News - Broadband expansion in limbo after Trump order pausing

Common_C3nts

https://statescoop.com/bead-broadband-trump-executive-order-infrastructure-bill-2025/

Money was already awarded to the states and the states are supposed to have the power to release the funds.

(Mod edit: Valid topic, edited to avoid politics)

ATT, Comcast, even small ISPs will have to do the same to play ball.

HooRU

Many bitter pills to swallow, but this is what the people asked for. You want it, you got it.

excalibur

All that money and how many have been connected under this farce?

From September 2024:

https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/the-42-billion-internet-program-that-has-connected-0-people

They could have bought Starlink for all the rural people and saved billions of dollars, and they would already be connected.

Rich221976

excalibur

The only actual issue I see though is that yes you could get everyone connected with Starlink would be latency. I can't see anyone that wants to be able to work from home being able to use the service very well for VOIP and other stuff.

https://www.starlink.com/legal/documents/DOC-1400-28829-70

Also would cause issues with people that want to play online gaming and possible buffering. Fiber would be better and should be deployed to everyone as copper is today. However, that will take a good amount of time to get everyone hooked up to fiber.

All that money and how many have been connected under this farce?

From September 2024:

https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/the-42-billion-internet-program-that-has-connected-0-people

They could have bout gt Starlink for all the rural people and saved billions of dollars, and they would already be connected.

Astyanax

Rich221976 Although I've never used either, I think of Starlink as just glorified HughesNet.

Rich221976

I thought about satellite at one time in my area. However, I just stuck with cable. Decided it wasn't worth it to get Hughesnet. I think I was up to about 10 megs down with cable at the time. DSL never became available in my area. Well sort of.

Uverse ended up coming to my area. Uverse only provided about 50 down for this part of town. I was pretty far from the CO. The Uverse for us was just bonded DSL. I think our fiber was installed about 2 years ago.

Since I been on fiber I kicked Spectrum to the curb. Didn't need them for a backup internet since the fiber rarely goes down. Spectrum goes down every time there is a power outage. Plus when they finally started accepting orders, I signed up for 5 Megs. I know that was over kill but since ATT raise the fiber prices it no longer makes sense to down grade and have to pay about the same amount. LOL

excalibur

Look, they got some $42 billion passed in 2021, by September 2024 they had connected ZERO people. It is what government does, promise something, come up with a massive sum of money, and deliver nothing.

These people the spending was intended for still have no broadband, and for less than $42 billion could have bought them Starlink, or AT&T Fixed Wireless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5ydt80liBg

Latency be damned, no broadband or some minor latency issues.

Instead, they've got nothing for a $42 billion slush fund. And where is that money?

HooRU

excalibur My understanding is that, as true with all infrastructure, it's taking time to get there, I don't take your viewpoint as fair.

excalibur

HooRU It's government, it's what they do. It's a fail. Where is the money?

The same fail with all the EV charging stations, on $5 billion, they built 8 so far. Another pile of money, where is it all?

https://www.autonews.com/mobility-report-newsletter/only-8-ev-charging-stations-operating-under-5-billion-us-program/

Slush funds. They had what they needed for broadband, Starlink, AT&T Fixed Wireless, and a lot cheaper. But no money involved for politicians and their friends.

dave

Common_C3nts
The states in general do not provide broadband, the states fund qualified broadband providers. Can't disburse the funds if there are no qualified applicants.

In MA, I could not find (with admittedly cursory searching) which providers had applied but whose applications were still in bureaucratic limbo.

Mind you, I'm not claiming that it's impossible to grant funding to asshole companies that then fail to deliver. That would be a failure of government oversight too. Maybe they need a few programmers to write the contracts, if the lawyers aren't up to the job.

HooRU

excalibur The polician's friends are sure as hell getting everything now!