Reporting

Georgia has found a way to get bids for, and ultimately service to, its most unserved areas. Georgia’s Deputy State Chief Information Officer and Executive Director of the Georgia Broadband Program, Jessica Simmons, said the state's Capital Projects Fund (CPF) program, funded by the federal American Rescue Plan Act,  enabled its success.

Netflix and SK Broadband, one of South Korea’s largest internet service providers, are ending all their lawsuits and are instead creating a strategic partnership to provide better entertainment experiences to Korean customers. The legal dispute began in 2020 over whether content providers that generate large amounts of traffic should pay “network usage fees” in addition to the bills paid by the household end users, or whether that would go against the principle of net neutrality and lead to higher costs for consumers. Netflix said that it could offer a technological solution to traffic volu

Texas could have nearly $5 billion directed toward expanding broadband availability statewide if voters approve a state constitutional amendment on the ballot in November. Texas will receive more than $3.3 billion in federal money—more than any other state—to help expand broadband access.

Brightspeed will open the "Brightspeed Technology Advancement Center" (BTAC) in Kansas City (MO) to recreate its network infrastructure and generate a test environment. Simulating a real network environment will enable Brightspeed to work with hardware and software for voice, DSL, broadband fiber and Wi-Fi to improve customer experience and network efficiency. BTAC will also bring Brightspeed employees and vendor partners together to develop, test and launch new products that reduce outages, lower repair times, address device and software bugs, and reconfigure network deployments.

Black Rock, AT&T, and Gigapower executives shared their vision for the joint venture and how they expect to change attitudes toward open access. Adam Waltz, Managing Director of Black Rock’s Global Infrastructure Fund was excited because the company sees the US as underpenetrated when it comes to fiber broadband. Gigapower CEO Bill Hogg said, “scale will be a differentiator” beacuse the network’s scale will appeal to service providers interested in offering service over the network because “you don’t want to make [them] invest over and over with a lot of small players.” Erin Scarborough

T-Mobile is in discussions with Tilman FiberCo to build out a fiber-optic network, setting the stage for the company to enter the landline broadband business. This would be the biggest bet T-Mobile has made in fiber-optic infrastructure, and put it in competiton with cable providers. A deal would make T-Mobile an anchor tenant in a newly formed infrastructure joint venture between Tillman FiberCo and private equity firm Northleaf Capital Partners. Under the agreement, Tillman—financed by Northleaf—would build out network infrastructure to various neighborhoods and business districts and fil

Cox Communications was the biggest winner in Florida broadband funding, and will get over $80 million for 11 projects. Fellow cable provider Comcast was the second biggest winner and will take home over $60 million for 34 projects, followed by Conexon, which will receive about $40 million. Other companies winning funding include Charter Communications, AT&T, CenturyLink, Suwanee Valley Electric Cooperative (SVEC), Consolidated, TDS, IBT, and Myakka. The Florida broadband awards were made through the state’s Broadband Infrastructure Program, in which $247 million was funded through the f

California will reverse a decision to scale down the expansion of broadband to internet-deprived low-income areas like East Oakland and South Central Los Angeles. Earlier in 2023, the state cited inflation and rising construction costs as reasons why primary broadband service expansions would be gutted, said Patrick Messac, Director for #OaklandUndivided, an internet advocacy nonprofit.

California lawmakers passed a bill known as the Delete Act (Senate Bill 362) that would allow consumers, with a single request, to have every data broker delete their personal information. Data brokers include a variety of businesses that gather and sell people’s personal information, such as their address, marital status and spending habits.

AT&T CFO Pascal Desroches said it's a safe bet that AT&T and BlackRock's joint venture—Gigapower—will tap into Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funding; but stressed the importance of targeting those funds in “areas that make sense for us.” Deroches said “We are not getting dollars for the sake of getting dollars. We want to make sure we can get an appropriate return on those.”