Fierce

Broadband providers frequently talk about how competitive the industry is right now and how they must work to retain and gain new customers. But consumers have their own pain points when choosing an internet service provider (ISP). According to a recent study by Parks Associates, almost 30% of U.S.

Rural broadband is getting a big boost from the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, but rural broadband could also get a boost from the AI-fueled data center boom — even if we don't usually think of AI and rural at the same time. Public cloud providers need fiber to connect a growing number of data centers in places like Council Bluffs, Iowa, Virginia’s Prince William County, and Midlothian, Texas. “Anywhere you build a new data center will drive incremental network construction by at least three providers,” said Frank Louthan, equity analyst and managing director at Ray

The Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA) has been telling everyone for a couple of years that some unserved locations in the US will be too expensive to reach with fiber broadband, and trying to cover these locations with fiber will waste BEAD money. And now, WISPA has underwritten an analysis tool to help state broadband offices set their extremely-high-cost thresholds. WISPA has underwritten the new Broadband Funding Optimization Tool, which was created by the Vernonburg Group.

The Sanborn Map Company is one of a number of companies offering tools for states to help them prepare for the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. Launched in 2023, Sanborn’s Broadband Navigator is a tool that aims to simplify the BEAD challenge process.

The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) is in grave danger. According to estimates from the Federal Communications Commission, the program will run out of money in April. A wave of sudden disconnects associated with the program’s end could hit ISPs hard. But just how much exposure do they have? And do they have any plans in place to keep vulnerable customers connected? We took the subscriber question straight to the big guns and asked what plans they have for keeping subscribers connected in a post-ACP world. Here’s what they told us (and what we could dig up).

As the federal government plans to freeze new Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) enrollments next month, the broadband industry has started to think about how that will impact internet service providers and subscribers on the subsidy. New Street Research released a report evaluating the ACP’s impact on Charter. The firm estimated Charter has at least 4.1 million fixed broadband ACP subscribers. That figure is a “conservative” estimate, taken from Charter’s share of broadband passings.

In November 2023, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) published its draft national Spectrum Strategy (NSS) and asked for comments to be filed by January 2, 2024. Seventy three organizations submitted written comments by the deadline. All three major national wireless carriers filed comments, which were remarkably similar to each other in their talking points. AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile stressed their desire to put a rush on more mid-band spectrum.

Some of the top proponents of open RAN in the US warned lawmakers that the technology remains in danger of sliding into irrelevance if trends toward fragmentation and proprietary solutions continue. John Baker, senior vice president of Ecosystem Business Development at Mavenir warned that there can be different flavors of open RAN.

Massachusetts’ is looking at the bigger picture, not just network rollouts. Although Massachusetts already has around 99 percent broadband coverage (based on statistics from the Federal Communications Commission’s national broadband map), there’s still an adoption gap. So, Massachusetts is trying to look at broadband “holistically,” infrastructure as well as “all the other elements that are needed” to make sure people “can really take advantage of the access to the service.” In November 2023, the Massachusetts Broadband Institute launched the Gap Networks Grant Program, a new $145 million g