{"id":20731,"date":"2025-12-12T16:58:47","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T16:58:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=20731"},"modified":"2025-12-12T16:58:48","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T16:58:48","slug":"the-free-market-can-connect-rural-america-faster-than-the-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=20731","title":{"rendered":"The Free Market Can Connect Rural America Faster Than the Government"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>&#8220;We shouldn&#8217;t let government subsidies distort the market. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick embraced this thinking with his June 2025&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ntia.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/2025-06\/bead-restructuring-policy-notice.pdf?utm_\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">decision<\/a>&nbsp;to drop the NTIA&#8217;s &#8220;fiber preference,&#8221; shifting the agency toward a technology-neutral, cost-driven framework. The policy emphasizes cost-effectiveness among technologies meeting speed and latency standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In many areas, fiber expansion will continue to make sense, but if LEO-based broadband can offer high-quality internet connectivity virtually instantaneously and on the cheap to many in the targeted regions, why should the federal government stand in the way? After all, as Starlink celebrates its 8 million and counting user base, something largely accomplished absent heavy subsidization&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2025\/12\/09\/the-free-market-can-connect-rural-america-faster-than-the-government\">https:\/\/reason.com\/2025\/12\/09\/the-free-market-can-connect-rural-america-faster-than-the-government<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;We shouldn&#8217;t let government subsidies distort the market. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick embraced this thinking with his June 2025 decision to drop the NTIA&#8217;s &#8220;fiber preference,&#8221; shifting the agency toward a technology-neutral, cost-driven framework. The policy emphasizes cost-effectiveness among technologies meeting speed and latency standards.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>In many areas, fiber expansion will continue to make sense, but if LEO-based broadband can offer high-quality internet connectivity virtually instantaneously and on the cheap to many in the targeted regions, why should the federal government stand in the way? After all, as Starlink celebrates its 8 million and counting user base, something largely accomplished absent heavy subsidization&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/reason.com\/2025\/12\/09\/the-free-market-can-connect-rural-america-faster-than-the-government\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1000,1598,632,1469,1247,612],"class_list":["post-20731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-broadband","tag-elon-musk","tag-free-market","tag-government-intervention","tag-infrastructure","tag-internet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20732,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20731\/revisions\/20732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}