I would agree if the same standard was being applied to the existing telecoms. But it isn't.

In the last several decades, telecoms have routinely been paid billions for projects that didn't produce, and then won money in the next round as well. Indeed the fight isn't usually about whether to continue this, but who should win this round (established telecoms, municipal broadband, etc).

It was a surprise when Starlink won in the first place. But it is no surprise that it is being held to a higher standard than, say, Charter.

What do you mean by "applied to the existing telecoms"? For this RDOF subsidy, no major telecoms have been given any money.

It's totally fair to criticize subsidies that have been historically given major telecom companies when they failed to deliver (and they have). But, I don't think it's fair to say "historically the US government has given subsidies to telecoms that have failed to deliver, so you should keep doing that".

There have been a series of "give broadband to rural areas" bills starting with the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Generally great sums of money are given, and generally only limited customers get broadband. And then a few years later there is a new bill with similar results.

Given this history, I am inclined to believe that actually not giving money to Starlink for a fairly small performance miss is motivated by something other than just applying the rules.

If in a few years it is clear that policies have changed, and telecoms no longer get the gravy train either, then I'll change my opinion. Ending this corruption would be a welcome change.

Perhaps the reason Starlink is being held to this scrutiny is because of those previous attempts being failures and to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

The solution to “the old people weren’t being vetted enough” is not “the new players should also not be vetted enough.”

That was the one where AT&T took a half $B of taxed money to build out fiber, but never lit it. Because nothing said they had to.

Government has given hundreds of billions in broadband funding to the giant telecoms and cable for ages for absolute nada [EDIT, 1]. The clients I put in Starlink for last year had a 10 meg connection for which they were charged hundreds of dollars per month and were fortunate since a mile away it was 56k modem of HughesNet or nothing. It's really good tech. I've been hearing promises and aspirations about fiber for like 17 fucking years. I can completely believe that in designing and putting into being a brand new network like that SpaceX has misjudged cell density vs satellite density and capabilities in areas and let the average speeds fall. But given what they're doing and the (non)alternatives I'd be a lot happier if there was some leeway to bring that back up and see how v2 comes out. Funding very promising technology that is aggressively trying to ramp hard and has a clear 1-3 year horizon is precisely the sort of thing government should do after all their failures up until now. And there are others less well off within a hundred miles who were hoping to get Starlink if the monthly cost could be brought down by this program. And Starlink aren't assholes like the incumbent players either. No datacaps, zero billing crap with surprise charges or fees, no port blocking, no bullshit in general. Of course more speed would be better, but that should be worth something too vs theoretically faster connections that then punish or restrict.

Bottom line: I don't think these $886 million now going elsewhere are going to benefit even a single person up here near the Canadian border in the next few years. Fiber is still not going to appear here. The border is over 3000 miles long. In contrast Starlink can do something now (if you look at the Starlink map [0], there are very few filled cells in northern New England or northern Midwest/Pacific West up near Canada), and has the real promise of doing better. Now that will be harder, and I do not believe anything better is going to come of it for any of us in that time frame. If fiber comes in 2028 wonderful, Starlink could be cancelled then. That's a long time though to still be on 56k/HEOsat.

To sibling comments talking crap like "do you work for SpaceX" if you wish to volunteer and come up to lay fiber for us right fucking now by all means.

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0: https://www.starlink.com/map

1: I'm editing in response to tyrfing below because I suspect I'll hit the HN reply speed cap sometime shortly. This got tons of coverage in the 00s in particular but has fallen away over time as these things tend to. I had a bunch bookmarked at one point from old /. stories and the like and actual paper books but all the sites now seem to be dead. Here's a more recent one though that seems to cover the gist and could be a place to start for more: "The Book Of Broken Promises: $400 Billion Broadband Scandal" https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-book-of-broken-promis_b_5...

> Government has given hundreds of billions in broadband funding to the giant telecoms

Can you share a source for this? I'm very curious to see the breakdown of funding sources.

> there are others less well off within a hundred miles who were hoping to get Starlink if the monthly cost could be brought down by this program

Why would the company receiving free money make it cheaper, are there price caps that SpaceX wouldn't meet? You've clearly laid out that they have no competition.

> Funding very promising technology that is aggressively trying to ramp hard and has a clear 1-3 year horizon

They had 1.5 years. "1-3 year horizon" is thus clearly misleading, since halfway through that timeframe they are unable to meet requirements.