high speed internet – Techdirt (original) (raw)

The Wall Street Journal Applauds Republicans’ Corrupt, Illegal Theft Of Billions In Taxpayer Dollars

from the you-are-both-dim-and-incorrect dept

I’ve written repeatedly about how Republicans effectively rewrote the 2021 infrastructure bill (they voted against) to ensure that billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded broadband grants (intended to be spent on affordable, next-generation fiber) was stolen from local communities, and instead given to Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos for expensive, congested satellite service.

I’ve also explained in detail why that’s a problem: These networks may be initially cheaper to deploy, but the networks lack the capacity to actually scale to meet demand. Data indicates they harm astronomy research and the ozone layer. They’re ultimately more expensive for consumers than fiber deployments, especially if those fiber deployments are by cooperatives or community owned.

In short, taxpayer money directed toward Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk is also money directed away from higher-capacity, faster, locally-owned (and usually cheaper) fiber and wireless alternatives. And it’s money given to billionaires for technology they already had deployed or would have deployed anyway. It’s a coordinated hijacking of taxpayer money that will actually undermine affordable internet access.

Enter the Wall Street Journal editorial board, which aggressively lies about all of this all of this in a new, comically terrible editorial. The headline starts with an outright lie about how Trump somehow “unbroke the Internet”:

How did Trump “unbreak the internet?” Well again, he basically hijacked a huge chunk of the billions we planned to spend on next-generation fiber upgrades to schools, rural communities, and under-served areas, and gave it to Elon Musk for expensive satellite service he (again) already planned to deploy. This, according to the Wall Street Journal, is positively ingenious!

There’s no need to spend money on affordable gigabit fiber, the Journal informs us, because existing wireless and satellite is simply good enough:

“Congress appropriated $42 billion in the 2021 infrastructure bill for states to expand broadband to “unserved” and rural communities. The spending was unnecessary since satellite services like SpaceX’s Starlink and 5G fixed wireless services were rapidly closing the so-called digital divide. Upward of 99% of households already had high-speed internet.”

Again, these services are expensive. They’re congested. They’re spotty. They’re heavily monopolized by a handful of giant companies. They get slower as more people use them. Yes, you’ve technically “connected the public,” but you’ve done a piss poor job of it. Claiming it’s “unnecessary” to push fiber deeper in to more places shows the author is either lying or has no idea what they’re talking about.

The Journal is particularly incensed that the original infrastructure bill actually bothered to consult with local states, communities, and tribes to best determine their needs. Positively outrageous!

“States receiving funds had to consult with unions, native American tribes and “local community organizations” on their plans to expand broadband. This gave liberal special interests a veto and let them extort developers.”

Calling tribes “Liberal special interests” is very weird and gross, but no matter. The Journal is also extremely upset that the original plan for your taxpayer money was to ensure that the resulting fiber access was affordable. Republicans have already destroyed those efforts, but the Journal is still, somehow, very mad about it months later:

“Providers applying for funds were also advised to offer “low-cost” plans and provide “nondiscriminatory access to and use” of their networks on a “wholesale basis to other providers . . . at just and reasonable wholesale.” This was a back-door way to impose utility-style rate regulation on internet providers.”

The Trump administration not only has gutted all broadband consumer protection at the FCC, and destroyed all efforts to make sure taxpayer-funded broadband is actually affordable, they’ve illegally threatened states that they’ll lose already-awarded taxpayer money if they challenge the administration. This excites the very serious Wall Street Journal editorial board very much!

The real issue here is that the government engaged in some very light efforts to try and ensure broadband was affordable. This upsets regional telecom monopolies that have worked tirelessly to erode all local competition so they can rip you off. The idea that the government might come in and functionally prevent monopoly predation is unthinkable to these weirdos and Rupert Murdoch.

From here, the Wall Street Journal pushes a bunch of lies about how the corrupt Republican and Elon Musk hijacking of the program is saving taxpayers all sorts of money (several of the figures here are just foundationally incorrect):

“The average cost for each new household or business connected in Louisiana fell to 3,943from3,943 from 3,943from5,245. Louisiana’s most expensive project had run at 120,000perconnectionundertheBidenrules—almostasmuchasastarterhome—buttheTrumpteambroughtthecostdownto120,000 per connection under the Biden rules—almost as much as a starter home—but the Trump team brought the cost down to 120,000perconnectionundertheBidenrules—almostasmuchasastarterhome—buttheTrumpteambroughtthecostdownto7,547 per connection. Similar savings have occurred in other states.”

