Ownership

One year has passed since Brightspeed became the fifth largest incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) in the US, and it’s made some notable progress in its $2 billion multi-year fiber deployment. Most of Brightspeed’s footprint is currently served with copper, but the operator is undertaking fiber builds in 17 states and officially launched fiber service on March 1, 2023.

LICT is best known as a rural broadband consolidator, but several months ago the company quietly added Sound Broadband to its holdings, not through an acquisition, but organically.

I’m mystified when large internet service providers (ISP) and carriers have significant layoffs at a time when they seem to be doing well; it’s a pattern that we’ve seen over and over during the last several decades. The latest big layoff is coming from T-Mobile, which announced in August that it is eliminating 5,000 jobs, about 7 percent of its total workforce.

The labor agreement that writers struck with studios and streaming platforms will likely accelerate the end to “peak TV," a decade that included an explosion of programming for viewers and job opportunities for talent in Hollywood. Streamers will have to find a way to pay increased talent costs—from the writers’ settlement, along with an earlier deal with directors and whatever is finalized with actors—without adding to their overall production costs. That will likely mean that companies will make fewer new shows and cancel even more that are on the bubble.

As part of DISH’s involvement in the T-Mobile-Sprint transaction, and in connection with DISH’s related applications for an extension of time to complete construction of its facilities for its AWS-4, Lower 700 MHz E Block, and AWS H Block licenses, DISH committed to construct a nationwide 5G broadband network.

Elon Musk’s international influence poses an interesting problem for the US In a world where geopolitical leadership depends increasingly on technology, Musk ought to be one of the US’s most important assets. And yet he is a de facto independent actor. Musk owes his influence not to the control of oil, capital or private armies, but of technologies vital to economic competitiveness, national security and public opinion. NASA and the Pentagon depend heavily on Musk-owned SpaceX to get into space.

Anna Gomez is the newest, and fifth, Commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission. This may allow the FCC to pursue a Democratic agenda to tackle various issues:

 Nebraska-based Allo Communications, a competitive provider that serves urban and rural areas, has seen strong growth over the 20 years since its founding. Allo CEO Brad Moline talks about the many rounds of investment the company has received—from his own pocket to private equity. “It’s such a capital-intensive industry that you just go through evolutions of investors,” said Moline. “I just try to run a perpetual business and as investors want to come in, or go out, or invest more, we can look at it and accommodate them,” he added.

AT&T filed a petition for rulemaking asking that the Federal Communications Commission establish a mid-band spectrum screen. As a broader development relating to competition policy, AT&T points to the July 2021 issuance by President Biden of an Executive Order that encouraged the FCC to consider actions to promote competition, including specifically to avoid excessive concentration of spectrum license holdings in the United States.

The Department of Justice (DoJ) supports Dish Network’s request for more time to buy 800 MHz spectrum licenses from T-Mobile but says seven more months is sufficient rather than the ten months that Dish had requested. In a September 18 filing with the US District Court for the District of Columbia, the DoJ said a modest extension of the deadline for Dish to acquire the spectrum licenses will serve the competition goals of the final judgment that enabled Sprint to merge with T-Mobile. The DoJ referred back to a 2013 petition that T-Mobile filed with the Federal Communications Commission when