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Meanwhile, https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/08/fcc-abolishes-gigabit-speed-goal-suggesting-it-is-unfair-to-slower-technologies/ https://arstechnica.com/

Meanwhile, https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/08/fcc-abolishes-gigabit-speed-goal-suggesting-it-is-unfair-to-slower-technologies/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/08/fcc-abolishes-gi...

sicktriple 24d ago
What an absolute clown car country, embarrassing
rwmj 24d ago
Not The Onion
pbkompasz 24d ago
FCC abolishes gigabit speed goal, suggesting it is unfair to Musk's Starlink
- dguest 24d ago
  FCC: high standards are unfairly prejudicial against subpar infrastructure. > The Carr FCC said last year that the gigabit goal “may be unreasonably prejudicial to technologies such as satellite and fixed wireless that presently do not support such speeds.” I don't know if this is so much a handout to Starlink, seems like a way to win the race by moving the finish line.
  - micromacrofoot 24d ago
    it's a regulatory change that opens up fiber infrastructure money for other uses, so it certainly is another Starlink handout, in addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars they've already received from taxpayers though if we want to be fair, the competition is other telecoms that were also abusing the handouts until very recently
  - rsynnott 23d ago
    Bloody hell, what’s next? “The requirement for 300km/h for high speed rail is unreasonable prejudicial to technologies such as steam”.
- sib 24d ago
  I mean given that effectively all other ISPs delivered nothing under these programs, it's a lot better for folks living in rural areas to get Starlink than nothing...
- cm2012 24d ago
  The Gigabit Project (edit: should be BEAD) has allocated 40 billion since 2021 and still has not finished any last mile projects.
  - malfist 24d ago
    Why lie? The Gigabit Project is a £5 billion project, not $40 billion. It has delivered last mile interconnects to 296,770 residences. It's also a UK program and not a US program. The US has a similar program called BEAD, it has allocated $42B in funding, however, that is allocated, not spent budget. Build outs have only started this year.
    - cm2012 23d ago
      I was referring to BEAD by the short hand name of gigabit, my b
    - PaulHoule 23d ago
      Ezra Klein would point how how dangerous it is. In New York we had really big talk about a fiber buildout where it was clear they kept spending money and spending money in multiple rounds but nobody I knew was getting fiber well past the 2017 deadline the program claimed. They did lay a wholesale fiber to a place where I could get FTTN at 20Mbps and 10 years late they fixed up the poles by my house and say they’re going to give me real FTTH. Trouble is these programs that just say they’re going to spend money as opposed to solve a problem make people cynical and just want to vote no on everything to protect their pocketbooks. Ultimately they turn the people who are the greatest supporters of these programs into enemies.
  - great_tankard 23d ago
    Yeah I'm sorry massive infrastructure projects with mandates to properly map access and measures to prevent fraud don't fit neatly into a four year presidential term before being effectively yanked away.
    - cm2012 23d ago
Night_Thastus 24d ago
Reminder that US taxpayer money was handed to the ISPs by the truckload on the promise of fiber. They took that infrastructure money and ran with it.
- epistasis 24d ago
  Tell me more about this. I've yet to find a good summary! It happens here in California with PG&E with fire prevention money and infrastructure money; the executives declare victory early having spent a fraction of the allocated funds and then give themselves bonuses with the rest, for being such great managers. Then we get gigantic town-destroying wildfires that destroy people's lives.
  - stefanfisk 24d ago
    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-book-of-broken-promis_b_5839394 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-book-of-broken-promis_b_5...
- bryanlarsen 24d ago
  The Biden program learned from that lesson to ensure that money was only delivered for performance rather than promises or rules-lawyering. See parent comment about Frontier actually laying fiber. But Trump had to kill it -- the GOP narrative about subsidy programs always being a waste would be disrupted if an effective program was in place.
tonetheman 24d ago
[dead]
newhotelowner 24d ago
Previous admin allocated a good chunk to upgrade to fiber network. Provider can claim 25% of installation cost. Frontier has been using it. I heard it's about to run out. Their workers were staying at my hotel, and putting fiber in my community. It was fascinating how frontier practically hires contractor to lay down pipes, and another contractor to pull the fiber, and another contractor to splice it and another contractor to run fiber to the house, and another contractor to come and install in the house.
- AbsurdCensor 24d ago
  Yeah it was wild watching how many contractors came out when Google was rolling their fiber through my neighborhood, like it was different contractor groups for every step of the way. I'm not complaining a 5gbit connection is quite nice.
Mistletoe 24d ago
“Unfair to slower technologies”. Insane statements like this would make the government in Orwell’s 1984 blush.
chermi 24d ago
I hate the state intervention here. But let's not pretend the track record of the status quo was great. This intervention is embarrassing and corrupt. Infrastructure in america is also embarrassing, which I'm guessing is also some combo of corruption and self-inflicted wounds on state capacity.
mrandish 23d ago
Since the FCC no longer consistently enforces 'public good' requirements on commercial exploitation of limited shared common assets, they're increasingly becoming a drag on innovation and seem to primarily protect incumbants from new emerging competition. In the early days of broadcast radio and TV it made sense to have an agency regulating use of the airwaves, but in recent decades the downsides of such close govt agency regulation on most (but not all) digital telecom are beginning to excede the upsides. And regulatory capture has turned some FCC rule-making committees into cage fight octagons where telecom lobbyists battle each other. Net neutrality is a punch line, spectrum auctions often fail and arcane media ownership rules made in the B&W TV era don't make sense. Maybe it's time to begin gradually sunsetting some of the FCC's historical remit.

