Satellite is not the answer - Dish works great if it isn't raining. Amazon is building an internet network of what will eventually be thousands of satellites in low earth orbit (the Dish satellites are higher up and in stationary orbit) which will be more reliable, but it's years away from being a real thing. They've already launched a couple of hundred satellites as they test and refine the concept.
Biden's talking about building out internet access to poor and rural areas. The cost, especially in rural areas, is a lot more than $500 per household; you're probably looking at fiberoptic cables (which are expensive to run), and in some rural areas the homes can be a mile or more apart. Installing all that cable over that distance would meaning adding a lot of jobs as well as providing internet access.
The bill calls for $100 billion over 10 years for universal high-speed access. And yes, it is infrastructure - railroads and interstate highways weren't infrastructure until they were built and the country began to rely on them as it grew. The same is going to happen with communications. We've already seen how important internet access can be when schools had to start teaching remotely due to the pandemic and some students didn't have access because their families couldn't afford it. |
