The FCC has decided that SpaceX’s Rural Development Opportunity Fund (RDOF) application was too risky – pulling the plug on the $885.5m application. Questions of scalability and long-term viability are justified, given that it is much easier to take over a fiber line than an in-orbit constellation of LEO satellites, should SpaceX or Musk not pan out. The RDOF program was established under former FCC chair Ajit Pai’s leadership to bring broadband connectivity to the historically underserved rural American market. The US landscape has some very challenging environments that make digging fiber to every home impractical. However, build-outs happen in fits and starts, and while the farmhouse at the end of a four-mile track almost certainly does not…