this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2025
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Starlink operator SpaceX is fighting Virginia's plan to deploy fiber Internet service to residents, claiming that federal grant money should be given to Starlink instead. SpaceX is already in line to win over $3 million in grant money in the state but is seeking $60 million.

Starlink is poised to benefit from the Trump administration rewriting rules for the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grant program. While the Biden administration decided that states should prioritize fiber in order to build more future-proof networks, the Trump administration ordered states to revise their plans with a "tech-neutral approach" and lower the average cost of serving each location.

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[–] KindnessIsPunk@lemmy.ca 2 points 8 hours ago

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 36 points 16 hours ago (4 children)

This is absolute insanity. To think that fiber and satellites are even on the same playing field is absolute brain damage.

[–] TheTurner@lemmy.zip 3 points 9 hours ago

We just got fiber 3 weeks ago. I pay for 600Mb/s and it is honestly the best internet I've had. I was afraid that we wouldn't get it, but I was astonished when a salesman stopped by. I signed up that day. Lol

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[–] ruuster13@lemmy.zip 19 points 14 hours ago (4 children)

Starlink is literally his plan to rule the world. If you singularly control access to the internet for everyone, you've won the information war... against everyone. The good news is his Nazi addict ass will likely die young from a chest-cavity attack.

[–] Manifish_Destiny@lemmy.world 5 points 12 hours ago

I thought he would just abandon his torso mech and a tiny body would come out.

[–] meaansel@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

L. Bob Rife in the making, lol

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[–] _druid@sh.itjust.works 9 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

I will string together old coathangers and twisted, unheated solder before I use starlink.

[–] jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 4 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Recently talked my MIL into switching to T-Mobile home Internet instead of StarLink. I even volunteered to mount an external cell antenna on her roof if the signal wasn't good enough.

Elmo and his shitty satellite company can kiss my ass.

[–] _druid@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

Doesn't t-mobile use starlink now?

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[–] bryndos@fedia.io 3 points 12 hours ago (3 children)

If you figure out the right protocol you could probably catapult a series of twisted pears from house to house.

The way the internet is going, bashed and bruised fruit salad sounds preferable to the actual data anyway.

[–] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago

Hey, we just need someone to innovate the shielded twisted pears, that will give us a much better fruit salad than the unshielded twisted pears.

[–] MasterBlaster@lemmy.world 0 points 8 hours ago

The visuals are priceless. Screaming, agonized pears flying from building to building with California raisins singing in flight amongst them. I think i just found a reason to play with AI video generation!

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 1 points 12 hours ago

the way things are going, food won't be that easy to come by

[–] Ilixtze@lemmy.ml 3 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Capitalism is truly wonderful

[–] deafboy@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Capitalism, is in fact, Fascism, or as I've recently taken to calling it, Government with Benefits.

[–] crandlecan@mander.xyz 3 points 10 hours ago (3 children)

Fascism is just capitalism on speed

[–] HiTekRedNek@lemmy.world 3 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Fascism is fake capitalism, because the market is not deciding anything, government bureaucrats are.

Capitalism is when the market decides who "wins" and "loses" in the race for more money.

But when you add in government overreach and regulatory capture, it loses all semblance of capitalism.

[–] Olhonestjim@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Fascism is when capitalists control the government.

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[–] MasterBlaster@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago

Nope. It's hate driven authoritarianism using Capitalism as a weapon.

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[–] ms_lane@lemmy.world -2 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (5 children)

As much as I dislike the muskrat, is this fiber actually real?

ISPs in US have been given billions of dollars, multiple times to bring Fiber out and each time they've pocketed the cash and done nothing.

Starlink at the very least, exists.

  • If this is going to counties and cities to build out municipal fiber, then screw StarLink.

  • If this is going to AT&T, again, for the fourth time to build this fiber, then no, give it to StarLink since AT&T will never actually build out that service, fourth time is not the charm.

I take umbrage with StarLink's notion that Fiber is slow to build out though - the single biggest expense and time consuming part of rolling out a GPON network is getting it from the street to inside a premesis.

Guess which part StarLink still has to do and it isn't any cheaper...

[–] MasterBlaster@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I got fiber last year. It halved my bill and quadrupled my throughput. It's real, and since then another vendor arrived and is competing with the one i have. This is hiw it is supposed to work.

[–] ms_lane@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I'm not sure why people are commenting that I think fiber isn't real?

Of course it's real.

But maybe you're young- Comcast, AT&T, etc, have been given multiple tranches of money since the early 1990s to deliver a nationwide fiber network in the US, they've never delivered more than 0.1% of it.

Giving them more money, won't make it happen.

Giving municipalities (cities, counties) the funds to build out their own fiber networks is good.

Giving more money to Comcast and AT&T to do nothing, is not good, it's corporate welfare.

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[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 4 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

I think you're low key conflating 2 different issues here.

When it comes to technology of fiber vs low orbit satellites fiber will always win in every circumstance that isn't a battle field or an ocean. It's one of those technologies that we really nailed. Combined with cell towers we can tap ourselves on the back and say "yay we solved internet" very convincingly.

There's literally nothing in current practical physics that can match this latency and bandwidth and cost ration. Just try to do napkin math of how many low orbit satellites we'd need to cover today's bandwidth and latency requirements and we will literally never need less than what we need today unless the world ends.

Now whether corruption has a role here sure - but you sure your trusting SpaceX more when its literally on the news right now for bait and switching the pause feature. There's no basis of thinking that Starlink would somehow be less corrupt. In fact, it seems like hiding corruption here would be much easier for starlink with feature changes and priority lanes than literal "cable is here or cable is not here".

[–] brown567@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 hours ago

Isn't fiber also winning on battlefields now because it's resistant to jamming?

[–] Glitchvid@lemmy.world 2 points 12 hours ago

BEAD funds are more or less administered by the state, and nothing is fundementally stopping them from doing the right thing and preferring local bids.

It's entirely possible too, look at North Dakota, it has near 100% fiber coverage for the entire state, because the same model that brought electrification to them brought them fiber. In Utah and surrounding states there are municipal networks building out to member cities.

The real threat is the states capitulating to the incumbent providers like Comcast – but at least it's a State level issue instead of being totally a given at the federal level.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 1 points 11 hours ago

and each time they've pocketed the cash and done nothing.

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