The thing is, contrary to a lot of industry pretense, there really is no more “federal law.” Telecom lobbyists and the U.S. right wing have had incredible recent success in completely dismantling whatever is left of U.S. consumer protection, regulatory independence, and corporate oversight. Usually under the pretense that this would result in bold, miraculous new Utopian outcomes for all.

Spoiler: that didn’t happen. Instead we get expensive, shitty, sluggish, outage-prone Comcast service.

With federal power crippled, companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast are now shifting their attention to the handful of remaining states that care about this sort of stuff. Usually by claiming that any state efforts to protect consumers from telecom monopoly predation is (or should be) somehow illegal.

Thanks to corruption and a rightward-lurching court system, they’ve won many of their arguments so far, so it makes sense that, sooner or later, they’ll win this one too with the help of the Supreme Court. We’ve basically built an absolute corporatocracy while a lot of people in the press and policy circles were taking a fucking nap. The end result won’t be a pleasant one.

Filed Under: affordability, broadband, doj, federalism, high speed internet, state's rights, supreme court
Companies: at&t, comcast, verizon

Big Telecom Covertly Funded Smear Campaign To Derail Affordable Fiber Broadband Deployments In Utah

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

Wed, Jun 4th 2025 05:31am - Karl Bode

We’ve noted for years how U.S. regional telecom monopolies have effectively crushed competition in many U.S. markets and utterly defanged our regulators. This one-two punch of muted competition and no oversight routinely results in expensive, slow, spotty broadband access.

Frustrated by this, communities all over the U.S. have responded to this market and regulatory failure by building their own, more affordable, fiber networks. At last count there were somewhere around 400 such networks providing cheap fiber to 700 communities nationwide. There was a big boom during COVID born out of frustration from home telecommuting and education broadband problems.

One of the biggest and most popular such networks in the U.S. is UTOPIA Fiber, which is an open access fiber network serving 23 markets, mostly across Utah. UTOPIA offers fiber speeds up to 10 Gbps across 19 different partner ISPs, all competing on price and customer service. Such open access fiber deployments are a useful, local, and popular way to dismantle the monopoly logjam on internet access.

Recently, UTOPIA (now operating in the green after years of heavy fiber investment) began expanding broadband access into the town of Bountiful, Utah, population 46,000. Big broadband providers like AT&T and Comcast didn’t much like that. But because they have such terrible reputations, and UTOPIA is so popular, they didn’t feel they could attack the project directly.

So they did what they always do: they funded a dodgy proxy group to try and scare locals away from supporting the project. In this case it was called the “Utah Taxpayer Association,” and it’s a nonprofit funded by telecoms, pretending to be an objective third party simply concerned about the potential impact of the project on local taxpayers.

Except when the group went door to door to try and tell false and scary stories about how community broadband is dangerous to taxpayers, it failed completely because locals quickly sniffed out that the group wasn’t actually local:

“A dark money group called Utah Taxpayers Association financed a petition effort to force a vote on project funding. It hired signature collectors to try to persuade registered voters to oppose the project.

Timmerman said the signature campaign failed because residents would ask, “Who do you work for?” and the signature gatherers didn’t even know who was behind the campaign. And when residents asked, “Are you a resident of Bountiful?” the signature gatherers said, “No.”

Although these dark money groups don’t disclose their donors, one can only assume that they were funded by the incumbent providers in Bountiful, which include Comcast and CenturyLink. However, there is no verification of exactly who was behind the campaigns.”

You don’t have to assume, it’s on record. Such campaigns don’t cost these providers much. AT&T gave this particular group $1,163 during a six month span last year according to financial disclosure records. Comcast and Centurylink also sponsor the group’s annual conference. All entirely coincidental, I’m sure.

Telecom giants like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Charter have spent much of the last few years trying to derail these kinds of community-owned networks. Either by spreading lies about them, or trying to sue them out of existence. UTOPIA’s creation years ago was immediately met with a lawsuit from Qwest (now Centurylink/Lumen) which saddled the effort with extra legal costs right out of the gates.

Big telecom has also employed the help of Republicans, who have, at several different points (including during peak COVID lockdowns when affordable fiber was essential) tried to impose a federal ban on such popular networks. Loyal Republican puppets can often be found making up absurd claims about municipal broadband, like lies that they somehow “harm the First Amendment.”

The great irony is that telecom giants could derail such efforts by providing better, cheaper, and faster broadband access. But it’s generally cheaper to fund a few dodgy proxy groups, or bribe a senator, than it is push fiber out into neighborhoods they don’t care about because the ROI is two years longer than some bean counter would like. So here we are.

In this case it failed, spectacularly. As a result, Bountiful residents have access to a UTOPIA network, being paid for via bond, that’s offering gigabit fiber for as little as $50 a month. You can see why executives at companies like Comcast are afraid of this sort of model, the benefits of which we outlined in a Techdirt/Copia paper three years ago.

Filed Under: affordable, astroturfing, community broadband, fiber, gigabit, high speed internet, municipal, utah
Companies: at&t, centurylink, comcast, utah taxpayers association, utopia