Again, many communities were going to get high capacity, gigabit fiber, in some cases as low as 60−60-60−70 a month. Instead, they’re getting Elon Musk’s Starlink broadband access, which is not only much slower (which also gets worse as more people use it), but costs also upwards of $120 a month (plus hundreds of dollars in up front hardware costs, and in some cases, congestion fees).

Yes, that technology is cheaper to deploy, and useful in areas with no access, but it’s nowhere near as good as “last mile” fiber right to your doorstop.

It’s slower. It’s more expensive to use. And the primary company benefitting it is run by an overt white supremacist. Again, this all very much excites the Wall Street Journal editorial board, but it’s not going to be exciting to the millions of Americans who realize (hopefully) they got ripped off by a bunch of bullshitters three years from now.

Anyway, this is all to say that the Wall Street Journal is very excited that we redirected billions in taxpayer dollars away from affordable local fiber access and instead gave it to Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk for expensive, congested, satellite service that destroys the ozone layer, ruins astronomy, and isn’t affordable for most of the Americans who actually need it:

“The broadband program illustrates how the Biden combination of spending and regulation created market distortions and raised costs. It would be better if Congress let markets allocate capital, but the Trump Administration is ensuring taxpayer funds are spent in a more cost-effective way that does less economic harm.”

That Republicans hijacked a promising program to thrown billions of taxpayer dollars at billionaires for inferior product will be clearly borne out by data in the years to come. At which point the authors of this Wall Street Journal editorial will either be dead or have moved on to lying about something else.

Filed Under: broadband, elon musk, fiber, high speed internet, infrastructure bill, internet access, satellite, subsidies, taxpayers
Companies: wall street journal

from the stop-subsidizing-terrible-billionaires dept

Wed, Dec 17th 2025 05:30am - Karl Bode

We’ve noted how Republicans are rewriting the 2021 infrastructure bill (they voted against) to ensure that billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded broadband grants wind up in the back pocket of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos (and their low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband ventures, Starlink and Project Kuiper). This is billions of taxpayer dollars being paid to billionaires in exchange for doing nothing differently.

Republicans are framing this as something that’s going to save taxpayers money, but it’s a lie.

I’ve explained in detail why that’s a problem: LEO networks may be initially cheaper to deploy, but the networks lack the capacity to actually scale to meet demand. Data indicates they harm astronomy research and the ozone layer. Money directed toward Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk is also money directed away from higher-capacity, faster, higher-quality fiber and wireless alternatives, many of which are actually owned by the local communities they serve.

Starlink is also expensive.

At up to 120amonthfora“real”planatnext−generationspeeds,plushundredsofdollarsinupfronthardwarefees,theserviceistooexpensiveformostoftheAmericansdesperatetobeconnected.Apparentlyawareofthecriticismthattaxpayersweregivingbillionsofdollarstoabillionaireforasystemmanypeoplecan’tafford,Starlinkbrieflyintroducedaslower,120 a month for a “real” plan at next-generation speeds, plus hundreds of dollars in up front hardware fees, the service is too expensive for most of the Americans desperate to be connected. Apparently aware of the criticism that taxpayers were giving billions of dollars to a billionaire for a system many people can’t afford, Starlink briefly introduced a slower, 120amonthfora“real”planatnext−generationspeeds,plushundredsofdollarsinupfronthardwarefees,theserviceistooexpensiveformostoftheAmericansdesperatetobeconnected.Apparentlyawareofthecriticismthattaxpayersweregivingbillionsofdollarstoabillionaireforasystemmanypeoplecan’tafford,Starlinkbrieflyintroducedaslower,40 monthly tier.

Which disappeared almost as quickly as it was introduced, because the network couldn’t actually handle the influx of new subscribers:

“The 100Mbps plan was not widely available, as it seemed to pop up in a relatively small number of areas where Starlink likely had excess network capacity. Some customers speculate that new users and existing subscribers scrambled to take advantage of the bargain deal, which caused Starlink to reach capacity in the eligible areas. The plan stood out for its low price while capping download speeds to 100Mbps.”

