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> 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)

• jeremyjh 4y ago
  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.
  • welterde 4y ago
    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.
    • jeremyjh 4y ago
      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.
      • welterde 4y ago
        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..
• gvb 4y ago
  ...or not: "FCC denies Starlink’s application for $885M subsidy" (breaking news) https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/10/fcc-denies-starlinks-application-for-885m-subsidy/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/10/fcc-denies-starlinks-appli... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32417587 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32417587