Top Broadband Official Exits Commerce Department With Warning About Starlink (politico.com) 84
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Politico: A top Commerce Department official sent a blistering email to his former colleagues on his way out the door Sunday warning that the Trump administration is poised to unduly enrich Elon Musk's satellite internet company with money for rural broadband. The technology offered by Starlink ... is inferior, wrote Evan Feinman, who had directed the $42.5 billion broadband program for the past three years. "Stranding all or part of rural America with worse internet so that we can make the world's richest man even richer is yet another in a long line of betrayals by Washington," Feinman said.
Feinman's lengthy email, totaling more than 1,100 words and shared with POLITICO, is a sign of deep discomfort about the changes underway that will likely transform the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick recently pledged a vigorous review of BEAD, with an aim to rip out what he sees as extraneous requirements and remove any preference for particular broadband technologies like fiber. The program, created in the 2021 infrastructure law program, became a source of partisan fighting last year on the campaign trail as Republicans attacked the Biden administration for its slow pace. No internet expansion projects have begun using BEAD money, although some states were close at the beginning of this year. Feinman's critique: In his email, Feinman notes Friday was his last day leading BEAD and that he's "disappointed not to be able to see this project through."
Feinman's email warns the Trump administration could undermine BEAD and he encourages people to fight to retain its best aspects. Feinman said the administration should "NOT change it to benefit technology that delivers slower speeds at higher costs to the household paying the bill," adding that this isn't what rural America, congressional Republicans or Democrats, the states or the telecom industry wants. "Reach out to your congressional delegation and reach out to the Trump Administration and tell them to strip out the needless requirements, but not to strip away from states the flexibility to get the best connections for their people," Feinman wrote. He said he's not worried about the Trump administration nixing requirements around climate resiliency, labor and middle class affordability, saying those issues "were inserted by the prior administration for messaging/political purposes, and were never central to the mission of the program." Feinman warns that changes to the BEAD program under the Trump administration could stall state-level broadband progress, with Louisiana, Delaware, and Nevada already stuck in review.
Meanwhile, no specific guidance or timeline for these changes has been provided, and Arielle Roth's confirmation as NTIA head is still pending in the Senate.
Feinman's lengthy email, totaling more than 1,100 words and shared with POLITICO, is a sign of deep discomfort about the changes underway that will likely transform the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick recently pledged a vigorous review of BEAD, with an aim to rip out what he sees as extraneous requirements and remove any preference for particular broadband technologies like fiber. The program, created in the 2021 infrastructure law program, became a source of partisan fighting last year on the campaign trail as Republicans attacked the Biden administration for its slow pace. No internet expansion projects have begun using BEAD money, although some states were close at the beginning of this year. Feinman's critique: In his email, Feinman notes Friday was his last day leading BEAD and that he's "disappointed not to be able to see this project through."
Feinman's email warns the Trump administration could undermine BEAD and he encourages people to fight to retain its best aspects. Feinman said the administration should "NOT change it to benefit technology that delivers slower speeds at higher costs to the household paying the bill," adding that this isn't what rural America, congressional Republicans or Democrats, the states or the telecom industry wants. "Reach out to your congressional delegation and reach out to the Trump Administration and tell them to strip out the needless requirements, but not to strip away from states the flexibility to get the best connections for their people," Feinman wrote. He said he's not worried about the Trump administration nixing requirements around climate resiliency, labor and middle class affordability, saying those issues "were inserted by the prior administration for messaging/political purposes, and were never central to the mission of the program." Feinman warns that changes to the BEAD program under the Trump administration could stall state-level broadband progress, with Louisiana, Delaware, and Nevada already stuck in review.
Meanwhile, no specific guidance or timeline for these changes has been provided, and Arielle Roth's confirmation as NTIA head is still pending in the Senate.
I welcome the competition. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re: I welcome the competition. (Score:1, Troll)
This is about government subsidies, not competition, dumbfuck.
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the government paying for one option for people is the opposite of competition
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the government paying for one option for people is the opposite of competition
The plan of the current administration is for the government to pay for one option, Starlink. Yes, that is the opposite of competition.
Starlink also happens to be owned by the multi-billionaire who funded DT's campaign and in return has been given the authority to fire people working for the FCC, the people who administer the program. This is not merely the opposite of competition, it is conflict of interest.
Re: I welcome the competition. (Score:1, Troll)
The previous administration allocated $42.5BN three years ago and connected NO ONE to the internet. And as the person responsible for that dubious accomplishment left office, he warned that the current administration might actually connect people to the internet using lower-cost option? THE HORROR!
