https://thecounter.org/fcc-20-billion-dollar-rural-broadband-auction/
This part:
Quote"Due to provisions against "overbuilding," providers that would offer a competing service are ineligible for subsidies, leaving those rural communities, who are supposedly covered, in the dark."
Was written as if this part wasn't a part of the article:
Quote"Rural electric co-operatives, small wireless providers, and satellite companies like SpaceX are also expected to participate."
Small towns like the one I live in have been doing for themselves. We have fiberoptic internet.
>>doing for themselves. We have fiberoptic internet.
That may work for a rural community that is otherwise close to high-speed infrastructure. We don't have fiber optic within 75 miles.
I honestly doubt whether we will see high-speed internet here in the next 10 years. Starlink is going to be a problem because even at full-buildout, reliable internet will require a 40-degree view of the sky. That might happen if we have another massive wave of beetle kill.
Any over-the-wire tech is going to be too expensive. And as for subsidies, years ago, AT&T said they would not take a subsidy that would result in servicing a place for which there is no business case, because then they are on the hook to maintain it.
Our best hope is that AT&T decides that it's too expensive to keep providing landline service, so they cut a deal with the PUC to put in 4G and in return they get to quit maintaining the landlines. I think that's ultimately what they would like (minus providing 4G that is). But the first houses went in in 1966 and the landlines didn't get put in until 1993.
So for now we're stuck with a $363/month T1 line or Hughesnet.