Starlink also imposes massive “congestion fees” in areas where it lacks capacity. These fees can be upwards of $750 in some areas. So again, you can probably see why it’s a bad idea for Republicans to treat Starlink as a connectivity panacea while showering it with subsidies that could be going to better, more affordable, higher capacity options.

Ideally, if you’re going to throw billions of subsidies at U.S. broadband, your technology priority should be fiber (preferably open access, community owned to counter monopoly dominance), wireless (either fixed or 5G), and then LEO satellite to fill in the gaps. Instead, Republicans are putting Starlink at the front of the line, and Musk and friends are whining about and harassing states that balk at this dumb idea.

Back in June, researchers showed in detail that given the limited nature of satellite physics, the more people that use Starlink, the slower the network is going to get. What, exactly, do folks think is going to happen when the network sees a mass infusion of taxpayer subsidized advertisement and usage?

To be clear: Starlink is great if you have no other options and can afford it. But it shouldn’t be the top priority in a historic round of taxpayer subsidies. That’s just begging for trouble down the road. But Republicans are so excited to throw billions of new dollars at their white supremacist billionaire godbaby, they don’t really care about the actual real world impact at the other end of the line.

Filed Under: bead, congestion, elon musk, high speed internet, infrastructure bill, leo, low earth orbit, subsidies, telecom
Companies: spacex, starlink

Trump Admin Blocking Billions In Already Awarded Broadband Grants To States That Enforce Net Neutrality Or Engage In Telecom Oversight

from the so-much-for-states'-rights dept

Tue, Nov 4th 2025 05:28am - Karl Bode

The Trump administration is promising to block billions in already-awarded infrastructure bill broadband grants to any states that enforce net neutrality or try to impose any sort of meaningful oversight on the country’s unpopular, predatory broadband monopolies.

That was the promise of Commerce Department official Arielle Roth, a former Ted Cruz staffer now in charge of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Roth made the comments about the Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment grants (BEAD) at a recent speech at the Hudson Institute, a far right wing think tank:

“Specifically, any state receiving BEAD funds must exempt BEAD providers throughout their state footprint from broadband-specific economic regulations, such as price regulation and net neutrality.”

The infrastructure bill set aside $42.5 billion in BEAD broadband grants to be doled out and managed by individual states. It took several years to get this money rolling out, in part, because state and federal governments had to remap the entirety of broadband access in the United States in a bid to avoid repeating past subsidy scandals and make sure the money was spent semi-wisely.

Again, this money was already awarded, and states were just about to start deploying broadband using this money when Republicans began retooling the whole program earlier this year. By both stripping out requirements that the resulting taxpayer-funded broadband be affordable, and redirecting as much of the money as possible to billionaire Elon Musk for expensive satellite broadband he already planned to deploy.

This introduced all manner of new delays to the program, ironically after Republicans (with Ezra Klein’s help) spent much of last election season whining very loudly about the fact this BEAD program was taking too long to deliver broadband.

Again, this money had already been awarded after years of expensive planning. States have already been forced to spend even more money to revamp plans to make Trump officials happy. Yet the Trump administration keeps fiddling with the rules and weakening core definitions (for stuff like “broadband” and “unserved,”) ensuring that fewer and fewer locations qualify for assistance and states are left constantly on their heels trying to please our mad king and his army of weird zealots.

Now, the Trump administration is also trying to leverage the funding to bully states away from engaging in even basic oversight of companies like Comcast, AT&T, Charter, or Verizon.

If you recall, the Trump administration destroyed net neutrality (some modest rules trying to keep telecom monopolies from abusing their market power to harm competitors and consumers). And they’re destroying whatever was left of FCC oversight of telecom monopolies. With federal oversight gutted, now they’re taking aim at the handful of states that have tried to fill the consumer protection void.

The original Trump net neutrality repeal also tried to ban states from imposing net neutrality rules. But even our broken-ass courts repeatedly found that to be patently illegal (the federal government can’t abdicate its responsibility on consumer protection, then tell states what to do). You know, the very sort of “state rights” Republicans and Libertarian “free market” think tankers used to pretend to support.

