Federal money to SpaceX may hurt public broadband efforts in Washington

You might think Washington state director of broadband Russ Elliott would be pleased about private companies winning $223 million in federal subsidies to expand broadband in rural WA. Instead, Elliott is frustrated. He’s under direction from WA’s Legislature to bring the entire state up to superfast internet speeds by 2028. Yet in Dec, the federal government announced plans to award hundreds of millions of dollars to companies Elliott is afraid won't meet the state’s standards. For Elliott, the awards to private-sector companies such as SpaceX and CenturyLink pose another problem as well. In the geographic areas where those companies received federal awards, public agencies like his will have a harder time getting federal funding to improve broadband connectivity any further.  In effect, Elliott said, his office will be limited in what it can do to close any service gaps the private companies leave behind. “Once those locations are allocated, no longer can you go chase federal money in those areas,” Elliott said. “They’re blocked out for 10 years, those areas, even at a time when stimulus money's coming, all the relief money's coming, all the big federal broadband infrastructure funds are coming.”