Fierce

Like most states, Ohio has its own approach to bolstering broadband accessibility. One area where Ohio is seeing progress, Lt. Governor Jon Husted (R-OH) said, is in enhancing its broadband workforce. Lt. Gov Husted, who also leads Ohio’s Office of Workforce Transformation, explained Ohio State University (OSU) has developed a curriculum for 5G and high-speed internet expansion, which can be used by other colleges and universities as well as the private sector.

WIA Connect(X) show panelists were asked if there is a magic number that developers should target for the cost per home passed with fiber. Beth Hoffman, managing director with Berkshire Partners, said that a lot of it depends on the density of the market. The cost per home passed in a dense city like San Francisco (CA) could be as low as $700.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) recently released a report that shows Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) is working. However, CBRS opponents, led by CTIA, insist that CBRS remains an unproven experiment in spectrum sharing, with constraints like low power levels that make it impossible to provide broad coverage.

Fixed wireless access (FWA) is a bright spot for UScellular, which is struggling to turn around its mobile business. The regional operator now has close to 100,000 FWA subscribers, according to UScellular EVP and CTO Mike Irizarry.

Legislation aimed at regulating telecommunications operators is in the works and companies should hasten to prepare for what’s to come. A bill introduced to the Senate in March 2023 proposes to do away with “junk fees,” which are financial charges that President Joe Biden denounced in his State of the Union address.

UTOPIA Fiber, an open-access network provider operating in the Western US, disclosed on May 3 that it reaches 55,000 subscribers.

North Carolina-based broadband provider Brightspeed has caught the eye of Abu Dhabi sovereign investor Mubadala, which will invest $500 million into the operator. The investment, subject to regulatory approvals and conditions, would make Mubadala a minority shareholder alongside Apollo Global Management, Brightspeed’s parent company.

With T-Mobile’s mid-band 5G buildout at 275 million points of presence (POPs) and a year-end target of 300 million POPs, the question is: How easy or difficult is it to cover that last 25 million people? “It gets harder and harder. And as a rule of thumb, I would say that it’s about 3 times harder for every 10 million that you add.