Meanwhile, https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/08/fcc-abolishes-gigabit-speed-goal-suggesting-it-is-unfair-to-slower-technologies/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/08/fcc-abolishes-gi...

sicktriple 24d ago

What an absolute clown car country, embarrassing

rwmj 24d ago

Not The Onion

pbkompasz 24d ago

FCC abolishes gigabit speed goal, suggesting it is unfair to Musk's Starlink

dguest 24d ago
FCC: high standards are unfairly prejudicial against subpar infrastructure. > The Carr FCC said last year that the gigabit goal “may be unreasonably prejudicial to technologies such as satellite and fixed wireless that presently do not support such speeds.” I don't know if this is so much a handout to Starlink, seems like a way to win the race by moving the finish line.
- micromacrofoot 24d ago
  it's a regulatory change that opens up fiber infrastructure money for other uses, so it certainly is another Starlink handout, in addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars they've already received from taxpayers though if we want to be fair, the competition is other telecoms that were also abusing the handouts until very recently
- rsynnott 23d ago
  Bloody hell, what’s next? “The requirement for 300km/h for high speed rail is unreasonable prejudicial to technologies such as steam”.
sib 24d ago
I mean given that effectively all other ISPs delivered nothing under these programs, it's a lot better for folks living in rural areas to get Starlink than nothing...
cm2012 24d ago
The Gigabit Project (edit: should be BEAD) has allocated 40 billion since 2021 and still has not finished any last mile projects.
- malfist 24d ago
  Why lie? The Gigabit Project is a £5 billion project, not $40 billion. It has delivered last mile interconnects to 296,770 residences. It's also a UK program and not a US program. The US has a similar program called BEAD, it has allocated $42B in funding, however, that is allocated, not spent budget. Build outs have only started this year.
  - cm2012 23d ago
    I was referring to BEAD by the short hand name of gigabit, my b
  - PaulHoule 23d ago
    Ezra Klein would point how how dangerous it is. In New York we had really big talk about a fiber buildout where it was clear they kept spending money and spending money in multiple rounds but nobody I knew was getting fiber well past the 2017 deadline the program claimed. They did lay a wholesale fiber to a place where I could get FTTN at 20Mbps and 10 years late they fixed up the poles by my house and say they’re going to give me real FTTH. Trouble is these programs that just say they’re going to spend money as opposed to solve a problem make people cynical and just want to vote no on everything to protect their pocketbooks. Ultimately they turn the people who are the greatest supporters of these programs into enemies.
- great_tankard 23d ago
  Yeah I'm sorry massive infrastructure projects with mandates to properly map access and measures to prevent fraud don't fit neatly into a four year presidential term before being effectively yanked away.
  - cm2012 23d ago

Night_Thastus 24d ago

Reminder that US taxpayer money was handed to the ISPs by the truckload on the promise of fiber. They took that infrastructure money and ran with it.

epistasis 24d ago
Tell me more about this. I've yet to find a good summary! It happens here in California with PG&E with fire prevention money and infrastructure money; the executives declare victory early having spent a fraction of the allocated funds and then give themselves bonuses with the rest, for being such great managers. Then we get gigantic town-destroying wildfires that destroy people's lives.
- stefanfisk 24d ago
  https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-book-of-broken-promis_b_5839394 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-book-of-broken-promis_b_5...
bryanlarsen 24d ago
The Biden program learned from that lesson to ensure that money was only delivered for performance rather than promises or rules-lawyering. See parent comment about Frontier actually laying fiber. But Trump had to kill it -- the GOP narrative about subsidy programs always being a waste would be disrupted if an effective program was in place.

tonetheman 24d ago

[dead]

newhotelowner 24d ago

Previous admin allocated a good chunk to upgrade to fiber network. Provider can claim 25% of installation cost. Frontier has been using it. I heard it's about to run out. Their workers were staying at my hotel, and putting fiber in my community. It was fascinating how frontier practically hires contractor to lay down pipes, and another contractor to pull the fiber, and another contractor to splice it and another contractor to run fiber to the house, and another contractor to come and install in the house.

AbsurdCensor 24d ago
Yeah it was wild watching how many contractors came out when Google was rolling their fiber through my neighborhood, like it was different contractor groups for every step of the way. I'm not complaining a 5gbit connection is quite nice.

Mistletoe 24d ago

“Unfair to slower technologies”. Insane statements like this would make the government in Orwell’s 1984 blush.

chermi 24d ago

I hate the state intervention here. But let's not pretend the track record of the status quo was great. This intervention is embarrassing and corrupt. Infrastructure in america is also embarrassing, which I'm guessing is also some combo of corruption and self-inflicted wounds on state capacity.

mrandish 23d ago

Since the FCC no longer consistently enforces 'public good' requirements on commercial exploitation of limited shared common assets, they're increasingly becoming a drag on innovation and seem to primarily protect incumbants from new emerging competition. In the early days of broadcast radio and TV it made sense to have an agency regulating use of the airwaves, but in recent decades the downsides of such close govt agency regulation on most (but not all) digital telecom are beginning to excede the upsides. And regulatory capture has turned some FCC rule-making committees into cage fight octagons where telecom lobbyists battle each other. Net neutrality is a punch line, spectrum auctions often fail and arcane media ownership rules made in the B&W TV era don't make sense. Maybe it's time to begin gradually sunsetting some of the FCC's historical remit.