But while a handful of states do have net neutrality rules, nobody has bothered to enforce them. In part because states — already facing a cavalcade of legal battles in the Trump era — aren’t keen to pick yet another major fight with big corporations they might lose. And they’re even less likely to do so now, with billions in potential infrastructure funding on the line.

But the key point I’ve always made is that this goes well beyond net neutrality. ISPs don’t want to just kill “net neutrality,” they want zero oversight whatsoever. So they can rip off U.S. consumers with impunity and face absolutely zero meaningful federal or state repercussion. And it’s a fight the telecom lobby is most certainly winning. Trump 2.0 is delivering the killing blow.

The United States is, it cannot be overstated, literally too corrupt to do the absolute bare minimum on corporate oversight, consumer protection, antitrust reform, or health market protection. This fact gets buried by a lot of bluster and bullshit about how fabulously innovative we are.

And because there’s so much other terrible shit going on, and because the press and public generally find infrastructure boring, this sort of rank corruption and regulatory capture is allowed to fly under the radar. But the long term impact, like most Trump policies, will be decidedly ugly.

Filed Under: arielle roth, bead, broadband, donald trump, elon musk, grants, high speed internet, infrastructure bill, net neutrality, ntia, telecom

Trump FCC Votes To Make It Easier For Your Broadband ISP To Rip You Off

from the transparently-full-of-shit dept

Thu, Oct 30th 2025 05:31am - Karl Bode

As promised, the Trump FCC under Brendan Carr this week voted to begin dismantling rules requiring that your ISP offer clear and transparent details on the cost and limitations of your broadband connection.

The rules, originally mandated by Congress as part of the infrastructure bill, required that ISPs affix a sort of “nutrition label” to broadband access at the point of sale. It was a long-cultivated bid to do the bare minimum to combat decades of misleading pricing and bullshit fees in broadband and TV.

The rules simply required that ISPs list pricing, hidden fees, connection speed, and other limitations in a very clear manner on their websites. One recent study showed that ISPs were doing a pretty shitty job of compliance, and the government hasn’t really done anything serious to enforce the standard.

Still, broadband providers have always hated the rules because it theoretically might (if actually enforced) make it more difficult for them to rip you off via dodgy below the line fees they use to falsely advertise a lower price. So they lobbied the Trump administration to effectively lobotomize the rules this week as part of a much broader Trump effort to destroy pretty much the entirety of federal consumer protection.

They’re not eliminating the rules entirely just yet, because they don’t want to make it too obvious they’re just ignoring the will of Congress to benefit the biggest corporations. As consumer rights groups note, Carr is just weakening them to the point of unenforced uselessness, so he can then discard them later after claiming they don’t work:

“It’s the start of whittling away at these rules,” Raza Panjwani, senior policy counsel at New America’s Open Technology Institute, told CNET. “You get this two-step, right? You make it less useful. Then you say, ‘Oh, look, it’s not that useful. We should get rid of it.’”

The NPRM (notice of proposed rulemaking) was adopted on Tuesday. The FCC is now allowing 60 days for comments and responses so Carr can pretend this is some sort of democratic process (the FCC comment system is historically gamed by bad actors hired by the telecom lobby). A more formal vote to lobotomize the rules will come sometime later this year.

Carr isn’t even bothering to defend or announce this week’s action because he knows undermining Congress to help big telecom screw the public isn’t a good look. The FCC’s lone Democrat didn’t mince words on the effort:

“What adds insult to injury is that the FCC does not even explain why this proposal is necessary,” Gomez said. “Make it make sense. Instead of scaling back the information that customers receive, we should be making sure that, in fact, they can benefit from the labels.”

In a previous blog post (which you should read the first few paragraphs of to appreciate Carr’s particular brand of “humor”), Carr tries to pass this whole thing off as an efficient improvement of consumer protection. Which is, to be clear, a lie:

“We want consumers to get quick and easy access to the information they want and need to compare broadband plans (as Congress has provided) without imposing unnecessary burdens.”

Again, by “unnecessary burdens,” Carr means simply asking regional cable giants like Comcast and Charter — who enjoy a monopoly on broadband access across vast swaths of the U.S. — to be honest about how much you have to pay them. And whether or not Comcast is exploiting a lack of competition to make your connection more expensive or confusing (like usage caps).

