Fierce

In regards to the newly announced Verizon and Frontier deal, Verizon Consumer Group CEO Sowmyanarayn Sampath said, “This is exactly the kind of deal we’ve wanted to do. It goes back to the foundation of our strategy," he said. "There are two businesses we are in: premium mobility and broadband.

At the beginning of 2024, Verizon executives were skeptical about the direct-to-device (D2D) market, uninterested in using their spectrum for a satellite-based service. Now, Verizon is bragging about how it will be the first mobile carrier to commercially launch smartphone connectivity on Skylo’s non-terrestrial satellite network and be the first mobile carrier to launch a commercial D2D service offering. Not only that, but it’s made a $100 million investment in AST SpaceMobile, which will use 85

Render Networks is itching to get in on the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) action, especially as deployment costs are going up. The company is hearing concern from state broadband offices that “there’s a real possibility that some of these firms could walk away from money because they just don’t see a way to actually execute against the constraints and still meet all the cost conditions.” Render’s bread-and-butter is a digital construction management platform that aims to automate many of the manual construction processes that go into broadband deployments.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released long-awaited draft guidance on the use of non-fiber technologies for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, with unlicensed wireless spectrum and satellite broadband entering the funding fray.

What if you could deliver a connection that's as fast as fiber broadband but without the hassle and cost that comes with actually building fiber? Transcelestial, a Singapore-based startup, has a device that uses laser beams to transmit data between two end points, without the need for underground fiber infrastructure. The company's CENTAURI device, which comes in flavors of 10G and 25G, can “stabilize these laser beams over large distances” while taking into account various weather conditions. That ability caught the eye of a major operator.

Even though UScellular plans to sell off big chunks of its spectrum and subscribers to T-Mobile, that's not stopping the regional wireless carrier from pursuing its fixed wireless access (FWA) ambitions—even if that means going head to head with T-Mobile in some regions. In fact, now UScellular is working with Tarana Wireless to increase its FWA capacity in West Plains, Missouri, a town where the demand for FWA is high. So high that the carrier has been getting such good uptake of its fixed wireless in West Plains that it was about to run out of capacity on its mobile network.

Is it still fiber broadband if it doesn’t include the optical glass or the cable coating surrounding the glass? X-Lumin, a company that does free-space optical technology, says the answer is “yes." And the company thinks it has something special to offer operators deploying fiber because its technology is useful in places where physical fiber connections are impractical. Free-space optical technology uses laser-light beams to wirelessly transmit data without having to use fiber optic cable.

SpaceX’s Starlink satellite broadband offering touts an edge in service reliability over its cable counterparts, despite most of its customers residing in rural areas. Recon Analytics found Starlink customers experience fewer service outages than cable customers, though they still face more outages than consumers on a fiber broadband connection. Unsurprisingly, the majority of Starlink customers (85%) reside in rural areas.