The Biden administration has deliberately downgraded rural Internet reception for political reasons. Elon Musk’s Starlink service has been shut out of the process which now has a profound impact on the Western North Carolina natural disaster. Another $425 billion Biden loss that will now have an impact on people’s lives.
Here is the link for the power outages in North Carolina. Some areas will have no power for a month as the electrical infrastructure will need to be completely rebuilt once the roads are cleared and rebuilt. The cost to rebuild WNC will have an inflationary impact on construction costs throughout the country.
David DeGerolamo
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Biden’s stalled rural internet program ignites debate about exclusion of Musk’s Starlink
President Biden’s slow rollout of a $42.5 billion rural internet program has increased criticism of the administration’s decision to yank federal funding from Elon Musk’s Starlink broadband service, which proponents say could provide faster, cheaper internet access to areas with little or no connectivity.
Mr. Musk criticized the federal program in response to a Washington Times report detailing the yearslong process of administering the massive tranche of funds and connecting homes to the internet.
“Your tax dollars for nothing,” Mr. Musk posted on his social media site, X.
At the current pace of distributing the funds, high-speed internet connections to most of the rural areas intended to benefit from BEAD won’t be completed until 2030. The Commerce Department, which is in charge of the program, said none of the projects will begin until 2025 or 2026.
Mr. Musk’s SpaceX is excluded from the BEAD federal subsidies because the money is reserved for companies deploying fiber-optic cable, which the government views as a more proven technology than satellite connections.
During the Trump administration, SpaceX was on track to receive $885.5 million from a different federal program to provide internet to rural locations. The Democratic-led Federal Communications Commission canceled the SpaceX award in August 2022.
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