Yes, fiber to the home is superior to Starlink or other technologies, but when you're looking at spending several thousand to tens of thousands to wire individual homes, why REFUSE to connect anyone with a merely
Re: I welcome the competition. (Score:2)
Re: I welcome the competition. (Score:1)
It's not that people are anti-government. It's that they are anti-incompetence.. Before you complain about "other people" you need to ask yourself how we got here. Speaking as a political independent, I see a lot of complaining but very little awareness if any as to why people voted the way they did in the recent election.
The Universal Service Fund (or whatever they're calling it now) has been rife with corruption with companies not keeping any of their promises as to rural connectivity but they're sure wil
Re: I welcome the competition. (Score:2)
Re: I welcome the competition. (Score:1)
Previous administrations back to Clinton have forked over numerous billions of dollars to various broadband initiatives, much of it aimed at providing high speed internet to rural areas, with little or nothing to show for it. In one rural community with zero options, I gathered enough interest from residents that we could have privately funded the installation of a fiber line to a reasonably close central office, as well as the distribution infrastructure to each property--and none of the companies would ev
Execute All Billionaires (Score:2, Insightful)
"For the love of money is the root of all evil"
Re:Execute All Billionaires (Score:4, Informative)
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Communists tried that last century, it turned out to shit for a very long time and that part of the world still dealing with the consequences.
Pitchfork revolution beats butterfly revolution any day of the week.
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it turned out to shit
That's a common misconception. It's has been, and continues to be, highly successful. Putin, for instance, is KGB: he and the rest of the power structure of his nation are still in power, and have been since 1917, enjoying the benefits of power the entire time. They've never had to face a real election. Never had to make a real payroll. Just luxury and power for over a century now.
They were briefly inconvenienced during WW2 when Germany approached their city and threatened to mess everything up, but
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Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)
no, just tax them, and if they take revenge by raising prices on products they sell then tax them even more, they need to be humbled in order to cure them of their arrogance
If I swap the word "tax" with the word "tariff" you sound like Trump. Weird.
Re:Execute All Billionaires (Score:5, Insightful)
Its funny how people have utterly forgotten that up until Reagan, the ultra rich were taxed at a roughly 90% above a certain threshold, and the country was doing just fine without excessive prices on things.
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Yes, but 80% of those taxes did not go to entitlements. Nor Medicaid, EPA, DoE, HUD, FEMA, DOGE, refundable tax credits...
Re: Execute All Billionaires (Score:2)
Re: Execute All Billionaires (Score:1)
Even if there was a 90% tax bracket, nobody but nobody paid 90%. If they were rich enough to be subject to that kind of taxation, they were generally intelligent enough to find some good accountants and tax lawyers to find loopholes to exploit, and also rich enough to lobby their congressmen to create those loopholes in the first place.
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The top marginal tax rate was reduced to 70% under President Kennedy, and then down to 28% along with the elimination of a slew of tax deductions in the 1986 tax reform under President Reagan. The top marginal rate for federal income taxes subsequently went back up eventually to about 39%. State income taxes are separate of course, and there are a number of other not so fun taxes that often apply.
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Its funny how people have utterly forgotten that up until Reagan, the ultra rich were taxed at a roughly 90% above a certain threshold, and the country was doing just fine without excessive prices on things.
Obviously you did not live in the years prior to Reagan. Ever heard of the price gas was going for in the 70s?
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Business always pass costs along to the consumer.
Always.
Inferior to what? (Score:5, Interesting)
On the one hand he's exactly right. This is definitely corruption and if Musk is to run the country he must remove himself from control of all his companies. It boggles my mind that so many republicans don't have a problem with him and trump mixing their businesses with running the country. This is what business looks like when you turn a country in to an oligarchy.
On the other hand, what other superior choice is there? In some areas there is cell-based internet available, but maybe only kind of. Generally there's no fibre or any other kind of hard line available.
Re:Inferior to what? (Score:5, Insightful)
It boggles my mind that so many republicans don't have a problem with him and trump mixing their businesses with running the country. This is what business looks like when you turn a country in to an oligarchy.
One must be easily boggled to be surprised that Republicans delivered on the oligarchy they've been openly advocating for, promoting and fighting to overthrow the US to install, for 4+ decades.
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Is it definitely corruption, though?
Elon is a rich asshole.
Starlink is by far the best option for internet service in a whole lot of places, from rural US to parts of Caribbean Islands to who-knows-where.
