TAMPA, Fla. — The Federal Communications Commission is standing by last 12 months’s decision to disclaim Starlink nearly $900 million in rural broadband subsidies.
The regulator issued its final denial Dec. 12, reaffirming that SpaceX’s satellite broadband service failed to fulfill requirements for participating within the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF).
“The FCC followed a careful legal, technical and policy review to find out that this applicant had failed to fulfill its burden to be entitled to” the funds,” FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in a news release.
SpaceX was provisionally awarded the subsidies in December 2020 after competing in an auction under the primary phase of the RDOF process.
The corporate was in line for $886 million over 10 years to deliver high-speed broadband to almost 643,000 homes and businesses in 35 states, after winning certainly one of the most important shares of the multi-billion-dollar fund.
Nevertheless, the 180 auction winners had to point out how they’d deploy services that meet RDOF conditions, and that is where the FCC says SpaceX fell short. Terrestrial telco LTD Broadband was also denied $1.3 billion in provisionally awarded subsidies.
RDOF requirements include providing 100 megabits per second (Mbps) download speeds and 20 Mbps upload speeds.
In response to the most recent Ookla speed tests, Starlink median download performance in the US was 64.54 Mbps within the third quarter of 2023, which the research firm said was a slight decline quarter-on-quarter but up 22% on the 53 Mbps recorded for the period in 2022.
Median upload performance has been rising, Ookla added, hitting 9.72 Mbps over the three months to the tip of September.
SpaceX said it’s “deeply dissatisfied and perplexed” by the FCC’s RDOF denial.
The choice singles out SpaceX for not meeting RDOF speed requirements years before it had any obligation to achieve this, the corporate said in a Dec. 12 letter to the FCC.
SpaceX also took aim on the FCC’s use of Ookla speed tests, which the corporate said got here abruptly and involve nationwide averages covering areas that may not be served with RDOF support.
“This decision directly undermines the very goal of RDOF: to attach unserved and underserved Americans. Starlink is demonstrably among the best options—likely best choice—to perform the goals of RDOF,” wrote SpaceX vp Christopher Cardaci (emphasis in original).
“Indeed, Starlink is arguably the one viable option to attach most of the Americans who live and work in the agricultural and distant areas of the country where high-speed, low-latency web has been unreliable, unaffordable, or completely unavailable, the very people RDOF was alleged to connect.”
SpaceX has plans to upgrade Starlink services with increasingly powerful satellites, which might also greatly profit from the Starship/Super Heavy launch vehicle the corporate is developing in Boca Chica, Texas.
Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington, the FCC’s two Republican FCC Commissioners, have dissented from the regulator’s Starlink subsidiary denial decision.