Joan Engebretson

A lot of hopes are riding on the auction of spectrum in the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) band, which has a start date of July 23. The spectrum is considered mid-band – and industry stakeholders increasingly see mid-band spectrum offering the optimum mixture of bandwidth and coverage for 5G deployments. Perhaps no one has higher hopes for the auction than Verizon, which is light on mid-band spectrum holdings.

Frontier has filed a waiver request with the Federal Communications Commission, the resolution of which could impact the company’s ability to participate in Phase 1 of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction, scheduled to begin in Oct. Frontier entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April.

Wireless equipment provider Nokia expects the International Telecommunications Union to begin work on defining the next generation of wireless technology to be known as 6G in 2021. But the company already has some ideas of its own about what 6G should look like. Nokia visionaries see the technology supporting peak speeds of 1,000 Gbps, and they see service being deployed in the terahertz (THz) band, which is even higher frequency than the multi-gigahertz (GHz) millimeter wave bands that are being pioneered for 5G.

Charter plans to participate in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction. Depending how successful the company is in the auction, the build-out could involve multiple millions of locations and an investment of multiple billions of dollars, Charter said.  Major cable companies-turned-broadband providers such as Charter traditionally have not participated in government funding programs.

NTCA — The Rural Broadband Association and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) asked the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to relax certain rules for the ReConnect rural broadband funding program. The ReConnect program covers some of the costs of deploying broadband to unserved rural areas where build-out costs are high. ReConnect 100% grant awards require matching funds, and currently, recipients must spend all matching funds before they can begin using grant funding.

Communications industry financial analysts at MoffettNathanson Research expect to see continued cable broadband market share gains, which have accelerated as bandwidth demand climbs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The researchers’ “equilibrium” forecast calls for DSL market share to drop to zero. And “mid-tier” telco broadband increasingly is becoming “just as obsolete,” the researchers said. “Broadband is increasingly a two-horse race between cable and telco FTTH, where it exists,” the analysts argue.

Satellite broadband provider Telesat has joined the rural broadband consortium that Mississippi wireless and broadband provider C Spire established in 2019. The consortium was created with the goal of spurring broadband adoption and deployment. Other consortium members include equipment providers Airspan Networks, Microsoft, Nokia, and Siklu. Telesat will provide “analysis tools” and expertise in low earth orbit (LEO) technology to “help the consortium work on new business models designed to encourage and promote third-party engagement,” a press release explains.

The Federal Communications Commission has received challenges from about 180 entities that have stated that they provide broadband at speeds of at least 25 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream, along with voice service, to at least part of census blocks that were on the commission’s preliminary list of areas eligible for the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) reverse auction scheduled to start in Oct.

With the shift to distance learning due to COVID-19, some rural telecommunication providers – including South Dakota’s Golden West Telecommunications and Golden Belt Telephone (GBT) of Kansas — have stepped up to add free Wi-Fi hotspots and even to bring broadband to homes with school-age children at no charge. In bringing broadband directly to some homes, Golden West technicians avoided direct contact with residents by using what CEO Denny Law called a MacGyver approach in a reference to the vintage and current television series about a government agent who uses an engineering approach to

CenturyLink has warned the Federal Communications Commission that the company may not meet deadlines for completing broadband deployments funded through the CAF (Connect America Fund) program. In a meeting with senior commission officials, CenturyLink representatives attributed the deployment delays to the COVID-19 pandemic and asked the commission for a deployment deadline extension.