Joan Engebretson

Analytics and consulting firm GlobalData is recommending that telecommunication companies and webscale companies work together to develop communications services based on balloons and drones. Using atmospheric satellite balloons and drones in telecom could support emergency communications and could provide coverage in unserved areas, GlobalData said. Some US carriers, including AT&T, have used or are looking at using drones in telecom to act as cellsites during service outages when traditional cellsite infrastructure is damaged.

When 21 rural electric cooperatives decided to submit a joint bid to receive funding for gigabit broadband in the Connect America Fund (CAF) II auction, their reason was a simple one. Consultants helping with bids were only allowed to work with a single bidder — and submitting a joint bid as the Rural Electric Cooperative Consortium enabled multiple co-ops to work with consulting firm Conexon. Telecompetitor talked with Jonathan Chambers, one of two partners who created Conexon with the goal of seeing fiber brought to rural America.

Electric cooperative gigabit is becoming more commonplace, as news from Aug 28 about four electric cooperative gigabit deployments illustrates.

5G and smart cities could have a lot of synergies, as research firm Kagan explains in a new research note. Researchers drew on Verizon’s experience in the first four markets where the carrier will deploy fixed 5G wireless, but their observations could apply to mobile 5G as well.

A consortium established by Gov Rick Snyder (R-MI) has come up with a wide range of recommendations for increasing broadband availability in the state, which currently ranks 30th among the 50 states in broadband availability and 34th on broadband adoption.

Broadband is a critical element of a new approach to rural higher education that aims to combine the best of on-line and in-class teaching techniques to address what some people call rural “higher education deserts.” By using broadband in rural higher education deserts, in combination with brick-and-mortar higher education centers, some states are finding ways of enabling local residents to earn college degrees.

Google is seeking industry support for a new Google Fiber vision for a passive optical network (PON) fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) architecture that would increase the distance between the central office and the customer, said Claudio DeSanti, architect for Google. The Google SuperPON architecture would support up to 1,024 customers over distances up to 50 kilometers– a substantial change from today’s architecture that supports up to 64 customers over distances of up to 20 kilometers. The goal would be to minimize the amount of fiber required to support FTTH and the associated labor.

Individual service providers will be able to apply for loans, grants or a combination of the two in the upcoming $600 million US Department of Agriculture rural broadband pilot program, said Jannine Miller, senior advisor for rural infrastructure for the USDA. Traditionally, USDA has administered separate broadband loan and grant programs and has not had “the ability to package a loan and grant together – now we do with the rural broadband pilot program,” said Miller.

More than three-quarters (82.4%) of K-12 schools in areas served by rural telecommunication companies are connected to the internet over fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) infrastructure, according to a new survey of rural telco members of NTCA – The Rural Broadband Association. The NTCA rural anchor institution fiber connectivity report also found that 75.9% of hospitals and medical clinics and 63.9% of public libraries in respondents’ serving areas are FTTP-connected.

A new report from the American Action Forum questions the economic impact of rural broadband.