Joan Engebretson

Service provider associations are urging the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to take a strong role in implementing the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. The $42.5 billion program calls for each of the 50 states to make decisions about awarding rural broadband funding but directs NTIA to oversee the program.

Rural-focused service provider Nextlink announced plans to deploy fiber and fixed wireless broadband in 10 counties in east-central Illinois in cooperation with Eastern Illini Electric Cooperative (EIEC). An EIEC spokesperson said the cooperative is not contributing toward the cost of the network build, stating, “EIEC is in the process of implementing an advanced metering system. It requires an extensive communication network.

Fiber network consolidation continues with the news of a complementary merger between MetroNet and Vexus Fiber. MetroNet operates primarily in multiple Midwest and southeastern states, while Vexus has concentrated on Texas, New Mexico and Louisiana. Both companies have been expanding aggressively through internal growth. MetroNet and Vexus will continue to operate under their current brands with their current management teams.

The Senate has confirmed Alan Davidson as the new National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) administrator, and Davidson will need to hit the ground running as NTIA is responsible for the lion’s share of the $65 billion allotted for broadband in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The broadband deployment programs for which NTIA is responsible include the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, the Tribal program and the Middle-Mile program. The BEAD has a budget of $42.5 billion and the other programs add $6 billion to that.

Lumen plans to increase locations reached by fiber from the current 2.5 million to 12 million, representing a five-times increase over the company’s traditional deployment rate according to President and CEO Jeff Storey. Those deployments target the 16 states that Lumen will retain after plans to sell its local exchange business in 20 states to Apollo Funds are completed.

Not long after the Federal Communications Commission announced that LTD Broadband was the largest winning bidder in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction, critics began questioning the company’s ability to meet rural broadband deployment commitments at the level of funding tentatively won. “We’re building fiber networks today and we know experientially what it costs us,” said LTD Broadband CEO Corey Hauer. Broadband construction costs, deployment times and competition are different in rural areas than in metro areas, Hauer noted.

The City of Amarillo (TX) plans to use American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to build a fixed wireless network targeting low-income households. “We will lead with that technology; it doesn’t mean we won’t have to change moving down the road [or] where we can’t do line-of-sight,” said Rich Gagnon, the city's managing director and chief information officer. A particular concern in Amarillo was the large number of refugees – 12,000 – who have settled in the city, many of whom do not have broadband available to them.

Internet service provider EarthLink has joined a growing number of companies offering fixed wireless service. The company’s offering, dubbed EarthLink Wireless Home Internet, uses LTE or 5G for connectivity to the internet and can support up to 64 devices, in comparison with 10 devices for a mobile hotspot. A typical household has 11 connected devices, EarthLink notes on its website.

T-Mobile plans to make its Ultra Capacity 5G service available to 100 million more Americans in 2022, and as the company’s President of Technology Neville Ray told investors, it will have to expand its geographic coverage five-fold to achieve that goal, reaching many rural areas. Ultra Capacity 5G is the name that T-Mobile uses for 5G deployed in mid-band spectrum, which is widely viewed as supporting the optimum mixture of range and speed.

After years of broadband subscriber losses, larger telecom companies are poised to see subscriber gains in the 2023 to 2024 time frame, according to researchers at investment bank Cowen. This will occur as the telecom companies complete “record-setting” fiber broadband deployments. But the cable companies’ broadband market share will decline only slightly, from 60 percent today to 58 percent in 2027, the researchers argue. Meanwhile, the size of the broadband market will increase.