Reporting

The debate about plans for the 12 GHz spectrum band is not just about billionaire versus billionaire, said Harold Feld, senior vice president for Public Knowledge which is part part of a new coalition know as 5G for 12 GHz.

A Q&A with Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) about her new Antitrust book.

Q: You’ve talked a lot about big tech; when we talk about big tech, we almost always talk about the consumer companies at the edge. It feels like the internet providers, which are monopolies for most people, are not receiving this level of scrutiny. You used to be a telecom lawyer, you worked for MCI. Do you think that scrutiny is coming for the Comcasts and the AT&Ts and Spectrum Cables of the world as well?

Cox has agreed to purchase the commercial enterprise and carrier business of fiber company Segra from private equity company EQT Infrastructure. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, although some published reports put the value of the deal at around $3 billion. Segra, based in Charlotte (NC), is one of the largest privately-held infrastructure providers in the country. As part of the deal, EQT will retain Segra’s residential and small-to-medium sized business segment in Virginia and North Carolina.

President Joe Biden's infrastructure plan has renewed debate over whether municipal broadband makes the internet more affordable and accessible. Advocates, including Democrats in Washington, argue that public networks give internet titans like Philadelphia-based Comcast Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc. much needed competition. That would drive down prices and create more options. But critics, including Republican lawmakers and the cable industry, say the taxpayer-funded networks are unfair competition, discourage private investment, and are ill-equipped to keep pace with technology.

SpaceX was granted permission to use a lower orbit for Starlink satellites, as regulators agreed with SpaceX that the change will improve broadband speed and latency while making it easier to minimize orbital debris.

Thousands of rural Michigan residents don't have access to high-speed internet which has been a challenge as they try to work and continue their education remotely during the pandemic. House Bill 4210 would have expanded broadband access in rural areas and made the equipment used for this service tax exempt.

In a filing at the Federal Communications Commission, Charter defended itself against a group of bidders in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction that have questioned Charter’s winning bid in the auction. Charter had the top bid in the auction and is poised to gain $1.22 billion to cover some of the costs of deploying broadband to unserved rural areas. Charter made its filing in reply comments in connection with the company’s request to obtain eligible telecommunications carrier (ETC) status for Alabama, New Hampshire, and Tennessee.

AT&T Fiber is giving its customers a free bump in speeds, boosting its 100 Mbps customers to 300 Mbps, and its 300 Mbps customers to 500 Mbps. AT&T will still offer its 1 gig plan as well, and these customers get HBO Max included. For a number of years fiber has been regarded as too expensive to deploy in most places. But the Covid-19 pandemic is causing a renewed interest. With so many people working and learning from home, they’re clamoring for faster broadband. And they’d like it to provide symmetrical downstream and upstream speeds.

Even though AT&T reported a strong first quarter for wireless subscribers, some analysts think the operator may be stepping off the 5G playing field as it focuses on other parts of its business. “It appears that management has chosen to focus its limited resources on HBO Max and on fiber deployments rather than try to keep pace with the network investments Verizon and T-Mobile are making in wireless,” wrote New Street Research analyst Jonathan Chaplin. New Street has pointed out before that AT&T’s plan for mid-band 5G, including C-band deployment timelines and capital spending, trai

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) union took note of AT&T’s report that showed “robust first quarter earnings,” with net profit up 60% year over year. But the company continues to cut jobs and reduce retail operations, which does not sit well with the union. AT&T has closed 549 corporate retail stores over the past year, and even though it has converted many stores into dealer stores, that shrinking corporate retail footprint results in lower wages for wireless retail workers, according to CWA.