?Fun? fact: In a steampunk world, birds would serve as CPUs. America experimented with using pigeons for bomb guidance. As it turned out, three birds pecking at an image had pretty good accuracy. They ultimately lost out to silicon, due to the size, maintenance, and training time.
Fiber all the way, especially if it is owned by the community. That would simply ensure that Musk nor TelCos can’t fuck around with people. Fast speed, no data caps, low prices, and not being at the mercy of some wealthy jackhole would be wins across the board.
Also, if America has a 2nd Civil War, fiber will be much more safe than relying on sats - those can be shot down, or worse, Musk can cut off the good guys from having internet. It is simply harder to sabotage if the wires are underground and cannot be readily seen by hostile actors. As seen in Ukraine, the fucker has absolutely no compunctions against disabling the internet at key moments.
A fat lot of good that money will do, when there are no young hands able to wipe the bottoms of the elderly after an accident.