Phil Goldstein

As state and local governments look ahead to applying for broadband grants that are part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, some governments are not waiting around for that new federal money to get started on their efforts to expand access to high-speed internet service.

Chattanooga (TN) has the fastest internet in the United States. Why is that? The Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, the city’s municipally owned telecom and utilities provider, has invested heavily in fiber-optic network infrastructure, delivering 1-gigabit-per-second connections. That has enabled residents to access superfast broadband services, but it could also spur the deployment of new services, including telehealth. The city is actively exploring the idea of delivering telehealth services to residents who subscribe to EPB broadband services.

Dish Network Chairman Charlie Ergen said he remains open to a partnership with T-Mobile US or another wireless carrier.

He also said that Sprint's decision to abandon merger talks with T-Mobile increases Dish's options for entering the wireless market. Ergen also reiterated that it is "relatively unlikely" that Dish will try to build out its spectrum by itself or just sell its spectrum.

T-Mobile US said it added 1.47 million total net new subscribers in the second quarter, including 908,000 branded postpaid net adds.

While T-Mobile didn't report quite as many postpaid net adds in the period as Verizon Wireless, it did have more total new subscriber additions and it showed strong growth in phone subscriber additions.

T-Mobile also said it now expects to add between 3 million and 3.5 million branded postpaid net subscribers in 2014, up from its previous estimate between 2.8 million and 3.3 million. T-Mobile has added 2.23 million branded postpaid customers so far.

T-Mobile CEO John Legere concluded: "The company is not in need of doing something [in terms of a deal] to be successful in the short to medium term."

Neustar, the telecommunications data service provider, is strongly protesting a recommendation that Ericsson's Telcordia unit be named as the winner of a major telephone-numbers management contract.

The contract, which Neustar has had with the US government since 1997, makes up nearly half of Neustar's revenue. At issue is which vendor is going to be the US government's neutral and tested local number portability administrator (LNPA), which helps phone subscribers keep their numbers when switching carriers.

Neustar argued that Ericsson has a vested interest in the success of its US carrier customers and that as a network vendor it cannot be viewed as neutral, and neither can SunGard, Ericsson's subcontractor for data center services, because it has connections to interconnected VoIP and telecom service providers.

Verizon Wireless hit back hard against the Find Me 911 Coalition, arguing to the Federal Communications Commission that the group was spreading "misleading" information about how often Verizon provides the most precise location information needed for dispatchers and first responders to find callers.

Verizon told the FCC that it "does not take lightly such allegations and undertook an internal review of its own performance data in response to the claims."

T-Mobile US said 92 percent of MetroPCS' customers on its legacy code division multiple access (CDMA) network in Boston, Hartford (CT) and Las Vegas moved onto T-Mobile's network after T-Mobile shut off MetroPCS CDMA service in those markets.

The carrier next plans to shut down MetroPCS' CDMA network in Philadelphia by late 2014.

Sprint will work with its rural LTE roaming partners to get them access to LTE devices and network infrastructure for the 2.5 GHz band. Technology alignment is a part of the agreements that Sprint announced with 12 operators in mid-June.

The 12 agreements, which included a previously announced deal with nTelos Wireless, cover about 34 million POPs in 23 states.

Sprint also inked deals with SouthernLINC Wireless, C Spire Wireless, Nex-Tech Wireless, Flat Wireless, SI Wireless, which does business as MobileNation, Inland Cellular, Illinois Valley Cellular, Carolina West Wireless, James Valley Telecommunications, Phoenix Wireless and VTel Wireless.

The Rural Roaming Preferred Program, which Sprint developed in conjunction with the Competitive Carriers Association, is intended to expand LTE roaming and was announced last March. As part of its deal with the CCA, Sprint will use the CCA's data hub and allow CCA members to ink reciprocal roaming agreements with Sprint.

Sprint's deal with VTel provides a window into how the deals will work. VTel is running an LTE-only network using the 700 MHz C Block, AWS and 2.5 GHz spectrum. Sprint's deployment of 2.5 GHz LTE, especially using its new 8T9R radio heads, is a key factor in how it plans to set itself apart from the competition. The radios, combined with carrier aggregation technology, are expected to provide significant speed boosts compared to Sprint's current LTE deployment. If Sprint can get rural LTE partners to deploy such technology, it will extend its LTE network footprint and increase the size of the device and network ecosystem for 2.5 GHz LTE in the US market, which could lower costs.

CTIA President Meredith Attwell Baker wants to create a spectrum "report card" that would assess how efficiently government agencies are using their spectrum.

That's one piece of a broader agenda she has for getting more airwaves for mobile broadband use beyond this fall's coming auction of AWS-3 spectrum and the 2015 incentive auction of 600 MHz broadcast TV spectrum.

Baker, who became the head of the wireless industry's trade association and lobbying arm in early June, said a report card would "keep people's feet to the fire to make sure we're utilizing the spectrum, [and that] we're not warehousing it." She said that CTIA is going to continue to work towards the goal President Barack Obama laid out in 2010 to free up 500 MHz of spectrum for mobile and fixed wireless broadband use by 2020.

Baker said CTIA might push to go beyond that but wants to hit that milestone. Baker added that CTIA is also focused on sharing spectrum with federal agencies. "I want us to be at the forefront of sharing, and I want us to be able to test it and see how we can collaborate more successfully than we have in the past," she said.

One out of every three LTE smartphones shipped globally in the first quarter came to the United States, according to a new research report, another indication of the country's continued leadership in the LTE market.

According to Counterpoint's Market Monitor, the US led in the LTE smartphone market, which grew 91 percent year-over-year in the first quarter. According to Counterpoint's Neil Shah, LTE smartphones reached their highest ever first-quarter shipments, contributing to more than a fourth of the total smartphones shipments globally in the period.