Texas Pissing Away Billions on Internet Wire Infrastructure
Ever heard of Starlink?
Texans have been duped again, and the money printing machines are warming up for a multi-billion dollar boondoggle to bury internet cables across Texas.
Texas won federal approval Tuesday to move forward with its plan to improve broadband internet access for the estimated 7 million residents who are not connected.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the federal agency that advises the President on telecommunications policy issues, approved Texas’ plan to use about $3.3 billion in federal money, part of the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment, or BEAD, program.
An agency that “advises the president” had to “approve” our State’s plan? lol, yeah, sounds legit!
It’s honestly hard to asses the total amount of this Broadband Equity agenda, as there are monies flowing into this program from several directions, state and federal.
The office announced grant awards for their Bringing Online Opportunities to Texas program, or BOOT, earlier this year. On Monday, applicants in 15 counties were awarded $580 million to connect 80,000 locations.
Oh, it has a fun nickname so it must be good, right?
Let’s check the math on this. *puts on bifocals*
$580M / 80,000 households = $7,250 per household.
*takes off bifocals, slowly places them on the counter*
It’s not even clear what this pays for. Does this just pay to dig miles of trenches for wires and install hideous plastic boxes everywhere? Or will my neighbors in the Equity community be getting a free router as well?
$580 million for 80,000 “connections.”
You can buy the hardware to run 80,000 Starlinks, along with a 2 month subscription at retail for $38 million, and they deliver in 2 weeks!
I’m not here to place blame or name names of any Texas Republicans responsible for this disaster (Trent Ashby), but this Fiber Cable Stimulus Plan should give at least mediocre results in about a decade. The Texas government has spent billions on “securing the border,” and you see their policy failures with your own eyes as you browse the shops of Texas towns that suddenly feel very different in an illegitimate sort of way. (60 days until Trump's inauguration)
Why doesn’t Texas buy Elon Musk’s internet for rural Texans? They all voted for Trump anyway, so it’s a win-win and, frankly, just good governance.
Sounds like TX needs a DOGE.
I am curious about Starlink during cloudy and stormy days. I know I left satellite tv because it did not work when there was severe weather, exactly the time i wanted to see what was happening. Hard wires are durable infrastructure and management can be turned over between companies. I do not care for government funded internet BUT if it is something, wire is better than satellite. Over the air 5g would be preferable to both.