Just no
Fuck Starlink. The fact that it's backed by Xitler is like a tertiary level concern at best. As something of an astronomy enthusiast, I don't like having a bunch of little satellites up there blocking the view and potentially causing false readings for serious scientific endeavors. This is also a case where we just need to do the hard work of actually building a fiber network across the US, sort of like other countries have done.
My basic proposal is still the same as it's always been. Tie the laying of fiber to the building of new roads. Dig a trench or something along the side of the road every time you have to rip one up to repave it or are laying a new one. In that trench goes some kind of pipe that contains lengths of fiber. You can tap into the power going to street lamps to keep any repeaters along the way active.* You lay the main trunks along the interstate highways, then you can branch off from there onto local highways and then city streets. At the city street level, each land parcel has its own hookup. It wouldn't be a particularly speedy way of doing it, but it would be very cost effective. And as long as things are set up in a modular way so you could come along and replace the fiber and repeaters without having to dig up the entire trench, it has an element of future proofing as well. This whole thing should be funded via taxpayer money and thus every single citizen has guaranteed access. Commercial entities would have to pay to access it, or use one of the existing commercial providers.
I'm sure if the government started getting serious about this, all of a sudden Comcast, Verizon, and all the rest, would suddenly find that it makes economic sense for them to expand their own networks. This idea that it's cost prohibitive is just pure bullshit. My parents live in a town of about 5,000 full-time residents, and it happens to have one of the few remaining independent telecos from the AT&T breakup. They managed to lay fiber to basically the entire town, which is pretty spread out kind of running alongside a lake, and offer TV, phone, and Internet for less than just Internet from Comcast where I live. The lowest speed the teleco offers is now like 100/100Mbps. If a company serving a community of around 5,000 people can manage to lay fiber to basically every home in the city and be profitable, there's absolutely no reason why Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and all the rest couldn't do the same.
The fact that this sort of thing would make Xitler throw an epic hissy fit like the petulant toddler he is... that's just gravy.
* Come to think of it, if you already have street lights along a road, wouldn't there presumably already be some kind of setup exactly like I'm describing to hold the buried power lines?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