Both can be (and IMO are) true; Elon being a rich asshole doesn't mean Starlink shouldn't get the subsidy, if it's on the table and Starlink is qualified. I strongly dislike AT&T also, but if they're going to make rural broadband available they should be in the running.
I have a property where my choice
Re:Inferior to what? (Score:4, Informative)
If you had the choice between fibre and starlink, what would it be?
I like the fact my government subsidised a wholesale fibre network years ago. It started out giving people 100mbit up and down, with some areas getting 1000/900
Now 1000 is standard, with the cheapest plans being 300/100, some areas have access to 8000mbit.
As soon as Elon is tired of Starlink, new satellites will stop being launched and the network will literally fall apart as the constellation de-orbits.
Alternatively the cost will rise once Space-X stops subsidising the launching of satellites.
The entire constellation needs to be re-launched every... 5 or so years due to their 550km orbit. The plan is for 12,000 satellites, that's launching 10 every day, forever. That's around one rocket every 2 days.
At the current rate, they might not get to 12,000 before they start deorbiting quicker than they're replaced.
Out of 8000 launched, 7000 are still working, 1000 have already burned up.
Starship looks like the only way they'll be able to finish the build-out and get their network up to full capacity.
That's a lot of RP-1 being burned every day.
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"If you had the choice between fibre and starlink, what would it be?"
Answer: The one I could afford.
If those with nothing were to get "something", what SHOULD it be?
Answer: The cheapest acceptable service.
SO. Fiber wins in high-population and built up areas. Starlink wins for rural, last mile areas.
In areas with fiber already, there are many government programs in place to assist/subsidize internet access. For areas without fiber, the cost to install is insane for the amount of folks it would service
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If buried fibre is too expensive for a low population area, Starlink sits somewhere between 4G and 5G mobile networks.
Keep in mind also, Starlink is still years away from full coverage and will not get there without more frequent launches than what they're doing right now.
They're just over half way to a full constellation, but now they're losing higher numbers of satellites due to age.
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"Keep in mind also, Starlink is still years away from full coverage..."
So far, in the US it seems it's MOSTLY available across the US with some areas at capacity.
https://www.starlink.com/us/ma... [starlink.com]
And there's also this:
https://circleid.com/guides/st... [circleid.com].
"Our testing confirmed that Starlink’s real-world performance largely lives up to its ambitious promises, particularly in areas where alternative internet options are limited or unreliable."
And if 5G is available in an area vs. Starlink, how reliable woul
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Who says there is a choice between fibre and starlink? There's no fibre to the home available in northern Montana. And cell coverage is even poor.
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I mean rural, fairly remote areas, not the towns and cities, although I doubt towns have much access to fibre. Cities are few and far between. Just as an example.
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If we started today, we are about 2 decades away from something similar to universal fiber access. You basically need a country-wide policy that every time a public road is dug up, fiber gets installed under it. And then wait 20 years for all of the roads to get dug up.
Until then, there are millions of houses where the cost of fiber install will be $100,000+.
I've attended many meetings of local organizations trying to write grant requests to get this money. I've read the proposals. I've seen the quotes
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You're not wrong except for a couple of assumptions:
* Satellites are not going to get smaller/more efficient - meaning less cost per satellite.
* They're going to keep launching on falcons
I'm pretty sure that the goal is to move to starship as a launch vehicle - which is supposed to be even more efficient.
Elon is a nutter. And this would be an obvious conflict of interest. But I don't think Starlink is financially unviable.
Re:Inferior to what? (Score:5, Informative)
Is it definitely corruption, though?
At the absolute bare minimum it's a conflict of interest.
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And if you ask me, I don't think we need broadband subsidies at all. Municipal fiber tends to work quite well,
"Municipal" refers to cities or towns.
We are discussing rural broadband.
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Actually municipal can refer to an entire nation, though within the US the common vernacular also includes counties. And yes, rural municipal fiber can be found in many places, have a look:
https://communitynetworks.org/... [communitynetworks.org]
Filter by the smaller population numbers -- once you go down to the five digits, you're getting pretty rural already, and of course there are plenty in four digits as well.
Self dealing [Re:Inferior to what?] (Score:2)
Is it definitely corruption, though?
Yes. It is self-dealing.
Self dealing is a form of corruption regardless of the quality of the service.
...
So.... if you take Elon out of the picture, why would Starlink *not* be eligible for the subsidy?
If you take Elon out of the picture (as well as his employees), it would not be self-dealing. But if you bribe a government official to award you a contract, it's still a bribe even if, when it's found out, you protest "but my service was better than the others anyway."
