The BOTB round did away with that preference, and in fact it ran in the
opposite direction.  *If* the current administration was serious about
enforcing it, a lot of these awards could be rescinded.  I would not
complain about that.

On Tue, Dec 23, 2025 at 5:26 PM Chuck <[email protected]> wrote:

> bead wanted 100% ftth.  Other accommodations were lip service to attempt
> to appear fair.
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Dec 23, 2025, at 12:56 PM, Jason McKemie <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
> 
> I'm not sure how the projects that received BEAD funding in Illinois are
> compliant with the BOTB-round requirements.  A vast majority of the
> projects I looked at are FTTH, which is simply not compatible with the new
> rules that were implemented when the BOTB requirements were put into place
> - that is obviously assuming that there were any other technologies
> competing. It's also pretty interesting that, as far as I can tell, there
> were zero terrestrial fixed wireless projects approved.
>
> On Fri, Dec 19, 2025 at 1:06 PM Ken Hohhof <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Yes, Illinois preliminary BEAD plan has all satellite going to Amazon
>> Kuiper Leo.  Not approved by NTIA yet.  And no they don’t haven enough
>> sats in orbit yet to even offer commercial service.
>>
>>
>>
>> It’s not clear to me what about Amazon’s bid scored better than SpaceX to
>> win the Illinois satellite locations.  The state broadband office is run by
>> technocrats, I doubt they would do it just to spite Elon for forcing them
>> to allocate money to satellite rather than fiber.  If anything, they would
>> do the politically expedient thing to help get approval from NTIA.  I doubt
>> they really consider the satellite part of the BEAD program as
>> accomplishing much.  Let’s face it, those people can get Starlink now if
>> they are willing to pay $80/mo.  Maybe that factored into the decision,
>> Starlink needs a competitor to drive prices down, so let’s help Amazon Leo
>> get going.
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* AF <[email protected]> *On Behalf Of *Bill Prince
>> *Sent:* Friday, December 19, 2025 12:52 PM
>> *To:* [email protected]
>> *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] $40 Starlink tier already gone
>>
>>
>>
>> What I suspect is that they will sell the $120 and $80 plans in an area
>> as long as there is capacity, or at least capacity that no one notices is
>> below what's advertised.
>>
>> Once the higher-priced plans are saturated, they might offer the $40 plan
>> in an area, or shoot up another 29 sats to fill in the area. They are
>> launching ~~ 100 sats a week it seems. What's that? 5,000 a year?
>>
>> Local operators are noticing that Kuiper is winning grants in some of
>> their service areas. What's up with that? Do they even have 100 birds
>> flying?
>>
>>
>>
>> bp
>>
>> <part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com>
>>
>> On 12/19/2025 10:35 AM, Robert wrote:
>>
>> I would think they found out that the customers were downloading just as
>> much data just using more network time to do it.  It's a false premise that
>> the "extra" b/w in your network can be used for low speed customers, they
>> take just as many or more timeslices...
>>
>> On 12/19/25 9:07 AM, Ken Hohhof wrote:
>>
>> People with the $40 service who bumped it up to $80 or $120 for the
>> holidays may get a surprise when they find out they can’t go back in
>> February.
>>
>>
>>
>> The ones who dropped down to $40 while it was available may have been
>> surprised to find out that 100 Mbps is just fine and they didn’t need 250
>> or 400 Mbps.  Interesting also that the 100 Mbps plan is the same as Lite
>> but with a 100 Mbps speed limit.  Lite vs Standard is described as
>> de-prioritization not a speed limit per se.
>>
>>
>>
>> So Josh was probably right they got rid of that plan because $120
>> customers were turning into $40 customers.  Somebody at Starlink marketing
>> said oops, why did we think that was a good idea.
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* AF <[email protected]> <[email protected]> *On
>> Behalf Of *Bill Prince
>> *Sent:* Friday, December 19, 2025 10:44 AM
>> *To:* [email protected]
>> *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] $40 Starlink tier already gone
>>
>>
>>
>> Sounds like Uber surge pricing.
>>
>>
>>
>> bp
>>
>> <part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com>
>>
>> On 12/19/2025 7:17 AM, Ken Hohhof wrote:
>>
>> That’s the thing, it’s location dependent.  And not in the sense of we
>> only have enough capacity in your area for Lite service.  More like we
>> don’t have excess capacity in your area so we aren’t going to try too hard
>> to get your business.
>>
>>
>>
>> Checking right now for my home address (Chicago suburbs), I see the $40
>> service is not being offered, it was a couple weeks ago.  But it says I can
>> get deprioritized 250 Mbps Residential Lite for $80/mo or 400+ Mbps
>> Residential for $120/mo.  Both say $0 hardware cost, but $21.65 due today
>> which I’m guessing is maybe shipping?
>>
>>
>>
>> It says if you cancel you have to return the rented equipment.  It used
>> to say a 12 month contract was required to get the $0 hardware.
>>
>>
>>
>> Starlink prices and speeds are like airline tickets or market price
>> lobster, it varies depending on location and what day you check.
>>
>>
>>
>> Service plans are explained here:
>>
>> https://starlink.com/legal/documents/DOC-1728-44881-79?regionCode=US
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* AF <[email protected]> <[email protected]> *On
>> Behalf Of *Josh Luthman
>> *Sent:* Thursday, December 18, 2025 10:03 PM
>> *To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected]>
>> <[email protected]>
>> *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] $40 Starlink tier already gone
>>
>>
>>
>> At that price one would hope...but it's location dependent.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Dec 18, 2025 at 4:07 PM Steve Jones <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>
>> doesnt the 120 a month customer get free equipment now though?
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Dec 18, 2025 at 12:41 PM Josh Luthman <
>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> Because their $120/mo customers turned into $40/mo customers.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Dec 18, 2025 at 12:39 PM Nate Burke <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> Had to drive up sales before the end of the quarter, and met the quota?
>>
>> On 12/18/2025 11:18 AM, Ken Hohhof wrote:
>>
>> Not my imagination.
>>
>>
>> https://www.pcmag.com/news/spacex-quietly-removes-40-per-month-starlink-plan-in-the-us
>>
>>
>>
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