LightReading

While Chairman Brendan Carr's Federal Communications Commission continues to highlight efforts to strip and streamline regulations to get broadband deployed faster, some stakeholders are saying a proposed change to how pole attachments are regulated would do the opposite.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) is adding its voice to those calling on the NTIA to release BEAD winners' performance testing results to the public, with a stated concern that "some providers" may not be able to meet their commitments. The labor union's request came in the form of a letter to Arielle Roth, NTIA chief administrator, dated Tuesday, July 14.

Copper network retirement in California has taken another litigious turn. In a suit against the Federal Communications Commission, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is asking the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, a federal court in San Francisco, to determine that the FCC's new rules aimed at expediting copper network shutdowns constitutes an overreach that violates federal law and conflicts with notice-and-comment rulemaking requirements.

As electric cooperatives descend upon Washington (DC) for their fifth-annual Broadband Leadership Summit, they bring with them a number of policy priorities and concerns. Among those is their growing distress at the direction of the federal government's $42 billion Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program.

Comcast's deployment of DOCSIS 4.0 is "no longer concentrated in certain markets," as the operator now offers multi-gigabit broadband services to "millions" of homes, according to Comcast Chief Network Officer Elad Nafshi. That marks some significant progress from 2024, when Comcast had deployed D4.0 to about ten markets and roughly 1 million homes passed (Comcast's full network passes about 65 million homes and businesses). Comcast has deployed

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration released new guidance this week that seems to clarify that companies receiving Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program awards cannot retroactively absolve themselves of certain program requirements. The clarification comes after a leaked rider that SpaceX reportedly sent to at least one state revealed that the company was attempting to circumvent certain capacity and performance requirements.