In any case, though, Starlink was eligible for the subsidy. They bid on it, won some of the contracts, but could not deliver the broadban
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If you take Elon out of the picture (as well as his employees), it would not be self-dealing.
Ok, so that's the objection now, when Musk is a quasi-official member of the government.
What was the objection under the Biden administration, when he had no affiliation with the government at all? If the reason Starlink was excluded from consideration was bad faith and itself corrupt - the Biden administration didn't want a contract to do to someone who was viewed as the enemy by auto unions - then surely reconsidering that decision now is not corruption, it's reversing corruption.
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Until such time as Musk does what was expected of very political official for the last 100 years and divest himself of his companies to be in government, then yes it is corruption.
Re: Inferior to what? (Score:2)
Re: Inferior to what? (Score:1)
Re: Inferior to what? (Score:2)
So.... if you take Elon out of the picture, why would Starlink *not* be eligible for the subsidy?
How about we start with that then? Take him out of the picture, then consider whether Starlink is eligible for the subsidy. The whole issue here is the conflict of interest. Saying "conflict of interest aside, this is not a bad idea" is missing the point. The idea should not be entertained as long as the conflict of interest exists.
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Generally there's no fibre or any other kind of hard line available.
It's almost like we should put in place a government program to address this infrastructure lapse.
Re: Inferior to what? (Score:2)
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On the other hand, what other superior choice is there? In some areas there is cell-based internet available, but maybe only kind of. Generally there's no fibre or any other kind of hard line available.
We should run fiber everywhere there's poles, as it's reasonably cheap now. Then we can hang some terrestrial wireless off of it and cover practically everyone else. This will leave a need for a much smaller number of satellites to cover remote areas. It's really bananas to be serving people who could and should have decent cable internet now and are right next to an existing cable plant with satellite when there's a cheaper way to do it in the meantime. The immediate goal should be "full" fiber coverage, w
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One of the problems with the current setup is that when there is physical infrastructure in the ground, it could be run by any one of a number of different companies providing different levels of service and different price points.
In several cases the starlink offering is preferable to what the local operator has for various reasons.
If you had a wholesale system like many countries had, where the provider of the physical cabling simply rents out the cable and then someone else provides service over the top
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Back when 4G was being deployed it was predicted to blanket everywhere and put satellite constellations like Iridium either out of business or force them into niche markets. At our small observatory in the high desert 4G never got beyond "maybe only kind of". I guess the cell providers were fat, dumb and happy with where they were at and coverage expansion stalled. We've been using a local microwave provider and are thinking of sw
Re: Inferior to what? (Score:2)
maybe you need a government that actually works to create options instead of switching from one pork project to the next?
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jesus fuck, you've been posting this stupid fucking thing for like 7 fucking years now
Come on now (Score:5, Interesting)
They had over 40 billion to spend, and have connected exactly zero individuals over the course of a few years. They cannot pretend to have any authority on this subject.
Re: Come on now (Score:2)
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Re:Come on now (Score:5, Insightful)
They had over 40 billion to spend, and have connected exactly zero individuals over the course of a few years. They cannot pretend to have any authority on this subject.
Yes for someone who doesn't know how money is spent that looks bad. But for everyone else the project is perfectly on course. The time something takes is commensurate to the scale of the investment. As a rule the bigger your project the more it will look to outsiders like nothing is being done. You can compare this project to literally any other of such scale. E.g. the Australian NBN which was a project with a similar initial budget and also connected precisely zero people in the first few years. Now it's upgraded core infrastructure in much of the country, launched several satellites, brought FTTH to some areas, got decimated by an election and proceeded to provide FTTN to much of the rest of the country.
But for the first few years it connected not a single home.
This is the same everywhere. It's the same for EV charger rollouts in Europe, where over the first 3 years they built under 100 chargers, and now they are connecting thousands of new chargers every month. It's the same in private industry. You can spent $8bn on an oil platform only for 3 years in to not have extracted a single drop of oil.
There's one thing here that someone is not an authority on, and it's you, on the topic of how projects are executed. Are you the kind of person who complains that you got 9 women pregnant and a month later you still have no baby?
The $42.5 billion broadband program ? (Score:5, Informative)
Biden-Harris Admin's $42 Billion Internet Buildout Rife With Delays, Frustrating Rural Voters [freebeacon.com]
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I wish I can mod you up. But people don't like it when you don't swing against the right side of politics.
And this topic seems like a pow wow for a bunch of butthurt Musk haters.
