Republicans continue to complain that "not a single home has been connected" by Joe Biden's $42 billion rural broadband program (aka BEAD). That's true. And it won't happen this year either. The plan from the beginning was for the FCC to create basic maps of broadband service and then spend 2024 and 2025 on grant disbursement and planning. The actual service connections would be built out in 2026 and 2027.
Is that going to happen? Who knows. But if you want to see the progress to date, all you have to do is click here and take a look at the BEAD dashboard. It's all out in the open:
Every state (and territory) has an approved plan. They're all now going through the challenge process, which allows groups to challenge the accuracy of the maps. Half the states have finished this and about a dozen have started choosing ISPs. When that's finished the final proposals will be released for public comment.
With any luck most states will finish up by the end of the year and then the backhoes can get to work. We'll see how many manage to meet this timeline. But in any case, almost everything is now in the hands of the states, not the federal government.
There are another couple of notes you might be interested in:
- The goal of the program is to provide broadband to underserved areas. That includes tribal lands, low-income neighborhoods, local libraries, and so forth. Conservatives keep complaining that BEAD is being slowed down by "liberal DEI requirements," but this is a case where equity is the whole point of the program. The DEI complaints aren't just groundless, they don't even make sense.
- Elon Musk is mad about BEAD because Starlink lost a bid to provide rural broadband service in a previous program a few years ago. The bid was rejected over concerns that Starlink wasn't on track to provide the required speed and latency. Obviously Musk objected—and there's no telling who was right—but Musk has held a grudge ever since. He asked the FCC to overrule the decision, but the three Democratic commissioners voted against him while the two Republican commissioners voted for him and loudly protested that the whole thing was political retaliation against Musk. Naturally Musk agrees.
"Republicans continue to complain that "not a single home has been connected" by Joe Biden's $42 billion"
WOW - what a prefect RepubliQan lie. It is 100% true, 100% deceptive, and a 100% rotten lie all at the same time.
Republicans will dig in their heels, fight and obstruct this every step of the way. Until, of course, people start seeing the benefit, at which point they will show up at the ribbon cutting and take all the credit. And Trump will send out notifications with his signature plastered all over them. And the MAGA rubes will eat it up.
You left out the best/worst part - that our lovely MSM will let RepubliQans lie and lie and lie as they take credit for something they opposed.
Musk is a mentally unstable juvenile. He is a national security risk to any government which relies on his companies for essential services.
+100. And yet, he's near the head of the trough for federal contracts, subsidies, and classified information.
No, he doesn't get classified information.
That's not how classified information works.
Oh you sweet, sweet summer child. The rules aren't applied to Trump and his buddies and family. They can see whatever they want regardless of any failed security investigation.
One of the most aggravating things about governments is waiting for permitting to build stuff.
Surely a rural broadband plan shouldn't take half a decade to go through all the hoops before the shovels hit the ground. It's that seemingly lack of a sense of urgency that's annoying a lot of people.
Sure. But you know what would annoy them a lot more? If the government dove in and started building without all the hearings and planning, like it did with the TVA. Can you imagine the conservative screaming if the Feds hired 9,000 workers in a couple months, started construction with almost no local input, and displaced 125,000 people? And the simultaneous liberal screaming about tearing up native archaeological sites and destroying minority communities?
Taking four or five years between project inception and the start of construction is not unreasonable, particularly when we insist on doing it through state govts and private contractors. Maybe we could get to construction in three years if the Feds built
stuff directly. But we’re never going back to the bad old days when we built stuff without local consultation.
And this is beautiful for both sides! The left got its safeguards, its community input, its studies. Endless opportunities to delay, to demonstrate, to sue. The right gets to carp about endless delays, red tape, cost overruns -- but best of all, by the time the projects actually come to fruition, they get to claim credit! All the credit, even after voting to a man to oppose the thing!
Because nothing can be done within a single (or double) presidential term. That's just how it was set up to "work".
Gotta let everyone and their uncle try to stop every project. It wouldn't be America if we built things quickly (or continuously).
5 years seems quite quick. Public transportation investment often takes 4x as long, and that's before they even start digging.
Maybe the Feds should start their rural broadband update and replacement plan now, so when the original wires from this round need replacement in several decades, the new ones are almost approved.
It seems pretty clear that wired broadband is a legacy technology. This is like paying to lay copper in 2000. In addition satellite sorts roaming fur campers, job sites, etc.
Unless there is evidence that satellite broadband cannot handle the number of connections we need， Musk is right.
