Strange logic IMO.

Internet service providers already receive money from the government through grants, loans, and other programs. Opposing increasing the pretty low requirements on ISPs who already receive this money just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Millions of people are getting an increase in their internet speed (including many in this thread!) at the flip of a switch. Seems like a pretty big win.

>Anecdotally, Comcast has a 50mbps plan in my neighborhood for $20/month. If I needed more than that, I would gladly pay for it... affordability isn't the issue

Nothing is stopping Comcast from still offering that plan to you. They just can't call it broadband or keep receiving money from the government. They now have to provide a slightly better service if they want to keep receiving those federal funds.

>There's also a huge amount of government money going into rural connectivity. It seems to me that StarLink is an ideal solution to this. Rather than running lots of cable to houses that are miles apart, give people subsidies to get StarLink. But if you make legislation that StarLink isn't "broadband", then the money needs to go to the incumbents, who will want billions of dollars in subsidies to lay expensive cables to service a small number of people. If I had to guess, some of those large players might have lobbied for this change, because they want some of that $18 billion pie that the FCC authorized for rural broadband expansion [1].

Sorry this just silly. We already run electricity to basically everywhere so hanging some extra fiber on the polls that already exist isn't really hard. Rural electric coops exist and have been rolling out fiber across their existing power network with great success! Starlink is not a serious solution to providing reliable, fast broadband to rural America. It doesn't have the capacity to meet the needs of rural America either. Put aside the long term future concerns of starlink (whose satellites are all in LEO and have to constantly be replaced) the price argument alone isn't great. The local electric coop that covers 9 rural counties near me offers a base plan of 100mbit up and down at $70 a month via fiber. Starlink is $120 a month for a speed that varies between 250mbit to less than 40mbit. Internet speed demands are only going to increase so we should keep in mind the ability to scale up; which is an area fiber wins at again. We already have the polls and electric coops ready to serve rural America. No need to gamble on a more risky and worse product like starlink.

Worrying about subsidies for "incumbents" while in the next sentence suggesting subsiding for Starlink/Elon is pretty funny!

>but I have some involvement in my city's digital equity community, so I have some insight into what this translates to for local governments and community organizations. Now what will happen is someone at the county level in charge of digital infrastructure will look at at a map and say "oh no, 40% of our population doesn't have broadband, and 20% don't even have access to broadband".

GOOD. They should be looking at it! If 40% of the county can't get a basic 100mbit/20mbit internet package then something should be done to address that. DOCSIS has been able to push multi gbit speeds over coax for a decade so I don't buy it Comcast or whoever in your county can't provide 100/20.