Fierce

Comcast is in the midst of a massive overhaul of its network, rolling out mid-split upgrades and plotting the launch of DOCSIS 4.0 in the second half of 2023. But while Comcast remains firmly in the cable camp, Cable EVP and Chief Network Officer Elad Nafshi said there is a place for fiber in its future. And, he said, it’ll soon provide a more in-depth glimpse of what that future looks like. To be clear, there’s already a ton of fiber in Comcast’s network. According to Nafshi, Comcast’s nationwide backbone network – which it calls the core network – is all fiber.

Five members of Verizon’s First Responder Advisory Council are calling attention to a report that is critical of FirstNet’s relationship with AT&T in terms of billions of dollars in investments. The report, which was published in November 2022, was based on the findings of auditors at the office of the Inspector General at the US Department of Commerce. FirstNet is owned by the FirstNet Authority.

President Joe Biden called on Congress during his State of the Union address to pass legislation that would prevent operators from levying so-called “junk fees.” That’s unlikely to actually happen, but similar ideas could be adopted at the state level and operators will be left looking for new ways to pass on costs to consumers. The details of the Junk Fee Prevention Act have yet to be released.

Peter Dresslar, a broadband and digital equity consultant for both the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) and American Samoa, is of two minds. While he knows that the Federal Communications Commission is working as hard as it can to deliver accurate broadband maps to the country, some of the oversights in the mapping of the Pacific Territories have been darkly comic.