Wireless Telecommunications

The race to 5G is forcing the world's biggest telecom giants to consolidate. 5G is all about scale; when companies combine, they have more resources and capital to bid on spectrum and build out tools to get ahead. Orange and Masmovil announced they entered exclusive talks to merge their operations in Spain at a valuation of €19.6 billion ($21.7 billion).

Charter CEO Tom Rutledge remains a believer in the bundle — just with different parts.

AT&T offered more concrete plans for its telecommunications operations after it abandons the entertainment business, detailing goals to drop old copper telephone networks and build new fiber-optic lines. AT&T said it would focus its investments on fifth-generation wireless network connections and fiber-optic lines. To that end, the company said it would cut its network of copper lines—a legacy of its landline telephone network—in half by 2025, allowing the company to serve 75 percent of its network footprint using 5G and fiber.

The way T-Mobile sees it, about 40 percent of the US population lives in smaller markets and rural areas – and the company expects to see strong growth in those areas moving forward. Those markets now represent one-third of the company’s net account production, even though the company is still deploying service to those markets and currently has service available to only about one-third of the small and rural markets in the US, said Peter Osvaldik, T-Mobile executive vice president and chief financial officer. Those new accounts are “very high-quality accounts,” Osvaldik added.

Sens John Cornyn (R-TX) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) introduced the Safely Accessing Telecommunications (SAT) Act, which would authorize the US State Department and Department of Defense to enter into contracts with satellite cellular and internet providers to provide direct connectivity in conflict regions. The SAT Act would:

T-Mobile is using its considerable legal muscle to try and prevent the terms of its 2.5 GHz spectrum leases from being revealed. This is particularly newsworthy right now because the Federal Communications Commission recently announced it would kick off the process for its Auction 108 in July 2022. Auction 108 is the auction of 2.5 GHz spectrum in the “white-space” gaps in the band that are currently lying fallow.

Boost Mobile appears happy with an earlier go selling Cox prepaid home internet service at its retail stores in a few markets, as distribution has expanded more broadly to all Boost store locations within the cable operator’s footprint. In December 2021, Boost Mobile, the Dish-owned prepaid brand, started selling Cox’s Straight Up Internet service in select stores in Las Vegas (NV) and Phoenix (AZ) while mulling a wider push.

This paper aims to: 1) outline why the Federal Communications Commission is the appropriate authority to resolve commercial spectrum disputes; 2) outline how the interagency process works and the role the National Telecommunications and Information Administration plays in resolving issues with government spectrum incumbents; and 3) demonstrate the importance of coordination by reviewing a few recent examples of government agencies circumventing this interagency process and the problems that has created.

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said that the company’s mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) service runs on “the best network.” Roberts was referring to the fact that Xfinity Wireless rides on Verizon’s network due to a wholesale agreement between the two companies. Roberts bragged that Comcast and Verizon recently updated their agreement to make improvements. The wholesale agreement specifies that Comcast can use its Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum to offload mobile traffic from Verizon’s network.

In July 2021, the Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau released its report on the state of the Lifeline marketplace. The aim of the report was to identify areas for FCC consideration regarding the continued transition of Lifeline from a program that primarily supports voice services to one with a greater focus on supporting broadband Internet access service. Unfortunately, there are three critical questions I noticed the FCC’s Lifeline report did not address: