This “rural broadband” hoax has been perpetrated numerous times going back 15 years or more. Usually via the USDA’s “rural economic development” meddlers. The best way to serve rural areas then was via satellite and now it is via Starlink satellite at a fraction of the cost. There is not one “underserved community” that needs government help - maybe finally this joke will be ended.
Fiber optic is far cheaper than satellites. Karl Denninger over at MarketTicker.org has written on this.
I will say I was waiting with baited breath for Biden’s rural internet, and never saw anything. We were considering Starlink when one of the local cable companies came through and extended coverage to our neighborhood.
We’re using their service right now.
I even remember it from back in the Clinton gore era. Like electric charging stations and windmills… another government scam filing the pockets of the nomenklatura…
We got fiber optic this year and the phone company got over a dozen new trucks. Meanwhile union workers from out of state had to do the splicing as per fedgov grant rules. The new trucks are parked behind the phone company and I’ve never seen one out and about. New company name too. Boondoggle.