alt Hacker NewsI don't think the math works.
There are 23 million rural homes in the US and about 3 million miles of rural public roads. Let's say you wired just the public rural roads (ignore going from the road to the house).
It costs $30,000 per mile to put up aerial wiring. $60,000 per mile underground. So we're already at $90 billion for wired poles and $180 billion for underground. And that's just for the wires--we're not including any of the switches and routers for actual internet.
By comparison, the Starlink system cost about an order of magnitude less ($10 billion).
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I appreciate you actually taking a moment to think through the cost, but I think we could start with some pragmatism and look to run wires to people who are within a reasonable range of existing systems, of which there are many.
Clearly not every public road needs wiring. Then, consider that you could run wired connections to wireless access points to increase high speed wireless coverage. 1 wire to light up dozens of homes in areas which currently have no service beyond DSL.
Would 5G towers be a better alternative?
Doesn't Starlink have some annual upkeep costs? Maybe $1-2 billion per year to replace aging satellites?