Mike Robuck

Flume's goal is to provide fast, affordable internet connections to at least 600,000 low-income residents in New York City, including to those in public housing. Flume was co-founded by Brandon Gibson and Prashanth Vijay. Flume is targeting all five New York City boroughs and also plans to deploy its broadband service in East Hartford, Connecticut in the spring of next year to provide fiber-based access to an additional 25,000 households. For public housing in the New York area, Flume Access' internet speed provides symmetrical speeds up of 200 Mbps.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) is seeking conditions be imposed by the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) in regards to Frontier's Chapter 11 reorganization plan. PURA is tasked with reviewing Frontier's bankruptcy plan. CWA is trying to make sure the bankruptcy plan improves services and keeps jobs in Connecticut.

Whether it's more fiber deployments by AT&T or T-Mobile offering fixed wireless broadband in rural areas, Charter is ready for the competition. Charter CFO Chris Winfrey said Charter was well-positioned to handle all types of competition across all infrastructures due to the continued investments it has made in its network. "We are growing against all competitors in all markets irrespective of the competitive infrastructure," Winfrey said. "And our results really demonstrate that when you compare that to the competition.

AT&T CFO John Stephens said that adding more fiber was about more than just passing additional homes. "I think about the fiber being part of my core transport network, and serving business customers and connecting to large business customers and small business customers, and then I think of it as an opportunity to connect the homes," he said. "So I have a three-for-one in this integrated carrier environment that really gives me a different opportunity than others. When I say three-for-one, that's three revenue opportunities, as well as a really efficient cost structure.

While carriers were tight-lipped about their Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) prospects during the recent round of earnings reports, vendors talked openly about their opportunities. While the first phase of reverse auctions will run until the bidding stops, vendors are seeing piles of money in the not-too-distant future. While all-fiber is obviously the fastest, best option for reaching rural areas, it's costly. There are also fiber-fed copper access options on the table, but fixed wireless may emerge as a winning formula for bidders such as Windstream and Verizon. 

Frontier Communications has secured approval for its Chapter 11 restructuring plan from the New York Public Service Commission. With New York checked off, Frontier said it has received regulatory approval, or "favorable determination," from 10 of the 25 states in its footprint. Those states include: Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia. Frontier is targeting early 2021 to exit from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. 

As a whole, the cable industry's upstream held up well during the Covid-19 pandemic, but with the increased use of video conferencing and other tools associated with work-from-home and online learning, cable operators need to accelerate their efforts on expanding the upstream according to CommScope CTO Tom Cloonan. "In the upstream, we've seen that it's grown by about 25% over what it was in February," Cloonan said. "So that's a big jump.

On the heels of AT&T saying it will no longer take new orders for its DSL service, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) criticized its lack of fiber.  According to a report CWA did in conjunction with the National Inclusion Alliance (NDIA), AT&T has deployed fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) to 28% of the households in its footprint as of the end of June. By contrast, the report said AT&T has targeted more affluent, non-rural areas for its fiber upgrades. Houses with fiber have a median income that's 34% higher than those with DSL only.

Frontier Communications received a judge's stamp of approval for its bankruptcy exit financing. In the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, Judge Robert Drain approved Frontier's bankruptcy exit financing after the motion was unopposed by other stakeholders. 

When it came to naming the company's top-priorities, AT&T CEO John Stankey said adding more fiber topped the list. AT&T's second key priority is making sure that it has broadband connectivity on 5G, which means even more fiber. Stankey said anything AT&T could do to put more fiber out into the network was a top priority because fiber fuels both the consumer and business segments.