You might recall that Elon Musk claims to hate taxpayer subsidies. They should all be “deleted.” Except for the subsidies given to his companies (sometimes for doing nothing), of course.
Back in 2020, Musk’s satellite broadband venture, Starlink, gamed a Trump-era FCC subsidy program to try and grab $886 million in taxpayer dollars. It was a deal consumer groups noted was a huge waste of money, because the proposal itself — which involved bringing expensive satellite broadband to useless places like airport parking lots and traffic medians — clearly wasn’t the best use of taxpayer funds.
That sort of gamesmanship and fraud was very common with that Trump-era FCC program (the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund). It was so ugly, the Biden FCC has spent the better part of the last few years levying fines against companies that took money but then failed to deliver the promised access. In part because the Trump FCC failed to properly screen applicants.
The Biden FCC also decided against giving Starlink most of the Trump-era funding, stating that they weren’t sure Starlink could meet program speed goals consistently due to growing congestion and slowing speeds on the over-saturated satellite network. Instead, they (correctly) decided to spend most of that money funding faster, more reliable, less expensive rural fiber access.
The GOP and Republican FCC TikTok critic Brendan Carr immediately threw a little hissy fit, claiming that by not wasting money on subsidizing a billionaire’s plan to deliver satellite broadband to some traffic medians, his FCC colleagues were engaged in “regulatory harassment” of Elon Musk:
Fast forward to this week, and Carr is at it again. This time, Carr has taken to right wing news outlets to falsely claim that the $42 billion in subsidies included in the 2021 infrastructure bill has been wasted. That money, which is technically being managed by individual states, should start showing up to individual municipalities this fall, and flood into most communities by next Spring.
Any delay is because this is a massive undertaking. And states are actually trying to properly map broadband access to make sure this once-in-a-generation round of funding actually goes to the right places. But because the money isn’t likely to start flowing until after the fall elections, Carr and the GOP saw an election-season opportunity to frame the program as an inherent boondoggle:
“In 2021, the Biden Administration got $42.45 billion from Congress to deploy high-speed Internet to millions of Americans,” GOP-appointed Commissioner Brendan Carr wrote on X last week. “Years later, it has not connected even 1 person with those funds. In fact, it now says that no construction projects will even start until 2025 at earliest.”
Carr curiously doesn’t mention that one of the reason these subsidies are being handled more cautiously by the NTIA and the states (and not the FCC) is because the Trump FCC, during Carr’s tenure, screwed up the last major subsidy program so historically badly, the Biden administration felt the need to minimize the agency’s involvement in this new funding round.
The infrastructure bill program is moving slowly because they’re trying to be transparent. They’re trying to actually measure broadband gaps so funds aren’t wasted. And, unlike the Trump FCC, they’re actually trying to make sure that folks bidding on taxpayer funding can actually deliver what they say they’ll deliver.
So Carr’s mad that his agency isn’t trusted to distribute funds, and wants to undermine a popular Biden program ahead of an election. Musk meanwhile is mad because he didn’t get $886 million in subsidies for doing nothing. Together, with the help of right wing media, they had an enjoyable little pity party on social media last week framing the looming broadband funds as an “outrageous” waste:
In case you can’t read it, that’s Musk and one of his countless fanboys sharing a false story from a right wing news organization claiming the broadband infrastructure plan is a huge waste of taxpayer money. It will assuredly have exponentially more reach than anything I could ever get published explaining why this program is actually good.
I’ve covered broadband for the better part of a quarter century. I’ve spent most of the last two years talking to a different town or city pretty much every week as a reporter (62 different interviews at last count). And every official I speak to says this incoming money is going to be absolutely transformational to expanding broadband access. Especially to lower income and marginalized folks.
Yes, a lot of the money is going to be going to incumbent monopolies. And yes, with a program of this size there will indisputably be fraud and bureaucratic screw ups. But a ton of this money really is being delivered right into the laps of community owned and operated broadband fiber networks that will bring unprecedented competition and fiber prices to long-underserved areas.
Meanwhile, the ever-slowing Starlink network doesn’t have the capacity to meaningfully tackle the scale of the problem we’re talking about, something even fabulism-prone Musk has repeatedly admitted. At $120 a month (plus hardware costs) it’s also not affordable, and affordability is a top current obstacle to wider broadband adoption.
Different states have different strategies as to how they’re going to spend this BEAD (Broadband Equity Access And Deployment) infrastructure funding. The smarter states are ensuring ample funding is going to municipal broadband deployments, cooperatives, city-owned utilities, and other hugely popular community-owned ventures that are successfully disrupting the U.S. telecom monopoly logjam.
Once those funds are dispersed after this fall’s election, you can be absolutely certain that the Republicans smearing the program now will be taking credit for it among their state and local constituents later, because that’s what always happens.
I’ve spent an entire life criticizing the often performative nature of Democratic telecom policy program and the widespread fraud and abuse in government subsidy programs. I’m under no impression this program won’t have issues. But I’ve also spent the last two years actually talking to the folks all over this country planning and building networks, and everything I’m hearing is that the effort has widespread, bipartisan popularity, and its impact will be historic.
I assume the GOP knows this, which is why they’re trying to undermine the program ahead of the election. With the help of a petulant billionaire mad because the government wouldn’t give him nearly a billion dollars for no reason.