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The irony being that everyone used to bitch every time telcos and cable companies got free money to do nothing.
Good riddance (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can't connect even ONE household with $42 billion (!), you are the problem, not the solution.
Undully enrich? (Score:5, Informative)
Could be good in the long term... (Score:1)
IF the US manages to remain a democratic country under the rule of law for long enough to hold a fair presidential election, then it's reasonably safe to assume that the next president will be a Democrat. (Although given the way the Democrats are fighting each other to be first in line to bend over for Trump, the next president might even be an independent).
Musk has clearly committed felonies, and Trump is busy trying to establish the precedent that he can overturn Biden's pardons. If Trump succeeds, then t
"stall state-level broadband progress"?? (Score:2)
LOL. You know you're in clown world when shit like that can be said with a straight face.
Owning vs Renting (Score:2)
If you dig a trench and install fiber that infrastructure can last for 100+ years.
If you give an LEO Internet provider some cash, those satellites might last 5-10 years.
I don't have an issue with rural folks subscribing to Starlink. I don't see why the government should want to subsidize their service.
The primary objective of having Starlink absorb fiber cash is to make sure that the fiber does not get built and those unimproved homes are stuck with Starlink forever.
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If this were a program meant to build out a robust network, then yes that would be the way. But this program is meant to get broadband to rural areas so they can take advantage of the economic benefits. That means ASAP. This yet another example of an investment losing focus and allowing the best to become the enemy of the good.
Biden-Harris Program (Score:2)
"President Biden and Vice President Harris are investing $90 billion to close the digital divide, and NTIA is administering nearly $50 billion across multiple grant programs in support of this goal. Below are highlights of NTIAâ(TM)s achievements under the Biden-Harris Administration.
Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program ($42.45 billion)"
https://broadbandusa.ntia.doc.... [doc.gov]
P.J O'Rourke quotes:
"Once you've built the big machinery of political power, remember you won't always be the one to
How many billions? (Score:3)
How many billions of taxpayer dollars have been pumped into ISPs over the last 20 years, with nothing to show for it, only to have the ISPs receiving the money always crying that they are in the poor house? Screw the whole lot of them. Maybe if they had actually gotten broadband to rural areas like they promised I might be a bit concerned with this new development. Nope, don't care, give the money to someone else. The legacy ISPs have proven they are useless.
Starlink can be good... (Score:2)
If the only alternatives you have are legacy Satellite internet companies then Starlink is better.
Starlink is better (Score:2)
Once the requisite minimum satellite constellation is launched, it will provide uniform service. No holding back service from certain communities (who have no options) and diverting funds to serve competitive markets. Or more politically connected markets. And (as far as I can tell) that service is provided at a uniform price.
Starlink SHOULD get the subsidy (Score:2)
Of course this is a terrible look for Musk and Starlink. The optics are abysmal.
But Starlink should get the subsidy.
The usual suspects, some of the most hated companies in America, have been harvesting "rural broadband" subsidies for years and gerrymandering things around to make it look like they were delivering when in reality they weren't.
I happen to live in a low density, hilly rural area and we will NEVER have fiber. The cost could never be justified unless every property paid 10s of thousands o
Didn't these clowns jerk the rug already? (Score:2)
Oh yeah: Starlink loses out on $886 million in rural broadband subsidies [theverge.com]
The FCC announced today that it won’t award Elon Musk’s Starlink an $886 million subsidy from the Universal Service Fund for expanding broadband service in rural areas. The money would have come from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund program (RDOF), but the FCC writes that Starlink wasn’t able to “demonstrate that it could deliver the promised service” and that giving the subsidy to it wouldn’t be “the best use of limited Universal Service Fund dollars.”
Maybe the FCC had a point in 2018 (most think they didn't, but now Starlink is the only game in town and it's a pretty good game.
My robot commentator (Gemma 3, running
Suspicious Phrasing (Score:2)
If he had just said it's inferior, I might have taken a closer look. But tacking on a complaint about "it will make Musk richer" makes me suspicious right away.
Only themselves to blame (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
did bugger all other than to all intents etc keep the cash.
They didn't keep the cash. They laundered it. They laundered it to politically connected interests. Sure, they took their cut, but the bulk of it passed through to the real targets: politically connected consultancies, pop-up non-profits, state government payoffs that laundered it on further, etc. The $42.5 billion BEADP bucks were a small fraction of the $1200 billion 2021 Infrastructure Bill, much of which was also laundered through respective sock puppets, who also took their cuts, and also did littl