1. Monthly archive
  2. May 2019

May 2019

Could Comcast and Charter Become America’s fourth Major Wireless Carrier?

The Department of Justice reportedly talked to representatives from Comcast and Charter recently about filling the void of the fourth major US wireless carrier that would be created if T-Mobile and Sprint are allowed to merge. Apparently, as a condition for approving T-Mobile’s $26.5 billion acquisition bid for Sprint, the DOJ wants the Number 3 & 4 wireless companies to divest wireless spectrum and enable a fourth US major wireless carrier. For their part, Comcast and Charter both have nascent mobile services through mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) agreements with Verizon.

FCC broadband report ignores affordability issue

There are several serious problems with the Federal Communications Commission's 2019 Broadband Deployment Report, but here’s the one we’re most concerned about: The FCC majority has chosen, once again, to ignore the critical issues of broadband cost and affordability in its analysis of “whether advanced telecommunications capability is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.” The cost of broadband Internet service, and households’ ability to pay that cost, are important determinants of broadband access.

Loon helps restore internet access in Peru

In the wake of an earthquake in Peru, Alphabet's Loon unit was able to quickly restore temporary internet access using its balloons. This was due, in large part, because it had already been in talks with Telefonica to bring its service to parts of the country and had offered its service in 2017 after flooding. Loon delivered the first service to Peru's earthquake-hit areas within 48 hours, as compared to the 4 weeks it took to deliver the first Loon-based connections to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. Loon served about 20,000 unique users in the first 2 days of service.

State of Mobile USA: Quantifying the bar for 5G to beat

Opensignal has benchmarked the experience smartphone users receive in every US state and the fifty largest cities immediately prior to 5G’s launch so it’s easy to see to what extent 5G offers an improvement. In the last year, the download speeds experienced by smartphone users in the US have improved little, rising from 17 megabits per second (Mbps) to 21.3 Mbps between the first quarter of 2018 and the same period in 2019. There’s lots of room for improvement but only a new technology like 5G is likely to lead to a step-change improvement in the mobile network experience. Key findings:

Sponsor: 

Bloomberg

Date: 
Thu, 06/06/2019 - 13:00 to 16:00

People often focus on the consumer market benefits of 5G — the enhanced speed, higher quality video streaming and efficiency — but the advancement in wireless connectivity also presents a whole new set of opportunities and challenges for the enterprise.


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