SpaceX has offered to provide high-speed internet to unconnected households in Virginia for $60 million, a fraction of the $613 million the state plans to spend on fiber-optic infrastructure. The proposal, if adopted, could reduce the cost of the state’s broadband expansion by nearly 90 percent.
Virginia intends to use funds from the Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program to connect approximately 133,000 unserved households.
Under the current plan, SpaceX is slated to serve just 5,579 households with Starlink, receiving $3.2 million, while the remainder will be connected via fiber at estimated costs of $6,000 to $8,000 per location. Satellite providers, including SpaceX and Amazon, were allocated a total of $7.7 million.
NEWS: SpaceX is protesting Virginia’s $613M plan to expand high-speed internet access, accusing the state of deliberately denying a larger slice of the subsidies to @Starlink.
Starlink will receive just $3.2M in funding or what amounts to about $584 per site —a sharp contrast… pic.twitter.com/s4GgeIN7pN
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) August 14, 2025
SpaceX argued that the state’s BEAD plan favors “expensive, slow-to-build fiber” over a more technology-neutral approach.
The company claims Starlink could serve all eligible households immediately, avoiding the four-year deployment timeline proposed for fiber, and is urging the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to revise Virginia’s broadband plan.