Trump plan to fund Musk's Starlink over fiber called "betrayal" of rural US

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/03/trump-plan-to-fund-musks-starlink-over-fiber-called-betrayal-of-rural-us/

by throw0101a • 1 year ago

26 9 1 year ago

I hope they get what they voted for.

almosthere2• 1 year ago

Starlink is actually pretty damn badass. I can use the smaller battery one to get internet anywhere, at speeds much faster than I can imagine. It is insane that we have had fiber tech for 20 years and it's NO WHERE! It has been promised to us for 20 years.

Elon went from announcement to production in 4 years - worldwide access. I can't think of a better recipient for federal funds to get people access.

JohnFen• 1 year ago

Doesn't matter to me. There's zero chance that I'll ever willingly give a dime to any Musk company. Shiny toys are not worth helping him destroy my country.

acdha3• 1 year ago

Starlink is much slower, less reliable, and has prohibitive scaling issues. There’s been a significant amount of fiber deployed over the last couple of decades but the primary problems there have been monopolists reneging on promised expansions and anti-competitive state and local laws preventing competition. Allowing Starlink is useful for applying competitive pressure but what we really need is more regulatory pressure to push incumbents not to slow-roll deployments or charge so much that many people can’t afford it.

almosthere2• 1 year ago

I have used Starlink for remote work and I can download anything as fast as providers can serve it (I am nearly 100% dependent on limitations on the providers upload speed). I have had no downtime during power outages (as long as I have my own power - which I do) which makes the unit have much higher resiliency than wired internet. Not sure what you mean by scaling issues, that's exactly what is plaguing fiber. They can't scale without digging up the entire planet.

jaarse• 1 year ago

Just listened to the Lex Fridman podcast with Zelenskyy from the start of the year.

Zelenskyy’s comments on what is corruption vs what is called lobbying in the west come to mind when reading this article.

Trump plan to fund Musk's Starlink over fiber called "betrayal" of rural US

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