Former White House National Security Council official Gen Robert Spalding wrote a controversial PowerPoint deck in 2018 on how the US government could play a greater role in building 5G networks. Now Spalding has left government and military service and landed $20 million to bring some of his vision to life via a private company. The startup, Sempre, aims to offer a more secure, smarter alternative to the traditional cell tower, adding computing power at the edge and making the tower itself more resilient to attacks. Spalding says Sempre aims to offer its customers added computing power by placing a mini-data center at the tower, as well as protection from electromagnetic pulses caused by a nuclear attack or solar flare. It's early days for the company, which is still looking for "anchor tenants" for a network of such towers. Sempre is still figuring out how best to work with the existing players, including tower companies and wireless carriers, as well as where it can work directly with military, government agencies and businesses to offer private 5G networks. The company has also won a bid for an early trial with the military and is exploring other ideas for working with first responders and other governmental agencies. 5G networks are rolling out fast in the US, and it's unclear what kind of broad demand there might ever be for Sempre's "hardened tower" approach.

The slowdown in cable broadband subscriber additions may be even slower than anticipated after executives at two of the top three publicly traded cable companies -- Comcast and Altice USA -- hinted that customer growth is trending at an even more decelerated pace than expected. Comcast Cable CEO Dave Watson said he expected to end 2021 with 1.3 million additional broadband subscribers. That is lower than the 1.4 million Comcast added in 2019 and implies that Comcast would add about 185,000 high-speed data customers in Q4, its lowest growth since Q2 2017. Most analysts had expected Comcast to end 2021 with about 1.4 million additional broadband customers. In a recent research report, MoffettNathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett predicted Comcast would add about 286,000 broadband customers in Q4. Moffett expects Charter to add 271,000 broadband customers and Altice to add 3,000 high-speed internet subscribers in the period. While Charter may well hit Moffett's target, chances are that Altice USA, coming off a third quarter where it lost 13,000 broadband customers, could see negative growth in Q4. “We probably are trending -- and we still have a big month of December coming up -- slightly negative in Q4, which probably leads us to be down in a range of 5,000 to 10,000 for the year,” Altice USA's CEO Dexter Goei said. He added that the declines are in markets where Altice USA competes with Verizon Communications’ Fios Internet product, which Goei described as heavily promotional. 

Verizon announced the company has exceeded its year-end target of 14,000 new 5G Ultra Wideband cells sites, providing phone service to parts of 87 US cities, 5G Home to parts of 65 cities and 5G Business Internet to parts of 62 cities, including Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and, launching December 9, Athens (GA), Knoxville (TN) and Tacoma (WA). Verizon has been working diligently, securing agreements with tower partners, installing C-band equipment, and driving performance of 5G on C-band. Verizon’s network team has already deployed 5G Ultra Wideband equipment to thousands of cell sites and will continue aggressive expansion into the new year to meet its market promise of providing 5G Ultra Wideband service to 100 million people by the end of the first quarter of 2022 using C-Band spectrum. The massive 5G Ultra Wideband expansion will initially involve deploying new C-Band equipment on macro cell towers, leveraging Verizon’s award-winning LTE network infrastructure. This rapid expansion will also involve deploying the new 5G Ultra Wideband service using small cells, enhancing both access to and the capacity of 5G using C-band spectrum.  In addition to the expansion of 5G access through mobility, fixed wireless access, and private networks, Verizon and its suppliers have continued to push the limits of speed on 5G. In recent field tests, using 100MHz and 200Mhz of C-band spectrum, the company has seen speeds of 1.5 Gbps and 3 Gbps, respectively.

The Federal Communications Commission is seeking nominations for membership on the Telecommunications Interagency Working Group, a group that is being formed pursuant to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act “to develop recommendations to address the workforce needs of the telecommunications industry.” The Act directs the FCC Chairwoman, in partnership with the Secretary of Labor, to establish this interagency working group by January 14, 2022. The Working Group must prepare a report with “recommendations to address the workforce needs of the telecommunications industry, including the safety of that workforce” not later than one year after the Working Group is established. Nominations for membership in the Working Group should be submitted to the FCC no later than December 20, 2021. Note: these procedures only apply to the four members of the Working Group from outside organizations that will be appointed by the Chairwoman. The FCC seeks nominations and expressions of interest from individuals and organizations in the following categories:

• A representative of a telecommunications industry association;
• A representative of an Indian Tribe or Tribal organization;
• A representative of a rural telecommunications carrier; and
• A representative of a telecommunications contractor firm.