Reporting

AT&T is no stranger to public-private partnerships, with deals in place with municipal entities in Indiana, Kentucky and Texas to name a few.

Experts at Fiber Connect convened to address the need for new approaches to fiber deployments in challenging environments.

It feels like broadband funding is flying at operators from left, right and center. But how does a provider figure out which funding source is the right fit, and what do they need to know about applying for and actually spending that money? A panel comprised of experts from Nextlink, Ting Internet, Calix, Fujitsu, and COS Systems tackled the ins and outs of the funding landscape. Here are the top takeaways from the session:

Leading media organizations are issuing guidance on leveraging artificial intelligence in the newsroom at the same time they're making licensing deals to let AI firms use their content to train AI models.

A group of prominent media, tech and research executives have raised nearly $3 million to launch an independent policy research center focused on addressing global internet issues, such as disinformation, algorithmic accountability, and the economic health of the news industry. While the Center for News, Technology & Innovation (CNTI) is not designed to lobby or advocate on behalf of specific policy proposals, it does hope to influence future internet policy toward maintaining an open internet and an independent press.

Some states will be filing their initial proposals in the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) rural broadband funding program soon if they haven’t already—and once the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) approves a state’s proposal, the state will be eligible to receive 20 percent of its allocation of funds.

The $451 million that Kansas will receive in the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) rural broadband funding program will be sufficient to make service available to everyone in the state if 25 percent of it goes to fixed wireless access (FWA), said Jade Piros de Carvalho, director of the Kansas Office of Broadband Development. That determination was based on cost modeling, she said. Although Piros de Carvalho was disappointed in the amount of funding that the state received, she said, “I anticipate we’ll be OK.

Telecommunications executives are looking at booming broadband use largely driven by video. Streaming video is one of – if not the main reason – for the explosion in data use across networks in the past 10 years, and platforms like Netflix are some of the main culprits. That amount of streaming across the globe is leading to big infrastructure costs for internet and mobile broadband providers, at a time when customers are used to large or unlimited downloads at a low price and are unwilling to pay much more.

Across Alaska, on fishing boats and cabin roofs and conex containers, flat white antennas are popping up like high-tech mushrooms. They’re Starlink terminals, delivering new technology that in just a few months has started radically transforming internet connectivity in some of the most remote parts of the state. The company, a subsidiary of SpaceX, started sending thousands of low-orbit satellites into space in 2019, shifting the paradigm on internet infrastructure around the globe.

Elon Musk, became involved in the war in Ukraine soon after Russia invaded, in February 2022. Along with conventional assaults, the Kremlin was conducting cyberattacks against Ukraine’s digital infrastructure. Ukrainian officials and a loose coalition of expatriates in the tech sector, brainstorming in group chats on WhatsApp and Signal, found a potential solution: SpaceX, which manufactures a line of mobile Internet terminals called Starlink. The tripod-mounted dishes, each about the size of a computer display connect with a network of satellites.