Matt Hamblen

COVID-19 highlights society’s inability to cope, even amid the technology prowess of the US.  In the land that invented the microchip, we have neglected the fundamentals. One particular concern is how internet broadband is not available to many workers and students in some rural and inner-city areas and on Native American lands. If you can’t work or take classes from home because you don't have internet, you are at a distinct disadvantage.

Google, Microsoft and Facebook are cranking up an emerging wireless technology known as Wi-FAR to help reduce the digital divide in remote and unconnected regions of the world.

Wi-FAR is a recently trademarked name from the nonprofit WhiteSpace Alliance (WSA) that refers to the 802.22 wireless standard first approved by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2011. The standard shares the underused TV band of spectrum called whitespace to send wireless signals, typically over distances of six to 18 miles in rural and remote areas.

For an impoverished or sparsely populated region where businesses and schoolchildren have little Internet access, Wi-FAR could be a godsend when used to link base stations (typically found at the ground level of cell towers) in a distributed network.

The price war over data and voice costs among US carriers is having an impact on first-time smartphone buyers. For feature-phone customers planning to buy their first smartphone, 26% said they plan to change to another carrier, according to a survey released by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.

Another 44% said they might change carriers. "The quest for cheaper calls and lower data plans is driving the need for change" to another carrier, the analyst firm said.

T-Mobile has been driving much of the low-price pressure in the market, along with no contract plans. Other major carriers have been quick to respond to, or even match those offers.

However, the survey shows that more T-Mobile's feature phone customers, 21%, are planning to change carriers when buying their first smartphone than Verizon customers, 19%. Sprint had the most feature-phone customers seeking to change carriers to get their first smartphone, with 36%, while AT&T was second, with 29%. Verizon also had the highest number of feature phone owners switching to a first smartphone who said they would not switch carriers, with 39%. AT&T ranked second with 30% on that measure, followed by T-Mobile, 29%, and Sprint, 21%.