Satellite internet SUCKS. Starlink is $120 a month for a max speed of 150 Mbps, so 50% more than I’m paying the cable company for less than half the speed. That’s also slower than 5G, and it isn’t as mobile as a phone. And it goes out in bad weather. Satellite is the legacy tech.
I wonder how Starlink will operate around Mars without a magnetosphere...
Or the Moon! But satellites do, in fact, already transmit around those bodies.
Broadband to rural communities us going to cost more than in cities. No way to avoid it - lower density means more meters of fibre per subscriber.
Satellite broadband is new technology. Performance will increase quickly.
And 150 MBPS is good enough for almost all requirements.
1. No, satellite Internet service is not a new technology. It's been around for a least 20 years in one form or another. You might think it's new because it's such a niche product that you may not have heard about it.
2. No, performance won't increase quickly - or at all - because there is no way to address the inherent latency problem. It takes as long as it takes for the signal to get to and from the satellite, and - spoiler alert - the amount of time it takes is too damn long.
3. 16k of RAM is more than anyone could ever need! 150Mbps isn't bad, and not long ago was more than even LAN speed, but it's not really good enough when gigabit speed is becoming pretty common. New services will be developed that require that bandwidth and if all you have is 150Mbps, you'll be screwed.
Starlink is probably a godsend if you're in a war zone, or the absolute wilderness, but it is NOT a technology that anyone would consider "good enough" for everyday home or business use. It just isn't, and it's never going to be. I'm sure Elmo would disagree, but that's because he has a monetary interest.
And I'll add the massive numbers of LEO satellites that Musk wants to launch on top of the 1000's he's already launched. That has significant impacts one of my loves: astronomy.
It doesn't have that big of an impact.
Literally, the latency is getting better because the satellites now are much, much closer than the ones before - coverage from Low Earth Orbit is only 500km away instead of 35000km away at Geostationary Orbit.
What typical home or business activities are significantly impacted by Starlink latency other than gaming?
Yes, and what happens if the long awaited magnetic pole reversal starts.
I'm torn between "Yeah, I really want to see what happens!!" and "It'll be the end of the world!"
MF is a troll, stupider than Justin below but still not arguing in good faith. Don’t feed it.
Musk is in this for personal money. His opinion is and will always be that the correct answer is whatever makes him richer.
A friend of mine once said that all everyone wants is attention. She was on to something. It's what dogs want too. Both want food first - not entirely different from wanting money. Then it's all about attention.
Elon got himself into a far more powerful and public position by his mutiual bromance with Trump plus Xitter and his behavior became far more attention seeking than it even had been before. He gets worse every day. Donald too.
Was recently on a boat for 10 days with Starlink . They told us right off the bat it is usually pretty good except when it isn’t, and they were right.
Satellite broadband? How about signal relay from towers closer to earth? Like wifi-style broadcasts or cell towers? Then you don't need rural point to point. At least, nowhere near as many "points."
Or, as google/alphabet has experimented with, permanent circling aircraft to serve as relay stations. Maybe balloons, maybe solar powered glider-type drones. They have the added advantage of being moveable during emergencies.
Great idea, having a permanent drone buzzing above your rural homestead 24/7.
>It seems pretty clear that wired broadband is a legacy technology.
RF spectrum is limited and as a result expensive. The more people use Starlink, the slower it gets unless more spectrum is competitively purchased.
Wireless is obviously vital to mobile applications and cost effective for low-density areas. Relative to the second point, I'm not sure where the cross-over is in terms of population density, but I suspect those in the industry have a pretty good handle on it.
The only way to get more bandwidth is wires, numbskull.
You can't put an infinite number of satellites in the sky.
It's kinda funny this is controversial. Everything is a fist fight.
Yes it is, thanks partially to trolls like you.
Don’t feed this fuck.
"Is that going to happen? Who knows. "
Will it happen? No. DOGE will ID the program as "waste and fraud" (because Musk isn't getting a cut), Congress will dutifully cut it (or Musk's orange puppet will impound the funding), and then Rs will make hay in 2026, blaming Ds for lack of rural broadband.
This ↑↑↑↑↑
You can't cut 20 or 30 or whatever percent of federal spending (while of course sparing the military) without cutting out everything like this program.
I am not a Republican, but I work with several.
My guess, based on plenty of conversations with folks at work, "equity is the whole point of the program" does not have a shared, bipartisan meaning. Classic definitions of DEI do not include whites, or people JUST because they are rural. Rather, by supporting classic DEI groups, you are hindering rural whites.
To quote my boss/to share a common Republican position, 'DEI is just racism in favor of different groups.'
Thanks for the report from the jungle! Er, our new rulers.
Of course, your boss is a lying white supremacist.