SpaceX’s Starlink satellite broadband project seems to have thrown down a pretty definitive gauntlet; one that should cause furrowed brows from rural ISPs, as well as approval from the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF). Even if the $500 upfront equipment fee leaves a bit of a sour taste in the mouth for some, for many consumers, getting even a tenth of that top end 120Mbps throughput is impossible with current offerings. In the rural areas that Starlink is targeting, not even dial-up is guaranteed, and often, what these consumers can access ends up being multiple times the cost of the equivalent broadband package in the nearest city. The major MNOs are slowly migrating towards using 5G networks as fixed…