Telecommunication

LightBox Announces the Completion of Its Enhanced Nationwide Smart Location Fabric

LightBox, a leading information and technology platform for the commercial real estate and location-based analytics industry, announced the release of a newly enhanced nationwide location fabric. "The problem that state and federal agencies are trying to solve is location data accuracy for broadband mapping, said Bill Price, vice president of government solutions.

FCC Announces Over $1 Billion in Rural Broadband Support to 32 States

The Federal Communications Commission announced that it is ready to authorize $1,041,074,000 over 10 years in its fifth round of funding for new broadband deployments through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. In the largest funding wave to date, 69 broadband providers will bring broadband service to 518,088 locations in 32 states. “This latest round of funding will open up even more opportunities to connect hundreds of thousands of Americans to high-speed, reliable broadband service,” said Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.

Nokia aims to make it easier to install fiber-like broadband in multi-dwelling units

Nokia unveiled a new solution called Gigabit Connect which is designed to make broadband deployments in multi-dwelling units (MDUs) easier for fiber players who lack expertise with legacy cabling. The company explained the product builds on G.fast, a technology which allows high-speed broadband to be delivered via copper and coax wiring over short distances. Specifically, Gigabit Connect is meant to make G.fast more friendly for fiber players by enabling the last leg of connectivity to be managed as a fiber endpoint under a single management interface.

Massachusetts State Rep Calls Comcast’s Abandonment of Data Caps and Penalties ‘a Huge Win’

Comcast, which postponed its planned data caps and penalties on northeast customers when it came under fire at the peak of the current pandemic, has abandoned the plan altogether. Haverhill Rep Andy Vargas (D-MA) said he received word directly from Comcast in early December after following up on the company’s plan to charge those without unlimited plans $10 for every 50 gigabytes they use over the 1.2 terabyte limit, up to a maximum of $100 a month. “The latest we have is that they have no intention of reintroducing the data caps at all, which is a huge win,” Vargas said.

City of Jasper moves forward with plans to go into the broadband business

The Jasper (TX) City Council voted to go forward with its plans to go into the broadband internet business. The move came following a decision earlier in 2021 to award Kramer Services Group of Weyerhaeuser (WI) $450,000 to study the issue and develop a plan for its implementation within the city. Kramer representative Brandon Wright said plans were for the system to be completely underground from one end of town to the other offering up to 1 gig of upload and download speed at prices between $75 and up depending on the speed the customer required.

Vermont Community Broadband Board works to install 2,000 miles of fiber optic cable during 2022

A group working to expand broadband internet services across rural Vermont says there will be at least 2,000 miles (over 3,200 kilometers) of fiber optic cable ready for installation during the 2022 construction season. Christine Hallquist, executive director the Vermont Community Broadband Board, announced Monday that three groups were working together to provide 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) of cable. NEK Broadband, the state’s largest communication union district, has arranged to buy another 1,000 miles of cable, Hallquist said.

Trade groups write playbook for spending infrastructure money

The Fiber Broadband Association (FBA) and NTCA-The Rural Broadband Association plan to publish a playbook to assist state governments as they receive broadband funds from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The $42.5 billion that is dedicated to broadband will flow through a new program called Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD).

‘We have work to do’: What to know about the state of Minnesota’s high-speed internet infrastructure

The last two years have been pivotal ones for the future of high-speed internet access in Minnesota. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted and exacerbated the lack of broadband in many parts of the state as people shifted to remote work and school. Congress poured unprecedented amounts of money into subsidizing construction of new infrastructure like fiber-optic cables in Minnesota and across the country.

Adtran and partners encourage electric utilities to deploy fiber broadband

Fiber access provider Adtran is partnering with FiberRise and KGPCo to help electric cooperatives, investor-owned utilities and public power companies to build fiber broadband networks.

President Biden’s ambitious broadband funding has a key impediment: an outdated map of who needs it

The federal government is slated to pump a record amount of funding into projects to expand Internet access and affordability.

The 25/3 Mbps Myth

There is no such thing as a 25/3 Mbps broadband connection, or a 100/20 Mbps broadband connection, or even a symmetrical gigabit broadband connection on fiber. For a long list of reasons, the broadband speeds that make it to customers vary widely by the day, the hour, and the minute. And yet, we’ve developed an entire regulatory system built around the concept that broadband connections can be neatly categorized by speed. What do regulators mean when they set a speed definition of 25/3 Mbps?

