Texas suspends issuing new grants to internet companies for providing broadband to rural areas
It all stinks! The Texas Broadband Development Office (BDO) has now suspended issuing any new grants under the federal government’s Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program (supposedly designed to encourage rural broadband access) because of objections raised by state legislators from both parties.
The suspension appears linked to “comprehensive performance review” initiated by the state comptroller on August 4, 2026, which in turn appears to have instigated by protests from legislators.
From the Republican side, some lawmakers appeared to question the entire BEAD program, which distributes billions to private internet companies even those companies are making gobs of profits on their own. On the Democratic Party side, the accusations are similar but more irrational, as they centered on the false allegations by one Democrat that the Texas grants favored SpaceX, when in fact it did exactly the opposite.
From both sides, the complaints also appear linked to heavy lobbying from Amazon, which was denied any grant at all. Apparently Amazon wants its share, and has pressured state politicians from both parties to lobby for it.
The whole BEAD program has been corrupt from day one, a perfect example of the worst form of crony capitalism and an utter waste of money. First the Biden administration cancelled a billion dollar grant to SpaceX, claiming it had failed to provide rural internet access as promised, when in fact it was at the time the only company doing so. The cancellation was clearly retaliation for Musk’s public support for Trump. In the case of Texas, its BEAD awards were irrational, giving more to companies failing to do the job than those that were succeeding (such as Starlink). I theorized that strange distribution was expressly the result of political donations, favoring those who put more cash in the right politician’s pocket.
The entire BEAD program should be canceled. Why are taxpayers giving billions to telecommunications companies for work they are already making money on, when we have a multi-trillion dollar debt we cannot afford?
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Bob, your arguments seem only too reasonable to my mind.
Its time for Space X to cancel any and all contracts with Amazon.
Find some other simp to place their sats in orbit.
But I do believe the whole program should be canceled Star Link is cost effective and just as fast as hard cable. It could even be used for internet phone calls if not direct cell to sat service.
Never say no to money.
If Bezos wants to pay Elon to launch a failed alternative–let him.
His money is of better use to humanity in Elon’s hands.
Then charge Amazon more than enough to make up for the money lost from this political move.
At least 500 million a flight.