When You Wish Upon a Star(link)

Elon Musk’s satellite broadband company – Starlink – is poised to receive billions of dollars in federal subsidies should the recently announced changes to the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program be approved by Congress. While presented to the public as a way to end the digital divide – the divide between those who have access to high speed internet “broadband” and those who don’t – these changes will end up subsidizing a technology that offers only “good enough” connectivity and risks creating a new digital divide as parts of the country go to satellite while others move to fiber optics.

The BEAD program was created as part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (the “IIJA” also called the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, “BIL”), a trillion-dollar economic stimulus package created at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. During these trying times, the extent of the digital divide became widely apparent.

Children were doing their homework outside Taco Bells to piggyback off the fast food chain’s Wi-Fi. Research conducted by BroadbandNow in 2021 found that 42 million people, mainly in rural, remote, and Tribal Areas, lacked internet access, while 50 million people located in urban, rural, and Tribal areas alike could not afford a monthly broadband subscription. Tens of millions lacked the skills necessary to take advantage of digital platforms (many seniors, for instance, could not book a COVID vaccine online), while others did not own a computer in the first place.

These digital divides disproportionally impact already-marginalized communities, including Black and Latinx communities, low-income households, rural areas, Tribal nations, seniors, non-English language speakers, newcomers to the United States, those impacted by the justice system, and persons with disabilities. The divides also intersect. A 2021 report from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies found that 38% of African Americans in the Black Rural South lacked home internet access.

Congress seemingly took note of this digital chasm and created the BEAD program, the largest single public investment in telecommunications infrastructure in the nation’s history. It charged the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to distribute funds to states, and the states themselves to be the final arbiters of funding recipients – Internet Service Providers (ISPs) who would connect the unconnected. Many states are well on their way to selecting broadband projects to support.

The BEAD program prioritized “projects designed to provide fiber connectivity directly to the end user.” Fiber optic networks are the gold standard of broadband technology, capable of handling nearly unlimited amounts of data and lasting for decades. Fiber technology can support the growing Internet of Things that define our digital lives, powering everything from computers and phones to smart watches, fridges, televisions, washers and dryers, and all things AI, while meeting the high-speed demands of business and education. Fiber thrives where other technologies fall short.

Now, Commerce Secretary Lutnick, Musk, and President Trump want to change the rules of BEAD under the premise of “technological neutrality.” For months, Starlink has lobbied the federal government and individual states to get access to the BEAD program. While Starlink has proven to be an important option for broadband connectivity for those in remote areas of the country where fiber is tremendously expensive to deploy, the service has difficulties meeting federal minimums for broadband speeds.

For a technology to qualify as “broadband” under the BEAD program (as written into IIJA) and therefore qualify for funding, it must consistently deliver broadband speeds of 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload. According to the trusted broadband speedtest organization, Ookla, however, Starlink’s median download speed in November 2023 was less than 80 Mbps. Starlink also comes with high upfront costs that may be unattainable for some families. While Starlink promises faster future speeds, communities need a technology they know can scale, and that is fiber. Said differently, those with Starlink may one day find themselves stuck with 2025 speeds, while their fiber-connected neighbors are zooming ahead.

Then there’s the problem of monopoly. The Commerce Secretary wants to open the BEAD program in the name of technological neutrality to include Low-Earth Orbital (LEO) satellite delivery, but truth be told, there is only one viable LEO-based broadband provider right now: Starlink. Opening the BEAD program for LEO is really a billion-dollar handout to Starlink.

Should these changes go through, the Wall Street Journal predicts that Starlink could receive almost half of the BEAD funding package – a whopping $20 billion. In this scenario, Elon Musk wins, and American communities find themselves stuck with a mercurial provider as the rest of the world embraces fiber.

I am not saying Starlink is not a viable option for some. Rural residents I have spoken with for my research into broadband stories tell me what a game changer it has been. What I am saying is that it should not be funded by the federal government when its speeds do not meet minimum standards, when its upfront costs are so high, when it operates as a de facto monopoly in the LEO market, and when it has a CEO might be willing to the cut cord at any moment.

As has often been said in the broadband world, it is important for policy to be technologically neutral. But as the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society argued, “we shouldn’t be technologically blind.” There is an important difference between technological neutrality and technological equality. LEO and fiber are not equal, and any policy that treats them as such will widen the very divide we have spent decades trying to bridge.