Kelly Hill

The United States’ leadership in spectrum policy, 5G and reaping the economic benefits of the most advanced mobile networks are in jeopardy and have to get back on track, CTIA’s president and CEO says in a strongly worded new blog post. The biggest symptom of the problem?

Comcast is getting ready to activate Philadelphia (PA) as a trial market for cellular offload (i.e. using complementary network technologies for delivering data originally targeted for cellular networks).

There is a persistent and well-known gap between rural and urban populations in terms of their internet usage.

Here is an overview of the major federal funding vehicles for broadband that are helping to fuel the broadband investment cycle and are aimed at closing the digital divide so that all Americans have access to high-speed, reliable, affordable broadband:

T-Mobile unveiled plans to expand into rural markets with 5G for mobile and home internet service. The company no longer comes from the position of being a scrappy upstart, or the fourth-largest national carrier. It’s now the second-largest operator in the US, and is leveraging its acquisition of Sprint to set its sights on smaller and rural markets as part of its expansion.

Sioux Falls, South Dakota-based Midco is a regional service provider that serves about 400,000 customers in five states. The company is a joint venture of Comcast and Midcontinent Media and provides cable, internet (including gigabit speeds), and telephone services in the Dakotas, Minnesota and parts of Kansas and Wisconsin.

Some of the current sources of funding for rural telecommunications network infrastructure: