Comment by rvnx

My parents currently have four options for Internet access. One is only on their phones with no tethering. The other is to dial in over a landline at 33.6k if they can find an ISP that still offers that. There's existing satellite, which is 512k down and like 25k up for hundreds a month. Or there's a wireless 256k plan that costs $2000 to install.

There's no ISDN, no DSL, no Starlink yet, no 5G fixed, no 4G fixed, no power-line Internet. They are not watching any Netflix, and things like Social Security and Medicare are increasingly accessed through poorly performing, bloated websites. They paid taxes more than five decades of full-time work. There's fiber within two miles of them, but nobody's used it to extend what's becoming a modern necessity to their house.

If they lived on the other side of the road, they'd have the area's rural electric cooperative. Then they could get at least 10 Mbps over the power lines. However, they're on a corporate power provider that has 4 to 12 hour outages 3 to 4 times a year besides not offering similar additional services.

With the right negotiations and a few hundred thousand dollars, their moderately densely populated unincorporated area could serve hundreds of homes with broadband. The cable and phone companies were given millions upon millions of subsidies every month for decades now for rural phone and Internet access, but have not served this area. It's time something else is done in these areas to give them the same access to the modern marketplace and to government services as everyone else.

On top of that, Starlink was just adjudged to NOT QUALIFY for this type of service. [1]

You cannot simply assume as you stated, that just because something looks like a viable solution, it is.

Again, the people that decided are doing the WORK of figuring out how to make the system work, in contrast to taking random potshots in an internet forum.

From the article: >> The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has rejected Starlink's application to receive $885.51 million in broadband funding

>>The FCC said that both Starlink and LTD "failed to meet program requirements," submitted "risky proposals," and that their "applications failed to demonstrate that the providers could deliver the promised service."

[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/08/fcc-rejects-star...

>>this is somewhat luxury if Starlink exists

If multiple and more reliable than Starlink existed, maybe.

The point of universal access is just that - UNIVERSAL access.

We are already failing this massively with laws granting territorial monopolies to companies like Comcast AT&T, Verizon, etc., enabling them to give the worst possible service at globally awful prices. Granting another effective monopoly to Starlink is not the solution, UNLESS we are going to regulate all of this like a utility - actual regulated standards of service, by companies with a large in-state business nexus, cost-plus rates approved by regulatory body, etc.

Using Starlink seems fine, but Starlink has effectively zero skin in the game, no in-state nexux. If it is convenient for them to shut off or downgrade service to these houses for some reason, there is essentially zero recourse for these customers or the state to exercise any leverage to cause Starlink to resume service.

This is actually an excellent solution, with a local vendor with skin in the game, providing solid fiber infrastructure.

You really seem to entirely miss the point of UNIVERSAL SERVICE. Yes, the local post office makes a wild profit on delivering a $0.60 1-ounce first-class envelope to a PO box in the same post office, and loses an insane amount delivering the same letter to/from Wherethafakawe, Alaska by bush planes. I'm sure they could be more efficient scanning the letter and sending an email to/from Alaska, but that won't get grandma's fabric sample to her grandkid, or my high-performance sample to my customer. The point is that the same service level everywhere has it's own benefits, and those benefits are to the entire nation, not only to some.

With every general solution, you can point out individual point inefficiencies. What you are failing to notice is that if you optimize for every one of those point inefficiencies, you effectively de-scale the system.

You lose ALL the benefits of a consistent system, as well as losing most of the economies of scale. This is why companies repeatedly go on binges to reduce their supply chain vendor count - sure, some of those suppliers are lower cost at that point, but the overhead of managing many redundant suppliers outweighs the cost.

And you are looking at only one point of the costs, getting bent out of shape, and trowing out a generic "taxes bad" comment. Yes, it looks like a clueless anti-government political comment.

It might even be the case that in some circumstances, a Starlink solution could be best. But you have done none of the analysis to establish that claim, and other people, who are actually 'in the arena' have found a different solution is better. If you want to challenge them, do so with something better than "ugh, taxes and spending bad".