The director of the largest federal broadband program in American history bid farewell to his colleagues in spiritual is -Sunday morning. Among other things, Evan Feinman warned that millions of rural Americans could get stuck at slow internet speeds if the rules change to favor Satellite Internet company Elon Musk Stardlink.
By March 16, Feinman was the director of Broadband Capital Program, Access and DeploymentA $ 42.5 billion fund passed as part of the Law on Infrastructure Investments and Jobs from 2021. In E -s, for the first time reported by Craig Silverman on Propublica Craig in blouses postFeinman sounds the alarm for the proposed bead changes.
“The new administration seems to want to make changes that ignore the clear direction set by Congress, reduce the number of US homes and business activities that receive fiber links and increase the number of satellite ties,” Feinman wrote.
With satellite, it means Starlink. Amazon Kuiper's project is also technically qualified for bead funding, but there are currently only two prototype satellites in the sky, compared to over 7,000 for Starklink. (Satellite internet geostatically as Hujugnet and Viaat are not qualified to finance a bead because they do not meet his latency requirements.)
The money of the bead is distributed to each state by the National Administration for Telecommunications and Information, which belongs to the Ministry of Commerce. Under Biden's administration, NTIA has clearly advocated fiber deployment in rural areas, considered a gold standard The type of internet connection.
Trade Secretary Howard Lunno plans to take more “technologically neutral” approach to bead, according to Report published by Wall Street Journalournal. It will benefit Starklink with a height of $ 10 billion to $ 20 billion – from $ 4.1 billion expected to be found under old rules.
“Some of the frightening scenarios I have heard from people close to NTIA and close to the trade department will give 50% of the money or more to Elon Musk,” Igjigi Dream, CEO of the American Public Broadband Association, told CNET.
“Lunno obviously believes, like Trump and Musk, that paying for fiber instead of satellite has been spent money,” said Blair Levin, a former chief of the FCC office and an analyst for telecommunications industry in NewU Street research for CNET.
Fiber is expensive in many areas. Texas controller spokesman told me In a previous interview That some rural households in western Texas would cost as much as $ 130,000 to connect with fiber.
How much money can you be able to get Starlink Starlink may depend on where NTIA sets that threshold. Source told me that Speed for the act of bead – The bill introduced in the house earlier in March- initially included a $ 25,000 spending threshold per fiber location, but was later removed. If an area exceeds that number, the country's broadband office will be able to turn to “Alternative Technologies” like Starlink.
“This is what it was about (Feinman),” said Dream, who cares that NTIA could set a price per location that strongly favored the satellite. “If we want to go back in five years and say,” Oh, and yet we have a huge rural digital division in this country, “then we will do it.”
Feinman's email claims that this satellite change will be “bad service in a rural and small city of America”. This comes down to two editions with the Starlink Service: Speed and Price. It has not been proven that it can meet the bead speed requirements, and after $ 120 a month in most areas, it is also far more expensive than most ISPs.
Neither spokesmen at the Starklink or Trade Department immediately responded to CNET's request for comment.
Can Starklink keep up with the future?
Critics argue that Starlink speeds do not meet the Bead speed requirements: 100mbps download speed, 20Mbps setting and latency below 100ms. The only one of those demands that Starlink is currently fulfilling is latency, and is still significantly worse than median in the United States.
“This is an investment once in life in broadband and to give it an expensive, slow service that is not scalable, it has not been proven in the future-it's just throwing money into the toilet,” Dream said.
Ocla data show that Starlink's speeds have actually fallen because more people have joined the net.(Disclosure: OKA is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.)
Starklink launched thousands of satellites after debuting in 2019, but millions of additional customers have also been added. Speeds have declined even when Starklink has sent thousands of more satellites to the sky, and is currently unavailable for clients in many US cities.
“I'm not sure the lick is aware of this,” Levin said. “Starlink has a waiting list. They have a waiting list because they do not have the capacity. “
Starklink has publicly said her new satellites will solve capacity problems, but has not proven to do so – especially if millions of extra homes are connected through the bead.
“Like future technology, it just doesn't reduce the mustard,” Dream said.
Is called a thumb rule that I've heard a lot in the world on the Internet Nielsen's lawstating that the speed of connection with high internet users grows by approximately 50% each year, doubling every 21 months. This is true every year since 1983, and that is worried Feinman. Starlink can be good enough today – and has not proven to be the definition of the FCC – but you may not be able to handle applications for the future.
What's next?
Much is in flux right now for a bead. Lovery is expected to publish rules for renovating the program every day now, which helps explain some of the urgency in E -Feinman.
“Come to your congress delegation and tap the Trump administration and tell them to take away unnecessary demands, but not to take away the flexibility to get the best links for their people,” Feinman wrote to his colleagues.
If you want to reach the selected representatives for changes in the bead program, you can download the application 5 calls in App Store or Google Play Shop. The application explores and writes scripts on different topics, identifies relevant decision makers and collects phone numbers for their offices.