Linda Hardesty

In April 2023, the Federal Communications Commission’s Space Bureau and Wireless Telecommunications Bureau opened a proceeding to accept comments on filings by SpaceX and T-Mobile to establish supplemental wireless coverage from space.

Mears is a division of Quanta that provides construction services for fiber broadband deployment projects.

AT&T CEO John Stankey specified the main factors that AT&T considers for a fiber build. For about three years, AT&T has been clearly communicating its two main focuses—5G and fiber. In terms of fiber, it set a goal to pass 30 million locations with fiber by 2025. It closed 2022 with a total of 24 million passings. Stankey said the fiber build and the consumer response to it have been going well.

The prospect of billions of dollars flowing to states from the Broadband Equity Access & Deployment (BEAD) program is causing private equity companies to also flood the market with investment funds for fiber. On a panel at the recent Connect(X) conference in New Orleans (LA), panelists were asked if private equity companies will compete for BEAD funds or if they will add to the overall investment in fiber.

Billions of dollars are about to flow from the Broadband Equity Access & Deployment (BEAD) Program, which is driving all kinds of interest in delivering fiber broadband to unserved and underserved areas of the US. In addition, the wireless carriers, T-Mobile and Verizon, are deploying fixed wireless access (FWA) in many underserved areas where people have never been happy with their choices of low-speed cable or DSL. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said, “I don't think we competed as well for the lower end of the market.

WIA Connect(X) show panelists were asked if there is a magic number that developers should target for the cost per home passed with fiber. Beth Hoffman, managing director with Berkshire Partners, said that a lot of it depends on the density of the market. The cost per home passed in a dense city like San Francisco (CA) could be as low as $700.

Everybody in the wireless ecosystem is clamoring for Congress to reinstate the spectrum auction authority of the Federal Communications Commission. One former deputy at the FCC speculates that the delay may be related to the Department of Defense (DoD) wanting to wait for a spectrum report that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is working on. NTIA is doing an assessment of the use of the 3.1-3.45 GHz spectrum.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has expressed a preference for fiber when it comes to dispensing $42.5 billion from the Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) funding. But the NTIA rules allow U.S. states some leeway in regard to areas where it will be extremely expensive to deploy fiber. Specifically, states and territories must define their thresholds for extreme high-cost locations.

Windstream, a privately held company that provides wired broadband, has completed the removal of all Huawei equipment from its network.

Hughes has been offering geosynchronous (GEO) satellite-based internet service for a couple of decades. It has more than 1 million internet subscribers in the Americas. But now it’s boosting its service with the help of some terrestrial wireless providers. HughesNet Fusion is a new home internet offering that combines satellite and wireless technologies to improve latency.