In 2020, the FCC awarded SpaceX $900 million to bring high-speed internet to remote regions. Now there is no money for Starlink after all.
Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX does not get almost a billion US dollars from the US treasury to provide remote rural regions with satellite internet via Starlink. This was announced by the US telecommunications regulator FCC, which, together with one of the providers LTD Broadband, rejected the application.
Both companies were awarded more than two billion US dollars in December 2020, but there had already been criticism of the approval process. SpaceX with Starlink and LTD Broadband could not prove that they would actually be able to deliver the promised service, writes the FCC.
Money mainly for fiber optic expansion
FCC President Jessica Rosenworcel said that one cannot subsidize companies that do not deliver the promised speeds or are unlikely to meet the program’s requirements. Starlink’s technology is promising, she still thinks. But the FCC asked itself whether it wanted to use almost $900 million in taxpayers’ money to subsidize a technology that is still being developed and which, among other things, requires customers to buy an antenna for $600. You have to spend the limited financial resources in the best possible way.
SpaceX has not yet commented on the decision to US media. The FCC has approved over US$5 billion as part of the RDOF (Rural Digital Opportunity Fund) program to primarily fund fiber optic rollout in 47 US states. The authority had only approved a few weeks ago for SpaceX to bring airplanes, vehicles and boats onto the Internet with Starlink.
SpaceX has been building the Starlink satellite internet at immense speed since 2019. More than 2,000 active satellites now provide tens of thousands of customers in dozens of countries with fast Internet access. SpaceX wants to send a total of 30,000 satellites into space to cover almost the entire globe. This should give regions fast Internet access that cannot be connected economically using conventional technology. Starlink is the first and by far the most advanced project to build a so-called mega constellation, but there are other plans for alternative offers, such as from OneWeb or Amazon with Project Kuiper.
