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by pasttense01 474 days ago
Generally it's economic to install broadband in urban areas, but not in many rural areas--so the rural areas need to be subsidized--and rural areas are the least likely to be woke and/or socialist.
2 comments

Why should rural areas be subsidised?

No one is making you chose to live there, plus you get cost of living savings from being there rather than in expensive urban real estate.

Also, Starlink isn’t all that much more expensive than fibre.

> Why should rural areas be subsidised?

> No one is making you chose to live there, plus you get cost of living savings from being there rather than in expensive urban real estate

This same argument could have been, and was used against funding for rural electrification and power generation dam construction during the depression and new deal era 90 years ago, which is one of the reasons why deepest Appalachia and much of the rural mountain western states now have grid electricity outside major cities.

IIRC Fish Lake Township in the US with 900 residents was wired up before BEAD.

And WISPs can be good too, its just a matter of cowboy lottery.