Linda Hardesty

Wireless internet service providers (WISPs) hit a homerun when federal officials clarified that areas covered by broadband running on Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum could be marked as served for purposes of BEAD. Many folks in the fiber broadband community are not familiar with wireless internet service and the rules regarding wireless spectrum.

The Michigan High Speed Internet Office kicked off its BEAD challenge process this week, and it’s doing everything in its power to scrub the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) map of locations where providers are overstating their coverage. The state is receiving a historic $1.56 billion BEAD funding allocation—the fourth highest in the nation.

The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) required the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to adopt rules to prevent and eliminate digital discrimination in regard to access to broadband, and those rules went into effect on March 22.

There’s a lot of talk about how the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) might make a mess of things with the Broadband Equity, Access & Deployment (BEAD) program. That’s because if a location is covered by an RDOF award, then it’s ineligible for a BEAD grant. Unfortunately, many RDOF awardees have officially defaulted on their obligations to build fiber, or they just haven’t made any progress in deploying the fiber.

Chris Scharrer, founder and CEO of DCS Technology Design, claims that Mercury Broadband has overstated its ability to provide fixed wireless access (FWA) in 12 Michigan counties on the FCC’s broadband map. And he says this is deterring other providers from competing for Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) grants. Scharrer has mapping data that shows Mercury has claimed it provides practically ubiquitous coverage across 12 counties in Southern Michigan.

There's this annoying saying from coaches in every sport: "No pain, no gain." But that’s what seems to be going on with the big fiber equipment vendors before they start seeing revenues from Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) funds. “Last year was a very challenging year because we had an inventory work-down year,” said Gary Bolton, president and CEO of the Fiber Broadband Association. He said that during the Covid years, service providers were “buying up anything they could” and “stockpiling” because of concerns about the supply chain.

Cartesian is a Boston-based consulting firm that has become a familiar name in the telecommunications world.

T-Mobile is making steady progress with its initiative to offer fiber internet service. It’s now selling fiber service in 13 markets, according to the “availability” tab on its T-Fiber website. The wireless carrier seems to prefer working with providers who build open-access networks. These networks are deployed by one company and then leased to multiple internet service providers, which can then offer broadband service to end customers. In its 13 markets, the company is working with:

There’s a lot of talk in the financial world, speculating that Dish Network will file for bankruptcy. The talk seems to be stemming from the fact that Dish has made some complicated corporate and financial maneuvers in the last few months. In late 2023, EchoStar Corporation acquired Dish Network.

During the fourth quarter 2023, the top three wireless operators in the US reported a total of 1.78 million new postpaid phone subscribers. How can each carrier report growth in postpaid phone subscribers each quarter in a country whose population is not growing very much? Recon Analytics Analyst Roger Entner said that question is top-of-mind among the operators, who pay Recon substantial sums of money for survey data to try and figure out the answers.