[wyager]

Last mile subsidies are super weird. I was looking at a property in montana in the middle of nowhere that had no electricity nearby, but had gigabit fiber. I called the ISP and it was cheaper to get phone+Gb than just Gb due to subsidy rules.

Basically everyone out there (including me) is on starlink now. Turns out the subsidies were not only inefficient, but pretty pointless.

[aftbit]

Why would you be using Starlink if you have gigabit fiber available? Or was it still quite expensive to install even with the subsidy?

[wyager]

I didn't get that property sadly.

[daniel-cussen]

They helped a bit, for a while. Gigabit fiber is less maintenance than electrical power, and it's easier to roll-your-own electrical power than it is to get a Gb connection like how would you do that before Starlink, buy an insane amount of radio spectrum? I heard one HN user who did exactly that in Brazil, got a 20-meter tower to connect by radio to the internet some distance away, and it was a very solid high bandwidth connection. But still much harder than a generator and solar panels, or a tiny little hydropower generator on a stream (a great option in places like Southern Chile, not a joke by any means). Or wind.