Internet/Broadband

People in need don’t want a handout; they want a hand-up that will enable them to improve their circumstances and lead more productive, successful lives. The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) is giving workers, students, and families the hand-up they need to compete in the connected 21st-century digital economy.

Charter Communications is upgrading its widespread hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) networks to support faster speeds. But the demand for lofty upstream speeds is not being driven by actual customer usage, according to CFO Chris Winfrey. "The upstream demand today is much more of a marketing campaign as opposed to any real product demand," said Winfrey. Upstream usage soared during the early stages of the pandemic as people worked and schooled from home, but downstream usage still exceeds upstream usage by a wide margin.

Charter Communications reported financial and operating results for the three and twelve months that ended December 31, 2022. Charter's broadband highlights are as follows:

Comcast reported results for the quarter and year that ended December 31, 2022. Highlights in Comcast's broadband developments include the following:

In a recent article, Joe Madden wrote an article looking at the various wireless technologies he has used at his home in rural central California. Over time he subscribed to a fixed wireless network using Wi-Fi spectrum, cellular LTE broadband, Starlink, and a fixed wireless provider using CBRS spectrum. Madden was able to analyze his broadband performance in ways that are not easily understood by the average subscriber.

Charter President and CEO Chris Winfrey hopes to complete the company's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF)-funded rural broadband deployment ahead of time. Charter made broadband available to 200,000 new rural locations in 2022, according to Winfrey. The Charter rural take rate for “passings open at least six months” is “ahead of expectations at about 40%,” he said. Charter was one of the largest winners in the RDOF rural broadband program.

Nearly 1,000 miles of fiber-optic conduit is being laid in West Des Moines (IA), bringing lightning-fast internet to every home and business, thanks to a $60 million municipal bond and a novel public-private partnership. Laying fiber lines is costly, messy work: Companies offering fiber service must drill and install conduit on every street in the service area before beginning to offer service and recoup costs. In 2020, West Des Moines entered a partnership with Google Fiber.

Every few years, BroadbandNow dives into the cost of internet plans across 2,000 US-based internet service providers (ISP) and how they compare to the median incomes of households across all 50 states plus the District of Columbia. BroadbandNow is again checking who in America has broadband—defined as a connection with a minimum of 25Mbps for downloads and 3Mbps for uploads—and how many can get it for less than $50 per month. The answer is still: not everyone.

Change is seldom easy. Yet for government and public sector executives, the need to modernize has never been greater, as there is a growing digital divide between constituent expectations and what many governments can offer. As government and public sector agencies continue on their digital transformation journey, here are five strategies to adopt moving forward: 

The Public Service Commission of Wisconsin is now accepting applications for multiple federally funded grant programs to assist in the state’s broadband and digital equity planning efforts. In December 2022, Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI) and the PSC announced the state will receive nearly $6 million to plan for the deployment and adoption of affordable, equitable, and reliable high-speed Internet throughout the state.