Joan Engebretson

AT&T and Frontier have signed a deal that will enable AT&T to deploy wireless infrastructure in Frontier's central offices. The deal also calls for AT&T to purchase fiber connectivity to connect with cell towers that are in Frontier’s network.

Alaska Communications expanded broadband availability and boosted speeds to almost 5,000 homes in the Interior region of the state in 2022. The company used a wide range of last-mile technologies – from XGS-PON to fixed wireless, even some DSL — to achieve that. The Alaskan Interior can be thought of as the center of the state – the area most removed from the state’s lengthy coastline. Much of the area is wilderness.

Comcast plans to spend $36 million to deploy fiber broadband to unserved and underserved areas of 19 Indiana counties. The company has signed contracts with the state, which will contribute $13.6 million toward total project costs of $50 million. The state's funding comes through the Indiana Next Level Connections Broadband Grant Program.

Nextlink Internet, which was one of the top 10 winners in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) rural broadband funding auction, has purchased most of the assets of Bluestem Network, a fiber broadband provider based in Lancaster and Seward Counties in Nebraska. Nextlink said it plans on using Bluestem’s assets as “a base to continue growing our fiber internet presence across southeast Nebraska.” Nextlink is already deploying fiber in nearby Gage County.

Telephone companies (telcos) that have been deploying fiber broadband are having a moment in the sun, finally reversing years of broadband subscriber losses to the cable companies. But will this last? What has given telcos an edge is fiber broadband’s ability to support gigabit and even multi-gigabit speeds bi-directionally. With traditional technology, cable companies can offer gigabit and multi-gigabit speeds but only in the downstream direction.

Satellite operator Iridium is calling its new Iridium Go Exec device a “satellite access companion.” The device is designed to act more like a Wi-Fi hotspot in comparison with the previous generation device called simply Iridium Go. The new device is also more compact and connects more quickly, according to Iridium. End users will be able to use up to four smartphones and other Wi-Fi devices simultaneously with the device, which is available for sale now.

Charter President and CEO Chris Winfrey hopes to complete the company's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF)-funded rural broadband deployment ahead of time. Charter made broadband available to 200,000 new rural locations in 2022, according to Winfrey. The Charter rural take rate for “passings open at least six months” is “ahead of expectations at about 40%,” he said. Charter was one of the largest winners in the RDOF rural broadband program.

The Federal Communications Commission is encouraging state and local governments and broadband providers to file bulk challenges to the commission’s broadband serviceable location database by March 15, 2023.

AT&T expects to see Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funding flow from the federal government to the states and expects the “more aggressive” states to award some of that funding to broadband projects before the end of 2023, said AT&T CEO John Stankey. Citing the 80/20 rule, Stankey said, “The bigger states that are going to have the bulk of the funding are pretty zoned in on this and are moving pretty aggressively to get the process underway." Smaller states, he said, may “take a little bit longer to get their act together” and may be waiting to see what the more agg

Engineering firm Dewberry Alaska—in collaboration with mapping company Ecopia AI, Rasmuson Foundation, and the State of Alaska—is working on a broadband map based on what Ecopia AI is calling “an accurate, up-to-date and complete map of every building, in both rural and urban areas, in the state.” Ecopia AI’s specialty is applying artificial intelligence (AI) to satellite imagery to identify buildings.