I say if BEAD subsidizes the Starlink hardware and installation, and Starlink is held to permanently offering a discounted rate for low income households, go for it. But if it’s a subsidy for the first few years and then $120/mo, it’s a short term bandaid and shouldn’t be funded with taxpayer money.
It seems the states are mostly trying to be smart about this, and wouldn’t fall for something that stupid unless they get strongarmed into it. I think the states were already planning to do fiber up to a certain cost point and then satellite or FWA to cover the remaining locations, working the numbers to use all of their BEAD allocation and cover all the locations. Where I expect the feds to step in might be to say no, the high cost threshold needs to be set lower, use more satellite, and we’ll reduce your BEAD allocation, and the whole program ends up being less than $42 billion. From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com> On Behalf Of Josh Luthman Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2025 9:25 AM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <af@af.afmug.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] BEAD Well he never did understand $42B won't get every single house fiber. It's also a requirement to connect *EVERY* location. I think it's great to spend money on fiber. But those last 1-20% of homes where it's $50k/passing it makes no sense to fiber when you can build a couple of towers or even do some Starlink. Starlink is great for very remote but man $120/mo for 50-150 mbps that gets slower every year... On Thu, Mar 20, 2025 at 10:17 AM Adam Moffett <dmmoff...@gmail.com <mailto:dmmoff...@gmail.com> > wrote: Well.... https://bsky.app/profile/craigsilverman.bsky.social/post/3lkiye5n2dk2p https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/s/seq3uoU1L5 The director of BEAD quit. He says the previous rules interpreted the bill to mean that only FTTH would meet the performance and future-proofing requirements. He is claiming that there are proposed rule changes that will allow Starlink but not allow fixed wireless. I don't know whether the changes intentionally benefit Starlink, but this guy is crying foul and felt strongly enough about it to resign over it. -Adam _____ From: AF on behalf of Ken Hohhof Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2025 12:19 AM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' Subject: [AFMUG] BEAD I’m surprised BEAD hasn’t run into problems because the E stands for Equity and DEI is now banned. But if they eliminate the E, would it just be BAD? -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
-- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
