SpaceX challenges Virginia’s $613 million broadband plan with $60 million Starlink proposal

SpaceX is unhappy that the state of Virginia in the US plans to spend more than half a billion dollars on what it could achieve with far less. The space exploration company has offered to install its Starlink systems instead of the much more expensive fiber-optic option.

The southeastern state wants to spend $613 million from the Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) fund to provide high-speed internet to the unconnected. SpaceX, however, has sent a letter to the regulators protesting how it has been sidelined in a process that would be a huge waste of taxpayers’ money.

SpaceX accused Virginia’s BEAD of bias for “expensive, slow-to-build fiber” instead of “speedy, low-cost, and technology-neutral competition.” The Elon Musk-led company claimed it would only need $60 million to connect every BEAD-eligible household in the state of Virginia.

SpaceX was selected to supply Starlink services to only 5,579 out of the 133,000 covered by the BEAD scheme in Virginia. It was granted $3.2 million, which represented about $584 per household. The remainder of the beneficiaries, which will be served by fiber, will cost between $6,000 and $8,000 per site. Satellite internet providers, including SpaceX and Amazon, were allocated a small pot of $7.7 million.

SpaceX also claimed it could roll out Starlink immediately, rather than the four-year timeline outlined in Virginia’s proposal. The company requests that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), under the U.S. Department of Commerce, order a revision of Virginia’s broadband plan.