25-04-2025
West Virginia broadband switch to satellite internet may cost jobs, hurt consumers
FAIRMONT — The state of West Virginia spent two years of painstaking work settling on fiber optic cable as the best way to expand broadband service in the state.
The Morrisey administration may undo that decision after taking a 90-day review period.
'Basically, we're going to throw away two years worth of work getting everything where it was,' Jeff Anderson, president of Communication Workers of America Local 2010 and a telecom engineer, said. 'Governor Morrisey has decided to go along with this complete change in thought process. Hundreds of people had input, went through a painstaking process and likely there will be a significant amount that will be directed to satellite internet, specifically Starlink — Elon Musk — and it's just not a great transition.'
The state spent the past two years putting together a proposal for the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program. The Biden Administration set BEAD up in 2021 to provide funding for a nationwide broadband infrastructure roll out to rural and underserved areas. The program was built with fiber in mind. The state of West Virginia's proposal was also one of the first three to be approved by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
In a press release, the Morrisey administration stated its intent to make its proposal more consistent with the Trump administration's broadband goals. The governor's office did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Anderson said in that two years of work, satellite internet had been eliminated as a possibility because it's not easy to upgrade. A large consideration was that whatever technology the state used, it had to have a service life of at least 50 years. The advantage fiber has — once the lines are laid down — the internet speeds consumers will receive are dictated by the equipment put on either end of the line. It's how telecoms such as Frontier are able to deliver service improvements 14 times faster over a span of three years.
Satellites, by contrast, don't have the same flexibility. After five or seven years, Anderson said the satellite system starts to accumulate problems which results in the need to either launch more satellites or purge users from the system. SpaceX charges $1,200 per pound to orbit. A third generation Starlink satellite weighs about 4,188 pounds. A conceivable cost to launch a single additional Starlink satellite to augment the network could cost as much as $5.03 million. Planetside equipment is much easier to access by comparison.
More than that, Anderson said capacity constraints present in a satellite system can end up throttling the speeds users get during peak times. Users who rely on telework would also experience suboptimal performance since satellite service bottlenecks upload speed. Telework is upload intensive. Relying on Starlink is like slapping a bandage on the state's broadband problem, Anderson said.
Anderson hasn't been the only one to raise these concerns. The Intermountain reported that the Grant County Commission sent a letter to Morrisey arguing fiber is a more affordable solution for Grant County residents, and has better technical support from local internet service providers.
'From our experience, you cannot talk to technical support when asking for help from Starlink,' they wrote in the letter.
Bill Bissett, chairman of the West Virginia Broadband Enhancement Council, also told the Intermountain that fiber is the best deployment of broadband, with the longest life, best throughput and what's needed for Morrisey's push to turn the state into a hub for data centers.
Anderson sits on the West Virginia Workforce Council, and he said they spent a lot of time talking to lawmakers and other stakeholders, as well as the broadband council. They received input from education leaders in higher education, K-12, business and labor, all who provided the input which eventually boiled down to fiber as the best choice.
However, the complication fiber advocates face is that after receiving notification the state would receive $1.2 billion for fiber, none of it has materialized yet.
'To be honest, it turned into a very difficult process, a process I don't believe another state in the country was able to negotiate through the process and all the steps,' Sen. Mike Oliverio, R-Monongalia, said. 'I think new administration at the state level, the Morrisey administration, really needs to take a step back and look at how technology has changed in roughly the last 24 months, and what actual dollars are going to be available and try to make some decisions.'
Politico reported last September that the requirements for funding in BEAD, specifically those tied to affordability requirements telecommunication companies say is too tight, delayed disbursement of the funds. Oliverio placed blame on the Biden administration for making states jump through too many hoops for the program.
National level Republicans turned the program into a culture war issue, blaming Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for delays, but Democrats argued it was reasonable to ensure companies that receive federal money roll the program out in a responsible way that consumers could afford.
Although the state had its BEAD proposal approved by NTIA, Sen. Joey Garcia, D-Marion, said none of the funding from the BEAD program has been allocated yet. Politico reported in September the Biden administration expected funding to roll out by 2025.
Garcia said that although Starlink may part of the solution for broadband access in West Virginia, fiber, once built, will provide lower rates for consumers.
'If we're just going to allocate money toward having Starlink, at some point, consumers are going to be responsible for that,' Garcia said. 'I think that's going to be an issue for how many West Virginians can afford it.'
There's also the Elon Musk shaped elephant to consider. Anderson pointed out how close Musk is to the Trump Administration. The administration has already shown a willingness to bolster one of Musk's companies by holding a Tesla car show on the White House lawn after consumers started boycotting Tesla over Musk's work to dismantle the federal government through DOGE, as well as his two Nazi salutes at inauguration rallies.
The Trump Administration is rewriting the BEAD program to enable federal dollars to go toward satellite internet. Charlie Dennie, former director of the state's Broadband Office, told Mountain State Spotlight the state's changes to its proposal would allow Musk to collect more dollars from BEAD. Evan Feinman, who had his contract renewal as head of NTIA rejected by the Trump administration, wrote in a farewell letter that stranding all or part of rural America with worse internet so the world's richest man can get richer was another betrayal in a long line of them from Washington.
However, the administration argued it's adopting a technology neutral approach.
Anderson brought up an additional dimension of how switching to satellite might hurt the state.
Jobs.
'All of the [telecom] companies around here locally, in anticipation of getting this funding, we have ramped up our employee base and provided a lot of people with good local jobs,' he said. 'If this funding is slashed or cut completely, a lot of people will be laid off or let go in general. It's going to be a real hit to the economy.'
Anderson said they expect a final decision from Morrisey on May 9.
