{"id":435735,"date":"2026-01-28T23:31:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T23:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/435735\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T23:31:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T23:31:06","slug":"spacex-sends-list-of-demands-to-us-states-giving-broadband-grants-to-starlink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/435735\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX sends list of demands to US states giving broadband grants to Starlink"},"content":{"rendered":"

While the Biden administration designed the program to prioritize fiber deployments, the Trump administration threw out the previous plans. Under Trump, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) deemed the Biden-era plan too costly and changed the rules to make it easier for satellite services to obtain grant funding. The overhaul cut projected spending to about $21 billion,<\/a> and it\u2019s still not clear what will happen to the other $21 billion.<\/p>\n

Starlink sought billions in grants<\/a> after the new rules were put in place, but states didn\u2019t want to provide that much. So far, SpaceX is slated to receive<\/a> $733.5 million to offer broadband at 472,600 locations. Amazon\u2019s Leo satellite service (formerly Kuiper) is set to receive $311 million for 415,000 locations.<\/p>\n

While not every state plan is final, it looks like satellite networks will get about 5 percent of the grant money and serve over 22 percent of locations funded by grants. Satellite companies are getting smaller payments on a per-location basis because, unlike fiber providers, they don\u2019t have to install infrastructure at each customer\u2019s location.<\/p>\n

The concessions sought by SpaceX \u201cwould limit Starlink\u2019s performance obligations, payment schedules, non-compliance penalties, reporting expectations, and labor and insurance standards,\u201d wrote Drew Garner, director of policy engagement at the Benton Institute. Garner argued that SpaceX\u2019s demands illustrate problems in how the Trump NTIA rewrote program rules to increase reliance on low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite providers.<\/p>\n

\u201cBEAD was designed primarily to deploy terrestrial networks, which are physically located in communities, built with traditional construction methods, and are relatively easy to monitor and inspect,\u201d Garner wrote. \u201cBut, on June 6, 2025, NTIA restructured BEAD<\/a> in ways that greatly increased participation by LEO providers, exacerbating the challenge of applying BEAD\u2019s terrestrial-focused rules to LEO\u2019s extraterrestrial networks.\u201d<\/p>\n

SpaceX: Labor rules shouldn\u2019t apply to us<\/p>\n

Among other things, SpaceX is trying to \u201cminimize states\u2019 ability to penalize LEO grantees for defaulting or failing to comply with contract requirements,\u201d and avoid having \u201cto report on the use of BEAD funds or other financial information related to the grant,\u201d Garner wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the Biden administration designed the program to prioritize fiber deployments, the Trump administration threw out the previous…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[79,193],"class_list":["post-435735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}