FCC pays $340k/year to keep 100's of empty Alaska buildings wired for internet

pavel_lishin

This sounds like less of a "let's get mad at the FCC!" situation, but more of a "let's get mad at companies defrauding the US Government" situation.

RiverCrochet

Looks like they all use Starlink and no one uses the FCC-subsidized fiber. Starlink is nice, but I'd still want the option to switch to an alternate provider if Starlink suddenly raises their prices or otherwise becomes uncompetitive for some reason. I guess they do have cell service out there, though. I wonder how the copper PSTN is out there, or if it's totally replaced by that fiber.

exabrial

We should play whack-a-mole with fraud. We should ALSO reduce the federal budget to a trickle and return the money to where it belongs, the taxpayer.

nubinetwork

I'm a little confused about why there is an ongoing fee... unless someone didn't pay for the fibre pull upfront.

rootusrootus

As an interesting side note, this island gets a couple flights a week by an Alaska Airlines 737. That is impressive if the population is really down to a couple dozen. Edit: like the Internet access, the flights are heavily subsidized by the US taxpayer