Reporting

Dish Network announced fiber agreements with Everstream, Segra, Uniti and Zayo. Those four fiber partnerships will provide fronthaul and backhaul support for Dish's 5G network to sites covering approximately 60 million US citizens. Dish expects to have some small preliminary 5G markets live in the first quarter of 2021 before having its first major 5G market deployment by the third quarter. The agreements with the four fiber companies will give Dish access to fiber coast-to-coast to connect to markets with its cloud-native, Open RAN based 5G network.

Comcast's RISE program is providing more than 700 Black-owned businesses support including technology upgrades from Comcast Business. Awards in the program can also include consulting, media, and creative production services from Effectv, which is the advertising division of Comcast Cable. The first phase of Comcast RISE -- which stands for “representation, investment, strength and empowerment” -- was focused on U.S. Black-owned, small businesses.

Facebook said it would buy Kustomer, a startup that specializes in customer-service platforms and chatbots, part of an effort by the social-media giant to help companies use its platforms to do business. Though terms weren’t disclosed, people familiar with the matter said it would value New York-based Kustomer at a little over $1 billion. Closely held Kustomer, whose technology takes conversations from different channels and puts them on a single screen, was valued at $710 million in a private funding round roughly a year ago, according to PitchBook.

Andrew Jay Schwartzman, senior counselor at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society: “The Pai agenda, in essence, has been to limit regulatory intrusions into the activities of companies subject to the regulatory authority of the FCC, particularly if they are large incumbent [telecom] companies.” He said the consequences of Pai’s reign have been vast for average American Internet users, leaving “fewer people who have access to broadband, fewer people who have access to diverse points of view over the air, and more people paying more for cable, wireless and wired In

Connected Nation finds that 47 percent of US school districts—6,132, to be exact, representing about one-third of public K-12 students—meet the 1 Mbps/student standard. Still, that means about two-thirds of students lack what Connected Nation calls “scalable broadband” in schools. The broadband gap isn’t only a problem for remote learning. “Early childhood” videos on YouTube nearly all have advertising. And as video dominates online instruction, more educators need easy-to-use resources for video creation.

The White House has pushed the Pentagon to set up a controversial spectrum-leasing plan matching one being proposed by a politically connected company called Rivada Networks, which wants the lucrative job of using that spectrum to create a nationwide 5G network. Rivada proposing that it create a 5G network and rent out that spectrum to private companies such as Netflix, Facebook or Tesla. Some of the revenue would be sent back to the federal government. If the arrangement moved forward, a formal procurement process would determine what sort of fees Rivada could collect.

A looming vacancy on the Federal Trade Commission has created a dilemma for the agency as it decides how to pursue its expected antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, contributing to a delay in the launch of the case.

President Donald Trump may exit the White House in January, but Republicans are rushing to put their imprint on tech policy in a variety of ways in his final weeks. These efforts could have lasting effects well into the Biden era, cementing certain legacy moves and curbing the incoming administration’s ability to execute its agenda. 

The Covid-19 lockdowns were expected to push the resilience of broadband and mobile networks to the limit. With millions of people suddenly working from home, it was widely expected that telecoms companies would struggle to keep everyone connected, particularly in countries where full-fibre broadband levels are low and 5G upgrades remain a distant prospect. Yet networks mostly held firm as minor outages and service difficulties such as jerky Zoom calls proved surmountable for most workers, children and furloughed staff stuck at home.

The law that enabled the rise of social media and other internet businesses is facing threats unlike anything in its 24-year history, with potentially significant consequences for websites that host user content.