I’m sad that BEAD may eliminate its preference for fiber

It looks like Elon Musk’s Starlink service is going to get a big boost from the U.S. government. States will be able to award more Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program funds to satellite-internet providers like Starlink, as well as to more fixed wireless access (FWA) providers, rather than mainly to companies that lay fiber-optic cables. Personally, I think it will be a shame to squander this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reach as many homes as possible with fiber via the $42.5 billion in BEAD funds. Fiber offers the best technology to deliver the highest broadband speeds, and it’s generally more reliable than wireless or satellite, which can be interrupted by weather. In my opinion, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which is under the Commerce Department, has worked really hard for the past three years to set out reasonable rules for BEAD technologies. It  smells kind of fishy that Musk has such a chummy relationship with Trump and is now set to personally benefit from the government’s BEAD program changes. I think the thing that offends me most about all of this is the prospect of more space junk. Starlink already has more than 7,000 satellites orbiting Earth. It will undoubtedly need to deploy thousands more satellites if states award a lot of BEAD grants to Starlink.