Wireless Internet

Eliminating the educational priority for EBS would be disastrous for online learning, 5G deployment, and rural consumers. The best way to encourage 5G in rural markets is to award licenses to educational institutions that live and work in their communities and whose mission is to serve the needs of students. Deploying broadband via EBS is not rocket science – it has been successfully done in northern Michigan, rural Virginia, and even at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

Competition for the 900mHz segment of the radiofrequency spectrum has grown fierce in recent years as more operators are pushed out of licensed spectrum and into the electromagnetic doldrums. What was once a lonely spectral highway for local news channels and the occasional surveying project is now crisscrossed with signal traffic from all kinds of industrial Internet of Things (IoT).

A group of attorneys general from 10 states filed a federal lawsuit in a bid to block a proposed merger between the wireless carriers T-Mobile and Sprint, a $26 billion deal that has yet to receive the Justice Department’s approval. The lawsuit, led by Letitia James of New York and Xavier Becerra of California, contends that competition will suffer and consumer prices will rise if the companies combine. Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Virginia and Wisconsin joined the complaint, which was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

The Department of Education urged the Federal Communications Commission to maintain and modernize the current educational priority of the Educational Broadband Service (EBS) spectrum by keeping the current eligibility requirments for EBS licenses, modernizing the educational use requirement, and issuing new EBS licenses using local priority filing windows. 

Given its past success and future potential, what challenges do Wi-Fi and its advocates face?

Delaware offcials and wireless network company Bloosurf have signed a deal expand broadband access in the state. The Delaware Department of Technology and Information (DTI) estimates about 127,000 homes and businesses will benefit from the three-stage project. The state will pay $2 million to add routers at 14 Internet towers and for new fiber-optic lines in Kent and Sussex counties.

In the wake of an earthquake in Peru, Alphabet's Loon unit was able to quickly restore temporary internet access using its balloons. This was due, in large part, because it had already been in talks with Telefonica to bring its service to parts of the country and had offered its service in 2017 after flooding. Loon delivered the first service to Peru's earthquake-hit areas within 48 hours, as compared to the 4 weeks it took to deliver the first Loon-based connections to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. Loon served about 20,000 unique users in the first 2 days of service.

Sprint is launching its 5G network in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and Kansas City, becoming the third major US operator to kick off the next era of mobile data. For Sprint, 5G is about a lot more than coverage: it’s about dependability.

AT&T President of Operations Scott Mai, confirmed AT&T nationwide 5G plans, saying that, by this time next year, the carrier will have nationwide coverage for 5G, albeit with a somewhat liberal view of what nationwide means. To AT&T, nationwide 5G coverage means 200 million pops covered, which leaves a lot to be desired when talking nationwide in geographic terms. AT&T’s definition can be achieved by targeting major metros only. The plan includes: