1. Monthly archive
  2. September 2022

September 2022

NTT builds municipal private wireless network for City of Las Vegas

NTT is building a private wireless network for the City of Las Vegas, Nevada. The new 5G network will be the most extensive private wireless network in the US. The City of Las Vegas intends for the network to serve as an open platform available to local businesses, government, and educational institutions. Shahid Ahmed, Group EVP of New Ventures and Innovation at NTT, said the network is currently in the testing stages and will be launched “in the next few weeks.” He specified that it’s not a direct-to-consumer service.

Bridging the Digital Divide in Socio-Economically Disadvantaged Communities in the South

The Southern Rural Development Center in partnership with the Purdue Center for Regional Development received funding from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to document digital exclusion among disadvantaged groups in the South, gauge the digital inclusion capacity of Cooperative Extension personnel, and design and implement programs and resources to tackle digital exclusion. As part of this effort, a survey was conducted to better understand the depth and breadth of digital exclusion among disadvantaged groups in the South.

Alabama Governor Ivey Awards $82.45 Million for Improved Access to Broadband through Alabama Middle-Mile Network

Governor Kay Ivey (R-AL) awarded an $82.45 million grant to help make statewide broadband service availability a more attainable goal throughout Alabama.

Community-wide broadband adoption and student academic achievement

This study examines the relationship between broadband adoption and county-level educational achievement in the US in which a novel measure of home broadband subscriptions to explore longitudinal community impacts of broadband adoption on aggregated standardized test scores in math and reading/language arts for students enrolled in 3rd-8th grades. A panel was created of US counties and measured the effect of broadband adoption on student educational achievement by estimating a fixed effect estimator. Key highlights from the research showed the following:

Fiber Broadband Association CEO says ‘no one too expensive to reach’ with fiber

A recent round of government grants revealed the startling costs associated with covering residents in the most remote parts of the US. But while $200,000 per passing might seem like an eye-popping figure, Fiber Broadband Association CEO Gary Bolton noted that the cost applies to only the most extreme deployments. And in any event, he added, the long-term economic and systemic benefits of bringing fiber to such locations outweigh the upfront costs. According to Bolton, the average cost for a Tier-1 operator to deploy fiber is between $600 to $1,500 per passing.

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