Fierce

During the fourth quarter 2023, the top three wireless operators in the US reported a total of 1.78 million new postpaid phone subscribers. How can each carrier report growth in postpaid phone subscribers each quarter in a country whose population is not growing very much? Recon Analytics Analyst Roger Entner said that question is top-of-mind among the operators, who pay Recon substantial sums of money for survey data to try and figure out the answers.

Tracking broadband funding awards as they happen. In January 2024:

The fate of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) remains unknown, but with the Federal Communications Commission scheduled to halt new enrollments in February, internet service providers are thinking about how a shutdown would impact the consumers relying on the subsidy. Some of the bigger companies like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, said on their earnings calls they have backup plans if the ACP goes away. But what do the regional and rural providers think about the situation?

Breezeline closed out construction projects in both West Virginia and New Hampshire.

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) is urging Congress to increase minimum uplink standards for broadband networks funded by the federal Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program.

Broadband providers frequently talk about how competitive the industry is right now and how they must work to retain and gain new customers. But consumers have their own pain points when choosing an internet service provider (ISP). According to a recent study by Parks Associates, almost 30% of U.S.

Rural broadband is getting a big boost from the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, but rural broadband could also get a boost from the AI-fueled data center boom — even if we don't usually think of AI and rural at the same time. Public cloud providers need fiber to connect a growing number of data centers in places like Council Bluffs, Iowa, Virginia’s Prince William County, and Midlothian, Texas. “Anywhere you build a new data center will drive incremental network construction by at least three providers,” said Frank Louthan, equity analyst and managing director at Ray

The Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA) has been telling everyone for a couple of years that some unserved locations in the US will be too expensive to reach with fiber broadband, and trying to cover these locations with fiber will waste BEAD money. And now, WISPA has underwritten an analysis tool to help state broadband offices set their extremely-high-cost thresholds. WISPA has underwritten the new Broadband Funding Optimization Tool, which was created by the Vernonburg Group.

The Sanborn Map Company is one of a number of companies offering tools for states to help them prepare for the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. Launched in 2023, Sanborn’s Broadband Navigator is a tool that aims to simplify the BEAD challenge process.

The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) is in grave danger. According to estimates from the Federal Communications Commission, the program will run out of money in April. A wave of sudden disconnects associated with the program’s end could hit ISPs hard. But just how much exposure do they have? And do they have any plans in place to keep vulnerable customers connected? We took the subscriber question straight to the big guns and asked what plans they have for keeping subscribers connected in a post-ACP world. Here’s what they told us (and what we could dig up).