Reporting

Gerald M. “Jerry” Levin, a television executive who rose to the top of Time Warner and orchestrated its ill-fated merger with America Online, which defined his legacy, died at the age of 84 in Long Beach (CA). Levin played a key role in the creation of HBO, helped spearhead the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Media, and led the subsequent acquisition of Ted Turner’s media holdings—including CNN—to create the largest news and entertainment company in the world.

Chris Scharrer, founder and CEO of DCS Technology Design, claims that Mercury Broadband has overstated its ability to provide fixed wireless access (FWA) in 12 Michigan counties on the FCC’s broadband map. And he says this is deterring other providers from competing for Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) grants. Scharrer has mapping data that shows Mercury has claimed it provides practically ubiquitous coverage across 12 counties in Southern Michigan.

Fiber network deployments have reached a milestone as they now pass more than 50% of US households, according to recent data from the Fiber Broadband Association and RVA Market Research and Consulting. Almost 69 million of those locations are "unique" fiber homes, meaning that about 9 million are passed by more than one fiber provider. The share of broadband technology is also evolving. While hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) remains the primary way of delivering broadband, fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) and fixed wireless access (FWA) will continue to make their presence felt in the coming years.

There is a tendency to think of high-cost areas—places where it’s expensive to build fiber—as only being in remote places with tough terrain. We’re going to see a lot of other cases of high cost locations that I think are going to surprise State Broadband Grant offices. There are many reasons that drive up the cost of building a landline network. Some places are high-cost by definition. I know of a small town in Arizona that is fifty miles away from the nearest other people.

Consolidated Communications’ latest public-private broadband partnership news is a bit different from some of the other public-private partnerships we’ve seen since federal legislators began making funding available for broadband buildouts during the COVID pandemic. The deal, pending completion of a challenge process, involves the town of Francestown, New Hampshire and funding from the state’s Broadband Matching Grant Initiative (BMGI). That program provides matching funds for projects that otherwise would be too costly for the network operator to undertake.

The House voted overwhelmingly to approve a bill on that would ban TikTok from operating in the US or force a sale, with lawmakers largely shrugging off a last-minute lobbying push by the Chinese-controlled service and setting the stage for a final showdown in the Senate, where lawmakers have been cooler on the legislation. The measure passed the House 352 to 65, with one member voting present, showing broad bipartisan support for cracking down on TikTok over national-security concerns. The popular short-video app has faced scrutiny over the way its algorithm works to select content for use

Like all states and territories, Vermont has been hard at work developing plans for the NTIA's Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) grant program; and the companion Digital Equity program.

Doctors' appointments, job applications, personal banking, key services and more are today mostly managed online. While the UK government details its plans for a digital future to transform public services, one in seven Britons are forced to live without the internet. This film is voiced by three individuals experiencing digital exclusion, revealing how varied and complex the repercussions can be. Through enacted scenes from their lives, it makes visible the expanding digital divide—an issue too often unseen or ignored by policy makers, businesses and society at large.

Apple will allow iPhone apps to be downloaded directly from their developers’ websites for the first time, a major concession to European regulators that marks the third time this year the big tech group has been forced to change its plan to comply with landmark EU rules. The move to allow so-called sideloading in Europe, which will come into effect later this spring, comes after pressure from developers to be able to distribute their software outside the App Store and threatens a core component of Apple’s $85 billion-a-year global services business. As part of the changes, developers launc

Spectrum is a hot topic in Washington these days, as lawmakers, lobbyists, regulators and others look for advantage ahead of the release of an implementation plan for the Biden administration's national spectrum strategy. The latest: A new bill from two top Republican Senators would require the government to reallocate at least 600MHz of midband spectrum for commercial use within three years.