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A comment on Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes. Parent comment

Re:Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands ... by gvb on Wednesday August 10, 2022 @10:13AM (#32412308)
> Perhaps a Starlink connection would have been enough for them and perfectly fine if it's a single family.

Oh the irony... Starlink is also tapping (federal) government subsidies to provide internet service to rural areas. Tapping government subsidies is a very important part of Starlink's plan to become profitable.

Ref: "SpaceX's Starlink wins nearly $900 million in FCC subsidies to bring internet to rural areas" https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/07/spacex-starlink-wins-nearly-...

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Re:Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands ... by gvb on Wednesday August 10, 2022 @04:08PM (#32417704)
...or not: "FCC denies Starlink’s application for $885M subsidy" (breaking news)

https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/10/fcc-denies-starlinks-appli...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32417587

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Re:Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands ... by jeremyjh on Wednesday August 10, 2022 @11:26AM (#32413557)
The difference is that those investments will be usable by anyone who wants the service and can setup the antenna. Where-as a half mile fiber run to your house in the boonies can only ever be useful to you.
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Re:Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands ... by welterde on Wednesday August 10, 2022 @11:51AM (#32414047)
The subsidy is for the company though and not this specific fiber run, which was a sort of worst-case. The company is quite limited in geographical scope, so they got a fairly small subsidy, while Starlink is much larger in scope and thus got a larger one.

Also that fiber run will remain useful for far longer than the Starlink satellites. It's pretty much a one-time cost with negligible operating cost, whereas Starlink will have to continuously keep launching satellites to keep it running.

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Re:Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands ... by jeremyjh on Wednesday August 10, 2022 @01:34PM (#32415686)
One way or another, tax payers spent $30K on a fiber run to one house. Yes, they spent less on some other ones too. The indirection just increases cost insensitivity.
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Re:Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands ... by welterde on Wednesday August 10, 2022 @02:32PM (#32416490)
It's all about averages though. Some people will be cheap to connect, while others will be expensive to connect. And the subsidies are most likely written in a way, such that the ISPs can't only go for the low-hanging fruit.

Same with Starlink on a bigger scale. Some ground station will have more people near them than others (absent satellite to satellite comms). Some orbits will be used by more people than others..

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