Jeff Baumgartner

Fiber network deployments have reached a milestone as they now pass more than 50% of US households, according to recent data from the Fiber Broadband Association and RVA Market Research and Consulting. Almost 69 million of those locations are "unique" fiber homes, meaning that about 9 million are passed by more than one fiber provider. The share of broadband technology is also evolving. While hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) remains the primary way of delivering broadband, fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) and fixed wireless access (FWA) will continue to make their presence felt in the coming years.

While there's still a chance that funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) will be extended beyond April, one top policy expert fears that a successful extension faces an "uphill struggle." That was the assessment of New Street Research Policy Analyst Blair Levin, who shared his latest thoughts on the perils of the program in a research note. A pressing issue, he points out, is that ACP was not woven into Congress's latest budget package.

With the end of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) increasingly likely if Congress does not quickly step in with more funding, broadband operators are adjusting their game plans to continue to serve customers who have been benefiting from the program. Comcast, which has about 1.4 million customers on ACP, is no different.

Gigapower, the AT&T-BlackRock joint venture, has identified several towns in the southern Minneapolis-St. Paul area as expansion targets for a multi-gigabit fiber network that will be underpinned by an "open access" framework. Gigapower's expansion there will include Bloomington, Eden Prairie, Eagan, Savage, Apple Valley, Burnsville, Farmington, Lakeville, Rosemont and Shakopee.

A new sports streaming bundle from ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros.

Lumen Technologies expects to build fiber to an additional 500,000 locations in 2024, matching its pace for 2023. However, some industry watchers believe Lumen could open itself up to fiber overbuilders if it can't accelerate its pace. During Q4 2023, Lumen deployed fiber to another 126,000 new locations, down from 141,000 in the prior period, but ahead of the 113,000 that analysts were expecting.

Mobile operators will feel a financial twinge if the FCC's Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) is shut down this spring, but the cut won't cause extreme bleeding when it comes to subscribers, revenues and EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization).

New Street Research took a deeper dive into the risks faced by wireline broadband operators if the government fails to refund the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) and it were to be shut down this spring. The study confirms that Charter Communications faces the greatest risk—by far.

CableLabs, NCTA – The Internet & Television Association, and several large and midsized cable operators are promoting a new framework profile for secure Internet routing that they hope to expand and enhance by engaging with other types of service providers, Internet organizations and IP networking groups. CableLabs has released a "Cybersecurity Framework Profile for Internet Routing" that aims to serve as the foundation for improving the security of the Internet's routing system, with an emphasis on core routing protocols such as the Border Gateway Protocol, the Resource Public Key Infr

The next chapter in cable and fiber networks will see cable operators focus on a new phase of their widely deployed hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) networks as telephone companies – and some cable operators – maintain their pursuit of speedier passive optical network (PON) and Ethernet technologies. DOCSIS 4.0 represents the next generation of HFC, enabling symmetrical multi-gigabit speeds, enhanced security and lower latency.