Phil Britt

PhireLink announced that it will acquire Arkwest Communications, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Spectracomm, Inc. The acquisition will expand PhireLink’s business into the Arkansas market. The company already has broadband business in Louisiana, Colorado, and Kansas. Arkwest Communications has a fiber network covering more than 900 route miles.

The state of Oregon has opened its application window for broadband service providers and other entities applying for grants under the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program. The program is being administered in the state by the Oregon Broadband Office. Oregon has $689 million to award for eligible projects, defined as qualifying last-mile broadband infrastructure to unserved (25/3 Mbps or less) and underserved (between 25/3 and 100/20 Mbps) locations. A 25% match is required of projects. The application cycle will close on May 22 at 5 p.m. 

The Idaho Broadband Office has announced 43 approvals of applications in the prequalification phase of the state’s Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment Program subgrantee selection. The 43 approvals—some of which are provisional—were from 45 applications that were submitted. The state office stressed that selection in the pre-approval process doesn’t mean that the application will be selected in the final approval process.

Lumen Technologies and Ciena have collaborated on a successful 1.2 terabit wavelength service trial across 3,050 kilometers (more than 1,800 miles) on Lumen’s Ultra-Low-Loss fiber network, the longest 1.2 Tbps non-regenerated signal across the globe. Lumen and Ciena used 800G interfaces to successfully test and qualify the services to support wavelength, Ethernet, and IP services over the 1.2 Tbps single carrier channel. According to Lumen, the successful trial is important because artificial intelligence (AI), cloud, and security demands are pushing data transmission speeds to new limits.

The Colorado broadband office offered an update on Round 2 of their Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program grants applicant activity. The office closed the second application window through its Advance Colorado Broadband grant program at the end of February. During the second round, the office received 96 applications from 22 companies for a proposed $825 million total investment, including $649,000 in requested funding and $176 million in matching funds.

A new report from Reviews.org shows that Rhode Island is the best state for fiber availability, with the technology available to 80.19% of households. Conversely, the worst state is Alaska, with the technology available to only 9.18% of households. The information is based on data contained in the Federal Communications Commission’s National Broadband Map. The report also notes that 46% of American homes have access to fiber, compared to 82% that have access to cable internet.

The Missouri Office of Broadband Development announced that the year’s first round of Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment funding is closed. During this initial round, OBD received a total of 519 applications, which would bring broadband to more than 192,000 of the state’s residents and businesses. OBD said this represents 90 percent of the locations eligible for the funding. Nearly $4 million in funding was requested. The next step will be for OBD to review those applications.

Heartland Forward is launching an initiative to expand telehealth access in Arkansas and Oklahoma by teaching librarians how to prepare community members for a telehealth visit.

Comcast is expanding its Xfinity fiber network to nearly 73,000 additional homes and businesses in Fairfield County (CT). The fiber network expansion will include Xfinity Internet and Xfinity Mobile as well as Comcast Business Internet and Comcast Business Mobile. In addition to its fiber build-out, over the last three years Comcast has provided $12.4 million in cash and in-kind charitable contributions to support 195 nonprofits across Connecticut. 

Wi-Fi provider Andrena has raised $18 million to develop its plans to provide decentralized broadband. More specifically, the telecommunications firm plans to further develop a decentralized autonomous wireless network (DAWN), which is a variety of decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN). DAWN is already operating in a test environment. If it works as expected, DAWN would enable customers to take advantage of wireless base stations on rooftops, which, when combined, would provide mesh internet access without the need for a centralized internet provider.