Competition/Antitrust

Comcast and other cable companies have leaned on a simple strategy to offset the effects of cord-cutting: Charge a steep price on home internet service, and enjoy soaring profits thanks to little or no competition. That strategy may now be in jeopardy. Comcast’s internet subscriber growth was essentially flat last quarter, while Charter lost 21,000 Spectrum internet subscribers.

AT&T, Verizon and Lumen Technologies lined up alongside utility providers in arguing against changes to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) pole attachment regulations, pitting the unlikely partners against cable and fiber providers alike. At the heart of the current FCC debate are proposed reforms which would force pole owners to share the cost of replacing poles with attachers, rather than leaving the latter to shoulder the entire cost burden.

Most Americans can choose among several providers of home internet service, but that competition masks their much more limited options for true high-speed connections. Home internet connections became even more essential during the pandemic, but there's still disagreement about the extent of competition in the broadband market. "Competition" in the broadband space has two primary interpretations.

T-Mobile and Space X announced their “Coverage Above & Beyond” partnership to bring about the “end of mobile dead zones.” It is one of a growing number of announced partnerships, ventures and rumors of similar nature and purpose of expanding the frontier of connectivity where it hasn’t gone before. “Coverage Above & Beyond” promises to provide satellite-based cellular connectivity directly to T-Mobile’s current smartphones thereby providing coverage anywhere in the U.S., its territories, as well as the vast unregulated oceans. However, much of the technical burden seems to rest on t

In most businesses, competition means several rivals are fighting to win a prize — typically, the customer's dollar. Most tech companies still view themselves as engaged in fierce competition. They're just going after a wider and more complex set of prizes.

I define the digital divide as a technology gap where good broadband is available in some places, but not everywhere. The technology divide can be as large as an entire county that doesn’t have broadband or as small as a pocket of homes or apartment buildings in cities that got bypassed. Until late in the 1990s, the only way for most people to get onto the Internet was by the use of dial-up access through phone lines.  At first, dial-up technology was only available to people who lived in places where an ISP had established local dial-up telephone numbers.

Internet service providers’ discriminatory underinvestment in broadband infrastructure and services—referred to as “digital redlining” for disproportionately affecting low-income communities of color—is drawing increased public scrutiny, including from policymakers.

Sixteen Republican senators sent a letter Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, calling on the department to follow congressional intent in implementing the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program that was created through the bipartisan infrastructure law. The Senators are seeking changes to the following areas:

A budding battle between U.S.

T-Mobile has been advised to stop implying that a consumer can save up to 50% on their home internet services compared to major competitors like Verizon. The recommendation comes from the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) National Programs.