Boring telephone poles are secret to more broadband

Infrastructure is a hot topic these days as Congress considers ways to make multi-trillion dollar investments in areas of disrepair or to fund new projects. A critical infrastructure component has been excluded from the discussion: Telephone poles. These poles, along with rights-of-way, are essential to bringing high-speed broadband to unserved Americans and offering new choices. Yet, current federal, state, and local policies are not enough to prod greater access to poles and rights-of-way by providers building broadband in unserved communities.

Charter showcases public-private partnership to expand rural broadband access

Cherokee County (SC) and Charter Communications have announced a public-private partnership that over the next two years is set to expand high-speed internet access countywide. More significantly this could be a model for expanding rural broadband access across the United States. Initial dollars for the ambitious project will come from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF), a $20.4 billion fund established by the Federal Communications Commission to bring high speed fixed broadband service to rural homes and small businesses that lack it.

ISPs tell the FCC not to mandate subsidies on grandfathered broadband plans

Internet service providers (ISPs) are telling the Federal Communications Commission not to require ISPs to allow broadband subsidy recipients to apply those subsidies to grandfathered plans, arguing that it would be burdensome and confusing, though they also said they should be free to apply the subsidies to select grandfathered plans.

The Affordable Connectivity Program

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act allocates $65 billion to support various broadband initiatives. Keller & Heckman previously examined the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (“BEAD”) Program and the $1 Billion Middle Mile Grant Program, each of which focuses on deploying broadband networks to unserved and underserved areas.

Get Ready for an Even Slower Broadband Slowdown

The slowdown in cable broadband subscriber additions may be even slower than anticipated after executives at two of the top three publicly traded cable companies -- Comcast and Altice USA -- hinted that customer growth is trending at an even more decelerated pace than expected. Comcast Cable CEO Dave Watson said he expected to end 2021 with 1.3 million additional broadband subscribers.

WOW! targets fiber to 400K homes by 2027

With a much lighter debt load following a pair of asset sales totaling $1.8 billion in 2021, US broadband provider WideOpenWest (WOW!) set its sights on building greenfield fiber to as many as 400,000 homes by 2027. CFO John Rego said the company will start with an initial goal of building fiber-to-the-home to 200,000 locations by 2025 at an approximate cost of $160 million. If it finds success in its starter markets, he said, WOW!

Fiber permitting process could crush digital divide dreams

President and CEO of The Permitting Institute Alex Herrgott laid out a discouraging amount of challenges to the permitting process in order to lay fiber in unserved areas. Herrgott said organizations that embark on a fiber deployment project to unserved areas may have to interact with multiple federal, state and local agencies, none of whom coordinate together, and none of whom are at all concerned about the time-value-of-money for the company that has capital on the line.

Lawmakers focus on bridging broadband divide highlighted amid pandemic

After the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the deep broadband divide across the country, lawmakers said the recently passed infrastructure bill will connect many communities that struggled as much of daily life moved online. The newly passed infrastructure bill allocates $65 billion for broadband access, aimed at rural areas, lower-income populations and Tribal communities.

Altice USA could seek as much as $1 billion in broadband subsidies

Altice USA is jockeying to secure its fair share of broadband subsidy money as billions in federal funding flows to the states, with CEO Dexter Goei revealing it has already applied for $150 million in support and plans to chase significantly more. Goei said over the next six to 12 months Altice will likely apply for an additional $500 million in funding. Across all the territories contiguous to its coverage areas “we suspect there’s probably a billion of subsidy money to go after if we were to apply for all of the availability,” he added.

NTCA and ACA Connects Establish BEAD Program State-by-State Tracking Project

On November 15, President Biden signed the historic, bi-partisan infrastructure law, which provides $65 billion in funding for broadband deployment and adoption programs. By far, the most significant new deployment program is the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program, which the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) will oversee and States/Territories will implement by issuing grants to broadband providers. NTCA and ACA Connects have joined to establish the BEAD Program State-by-State Tracking Project.

FCC nominee Gigi Sohn will not receive a confirmation vote on December 15

The Senate Commerce Committee will not be voting next week on Federal Communications Commission nominee Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society]’s nomination because some committee members asked for more time to meet with her. That’s another ominous sign for her nomination, in the wake of fierce GOP criticism. And it seems to ensure that her possible confirmation — which is required to secure a Democratic majority at the FCC — won’t happen until 2022.