Joan Engebretson

NH legislators in 2019 passed a law allowing municipalities to fund broadband networks through bond offerings – and that action already is spurring broadband deployment in sparsely populated areas of the state. One of the biggest beneficiaries of this is Consolidated Communications. Consolidated is already offering service on a new network in Chesterfield (NH) that was paid for, in part, by Consolidated and, in part, by the city.

As he was researching an upcoming book on rural broadband policy — including reviewing every comment filed with the Federal Communications Commission or the US Department of Agriculture about the 2009 broadband stimulus program, the Broadband Opportunity Council or the USDA E-Connectivity program — Professor Christopher Ali of the University of Virginia realized that he “needed to humanize” the research. Thus began a 4,000-mile rural road trip, in which Ali visited rural broadband providers, state broadband officials and other stakeholders based largely in the Midwest.

USTelecom, which represents large and small incumbent telecommunication companies, including AT&T, Verizon, and CenturyLink, supported a report that discusses the Federal Communications Commission's upcoming Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF). The report was written by Tony Clark, a former chairman of the North Dakota Public Service Commission and past president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, and Monica Martinez, a former Michigan public services commissioner. A current concern expressed by the authors pertains specifically to the price cap carriers

Verizon Chairman and CEO Hans Vestberg said that the company is installing 1400 miles of fiber per month and that it will begin offering multi-access edge computing (MEC) in fourth quarter. Verizon fiber deployments are critical to supporting a mixture of services, Vestberg said. “One part of the whole intelligent edge network was that . . .

Altice became the latest cable company to launch a mobile service offering. The offering, Altice Mobile, comes with an attractive introductory price of just $20 a month “for life” for unlimited data, text, talk and mobile hotspot nationwide. The $20 offer is only available to people who subscribe to Altice’s Optimum or Suddenlink service, however.

A Verizon Boingo deal aims to bring Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband coverage indoors, thereby extending the range of the service, which operates in the millimeter wave spectrum band. In addition, Verizon said it will launch 5G Ultra Wideband service in Phoenix (AZ) Aug 23. Phoenix will be the tenth market in which Verizon has launched mobile 5G service. As with previous Verizon mobile 5G launches, coverage areas will be limited. 

As much as 38 percent of rural locations in census blocks reported to have broadband available to them may actually lack broadband, according to USTelecom. The organization, which represents broadband providers, undertook a pilot test earlier in 2019 aimed at addressing problems with Federal Communications Commission broadband availability data as depicted on the National Broadband Map. The results of the USTelecom broadband map pilot have now been filed with the FCC. 

The Federal Communications Commission released a report on the 911 outage originating in CenturyLink’s network that occurred Dec 27, 2018. The findings are the latest example of the risks involved in what the FCC calls the telecom “tech transition.” The 911 outage studied in the report was what is known as a “sunny day” outage – one not caused by weather or other natural disaster.

CenturyLink said that it will invest “several hundred million dollars” in edge computing, following in the footsteps of AT&T and Verizon. AT&T and Verizon both have mobile businesses and with the advent of low-latency 5G networks, they and other mobile carriers are recognizing the need to minimize the distance between mobile users and the cloud. CenturyLink’s entry into edge computing suggests that the edge compute market may be like the fiber backhaul market— a mobile-driven opportunity even for non-mobile carriers.

Frontier Communications CEO Dan McCarthy was not surprised by -- but is not enthusiastic --  about some aspects of the proposed Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF), which would essentially replace the Connect America broadband funding program for the nation’s larger price cap carriers. His concerns relate to the proposed reverse auction, which would be used to award program funding. In the Connect America Fund program, price cap carriers had a right of first refusal on Connect America Fund (CAF) support for their local service territories.