Monday, September 20, 2021
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Verizon’s current fiber rollouts are all connected to 5G
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Pennsylvania-based operator Blue Ridge Communications unveiled a plan to rebuild its entire 8,000-mile hybrid fiber coaxial (HFC) network with fiber to the home (FTTH), taking what it says is a commonsense step to future-proof its system. Company executive Mark Masenheimer says Blue Ridge got its first taste of fiber when it completed a greenfield build in the city of Westfield earlier this year covering 1,600 homes. Now, it plans to push XGS-PON fiber to all 250,000 homes in the state it currently serves with HFC. Work will be conducted on a county-by-county basis, with an initial focus on serving areas where Blue Ridge has the largest customer base. Construction is set to take place over the course of four to five years, though Masenheimer said a majority its customers will gain access to fiber well before the end of that timeframe. “We will go as fast as our vendors allow us,” he said. Blue Ridge joins a number of regional and smaller operators in pushing fiber to subscribers. TDS Telecom executives recently said they feel a “sense of urgency” around the company's fiber strategy. Shenandoah Telecommunications has also prioritized fiber expansion over cable, aiming to cover 74,000 homes with the former by the end of 2021 and 300,000 by the end of 2026.
When you think of Verizon and fiber, you tend to think of Fios, which is a fiber-based brand in the Northeast US that bundles connectivity, voice and video. But Verizon has other fiber as well, including long-haul routes, and the company is currently deploying lots of fiber as part of its 5G roll-outs. As part of its 5G/fiber rollouts, Verizon is also looking to help close the digital divide. And it sees fixed wireless access (FWA) as a technology to help with that. Verizon said in early 2021 that “laying fiber cable over long distances and wide areas is expensive and difficult, but 5G wireless broadband could prove a worthwhile investment for those communities.” It said rural homes and businesses, where 5G becomes available, could get fast wireless internet through 5G FWA services. Besides using FWA to help close the digital divide, Verizon Business is touting the technology to its small and medium business customers as a replacement to cable and legacy telecommunications connections. Verizon Business is currently offering its 5G Business Internet FWA service in parts of 54 US cities.
AT&T is expanding free-device programs, increasing access to educational and digital literacy tools and opening the first of more than 20 AT&T Connected Learning Centers across the US. These centers will be housed within local community organizations and will provide underserved students and families with free access to the internet, computers, and educational resources. As of now, AT&T plans to open Connected Learning Centers in Dallas, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit, Houston, Miami, and San Francisco. This expansion follows the announcement of the AT&T Connected Learning program in April 2021, which is part of the company's three-year $2 billion commitment to bridge the digital divide through efforts that promote broadband affordability, accessibility and adoption. The opening of the first AT&T Connected Learning Center – located at Family Gateway in Dallas (TX) – moves the company toward its goal to provide 1 million K-12 students in the United States with the technology and/or skills needed to succeed by 2025. AT&T expects to open many of the Connected learning Centers before the end of 2021.
Thanks to a multipart Wall Street Journal series this week, we have learned about a number of the company's challenges based on internal reports and documents written by Facebook employees sounding alarms. Facebook has argued that the Journal's information is outdated and the company has taken many steps to mitigate each problem; at this point, though, a good portion of the public and the media don't take the company at its word and don't trust it to be transparent. For many, the powerful human connections the service makes no longer outweigh the myriad ways in which Facebook is undermining society — promoting medical misinformation, political extremism, teen self-harm, and even mob violence in countries halfway around the globe from the company's headquarters. Facebook is right to note that these problems predate the social network's existence, and that it isn't solely responsible for social divisions. But it's accountable to society for what happens on its platform. The Journal reports have already sparked letters from Congress, and the documents the stories revealed may give investigators at the Federal Trade Commission more ammunition for the cases they are pursuing. But letters and committee hearings won't change Facebook. Laws and enforcement actions could, but only if they're bold — and if they can steer clear of the kind of unintended consequences that keep tripping up Facebook itself.
[Ina Fried is the chief technology correspondent at Axios.]
President Joe Biden’s administration recently announced a raft of nominations for various posts, but picks for four key telecommunications roles at the Federal Communications Commission and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) remain outstanding. Eight months into Biden’s presidency, both agencies sit without permanent leaders. In addition to lacking a fixed chairperson, the FCC is missing a fifth commissioner to round out its membership. The NTIA, meanwhile, is operating with its top two posts – the roles of Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and Deputy Assistant Secretary – vacant. Recon Analytics founder Roger Entner says it’s unclear why nominations for these roles haven’t been made given their prominence and filling these roles is critical if Biden wants to follow through on a number of broadband-related issues including competition, net neutrality and infrastructure funding. According to Entner, the NTIA vacancies have also taken on special importance given the looming infrastructure bill as the agency will head distribution of the billions earmarked for broadband if the legislation is approved. New Street Research advisor Blair Levin agrees “the delay is problematic because building a team and an ecosystem (as state and local governments are a big piece of the puzzle) to appropriately distribute those funds takes time.” However, he argues “the biggest bottlenecks are not NTIA or FCC leadership. They are the mapping, which the last administration did not do well, and the state broadband efforts where states are just ramping up their capabilities.”
Benton (www.benton.org) provides the only free, reliable, and non-partisan daily digest that curates and distributes news related to universal broadband, while connecting communications, democracy, and public interest issues. Posted Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are factually accurate, their sometimes informal tone may not always represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang (headlines AT benton DOT org) and Grace Tepper (grace AT benton DOT org) — we welcome your comments.
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