Joan Engebretson

A new association to be known as the American Association of Public Broadband (AAPB) was recently announced. AAPB aims to advocate for municipal networks and is open to government agencies that are planning to build or that currently own or operate a municipal network, as reported by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. These networks could involve public-private partnerships.

T-Mobile has a secret sauce for selling T-Mobile Home fixed wireless service in rural areas that involves a granular competitive analysis of 775 sub-markets, said CEO Mike Sievert. The company is seeing strong growth for the fixed wireless offering, having reached 1 million subscribers in less than a year.

Eleven New Mexico telecom and broadband providers are planning a statewide fiber network to be known as NM Fiber Network LLC. The network is a “multi-year, multi-million dollar” undertaking, NM Fiber Network said. Between them, the 11 providers already have thousands of miles of fiber across the state. The project is expected to augment those assets by increasing capacity and improving reliability. The genesis of the NM Fiber Network was in the New Mexico Broadband Initiative Consortium formed by the governor’s office to develop a state broadband roadmap.

The last two years or so have seen a slew of broadband providers rename either themselves or their services. Some are even using a brand name as though it was a company, issuing press releases that scarcely reference the official corporate identity, instead using only the brand name as the protagonist. In the latter category is Windstream, which routinely issues press releases under the Kinetic name.

As the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) gears up to administer the $42.5 billion Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) rural broadband infrastructure funding program, NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson gave an update at a Washington (DC) event on April 13. Among many broadband infrastructure funding topics discussed, Davidson seemed particularly upbeat about progress with the $1 billion Middle Mile Broadband Infrastructure Program, which is a component of the larger $65 billion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

One-third of T-Mobile fixed wireless access (FWA) subscribers are in rural areas, according to an estimate from telecom financial analysts at MoffettNathanson. It’s a surprising finding, considering that the analysts estimate that only 6 percent of locations that can get T-Mobile fixed wireless are in rural areas. Forty-four percent of T-Mobile fixed wireless subscribers are in urban census blocks, which represent 74 percent of locations that can get T-Mobile fixed wireless, according to the estimates.

Charter said it has applied to receive $21 million in funding through the Tennessee Emergency Broadband Fund – American Rescue Plan program to cover the majority of the costs for a rural broadband build in Henderson County (TN). The company has become quite aggressive on rural broadband, which it sees as an opportunity to gain broadband and video subscribers in markets with little or no competition. The company was one of the biggest winners in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) rural broadband auction.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) should prioritize funding for fiber broadband in rules for the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, said NTCA—The Rural Broadband Association and the Fiber Broadband Association (FBA) in a letter to Alan Davidson, head of NTIA, which will be administering the BEAD program in conjunction with individual states. NTCA and FBA recommendations for the BEAD program include:

Seven technology industry associations sent a joint letter to the Senate majority and minority leaders urging the Senate to confirm Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] as the fifth Federal Communications Commissioner. Associations signing the letter included service provider groups INCOMPAS and NTCA – The Rural Broadband Association, as well as the Consumer Technology Association, Chamber of Progress, CompTIA, Computer & Communications Industry Association, and Internet Infrastructure Coalition.

The Illinois Electric Cooperative (IEC) said it will use funding received through the Connect America Fund II (CAF II) auction to deploy fixed wireless in rural Pike County (IL). IEC will use technology from Ericsson and Xtreme LTE for the deployment, which will use the CBRS spectrum. The companies did not indicate whether the spectrum to be used is in the licensed or unlicensed portion of the band. Fixed wireless technology has made big gains in recent years, and both LTE and CBRS spectrum were key developments to boost speeds and performance.