Even if Carr wasn’t weakening the rules, he’d never enforce them anyway. His goal, at big telecom’s direct behest, is to make sure that future administrations can’t either.

This is, like so much Trumpism does, just rank corruption buried under the movement’s fake “populist” dedication to the working class and fake government efficiency. And nothing quite says “make America great again” like making it easier for Comcast Corporation to rip you off.

Filed Under: brendan carr, broadband, consumers, fcc, fees, high speed internet, nutrition labels, pricing, telecom

Broadband Monopolies Are Mad Because California Won’t Let Them Rip Off Apartment Dwellers

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

Fri, Oct 17th 2025 05:21am - Karl Bode

California this week signed a new law that tries to prevent your landlord and broadband ISP from teaming up and preventing you from using broadband competitors.

Starting January 1, AB1414 requires that landlords “allow the tenant to opt out of paying for any subscription from a third-party ISP, such as through a bulk-billing arrangement, to provide service for wired Internet, cellular, or satellite service that is offered in connection with the tenancy.”

The law doesn’t ban “bulk billing,” which usually involves an ISP and a development or apartment landlord striking a deal locking you into one provider. Such models sometimes can be useful in situations where mandated usage is the only way to recoup investment into hard-to-reach areas by smaller providers. But the idea is broadly abused by monopolies trying to elbow out competitors.

California’s new law simply makes it so consumers can opt out of such deals, without retaliation from their landlords. If landlords still try to force tenants to pay for broadband they don’t want and don’t use, the tenant can subtract the cost from their monthly rent.

It needs to be clear that California’s effort is basically the bare minimum to rein in such anti-competitive relationships. So, of course, big ISPs like Comcast and AT&T are having a big hissy fit about it:

“The California Broadband & Video Association, which represents cable companies, called it “an anti-affordability bill masked as consumer protection.”

U.S. broadband monopolies should consider themselves lucky that U.S. regulators have traditionally been too corrupt to truly tackle what generally has been a much bigger problem.

For decades, U.S. broadband providers have struck cozy deals with landlords effectively elbowing out competitors and allowing them to create building-by-building broadband monopolies (in some cases even banning the advertising of a competing service inside a development or apartment). That stifled competition results in higher costs, slow speeds, and worse overall service.

And while the FCC passed rules in 2007 trying to ban the practice, they were never seriously enforced and so full of loopholes as to be effectively useless.

Susan Crawford wrote pretty much the definitive story on this at Wired in 2016, noting that the original rules were so terrible, ISPs and landlords could easily tap dance around them by simply calling what they were doing… something else:

“…The Commission has been completely out-maneuvered by the incumbents. Sure, a landlord can’t enter into an exclusive agreement granting just one ISP the right to provide Internet access service to an MDU, but a landlord can refuse to sign agreements with anyone other than Big Company X, in exchange for payments labeled in any one of a zillion ways. Exclusivity by any other name still feels just as abusive.”

Every so often the FCC tries to update the rules, but because the agency is either under the thumb of Republicans (who actively support predatory monopolization) or Democrats (who nibble around the edges with performative solutions that fail to attack or often even acknowledge monopoly power), things never really get better.

After being nagged about this for fifteen years (!), the Biden FCC finally updated the rules again in 2022. But again, the updated language still didn’t actually fix the problem, in part because the rule revisions only applied to cable and phone companies, not any of the numerous broadband-only fiber, fixed-wireless, or Wi-Fi ISPs that cut exclusivity deals directly with landlords to avoid having to compete.

Now that the Trump administration has basically lobotomized the FCC’s consumer protection authority, there’s zero chance the federal government will be enforcing any of this anytime soon. That leaves things to a small smattering of states that sporadically care about consumer protection.

You’ll find that this is going to be a common theme as a patchwork of functioning states try to step in and fill the void created by a federal government that’s actively hostile to consumer protection and corporate oversight. But in most states, companies like AT&T and Comcast literally and genuinely all-but run the state legislature. Even in “progressive” California it’s an uphill climb to get the bare minimum passed.

Filed Under: apartment buildings, broadband, bulk billing, california, competition, developments, high speed internet, landlords, tenants
Companies: at&t, cbva, comcast

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

Mon, Sep 8th 2025 05:33am - Karl Bode

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