Fierce

Eight years ago, while working as a sprinkler system installer, Adam Roy had never heard of fiber optics. Today, the technology supports his entire family to live on the road. Yet unlike your prototypical digital nomad, Roy's job isn't remote. Rather, it's what makes remote life possible in the first place.

Can cable get its groove back? It’s a common question as operators wade their way through a sea of fiber and fixed wireless access (FWA) competition. Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts talked about where the company stands in the broadband space and how it sees itself. Roberts described Comcast as “more of a consumer innovation and technology driven company.” Analyst Craig Moffett asked Roberts to delve into the elephant in the room – broadband.

The Minnesota broadband scene is heating up as service providers rally against new legislation they say will stifle the state’s Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) plan. Minnesota was awarded over $651 million as part of the federal BEAD program. The state’s initial BEAD plan was submitted last year and is still awaiting approval from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).

The cable industry hasn’t been doing too great with keeping broadband subscribers, and Charter is no different. CEO Chris Winfrey’s take on the situation?

T-Mobile acquired a boatload of 2.5 GHz spectrum when it acquired Sprint in 2020, and it paid $304 million to win the lion’s share of licenses in the Federal Communications Commission’s Auction 108. Now it’s involved in a spectrum swap with SoniqWave Network to get even more 2.5 GHz spectrum.

Zayo Group’s North American and European businesses are breaking up. But rest assured, the separation is nothing if not amicable. The company announced plans to make Zayo Europe, which operates a long-haul fiber network across eight countries, a standalone company.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visited a recently completed Comcast rural broadband project in Stafford County, Virginia, highlighting that this is a public-private project between Comcast and the county. The giant cable company is involved in public-private partnerships across its national footprint. For years cable operators such as Comcast, Charter and Cox have fought hard against municipal broadband projects, always crying that it’s wrong for taxpayer dollars to compete against their private investments.

A director at the US National Science Foundation has harsh words for the country’s telecommunications companies: We’ve lost the 5G race. But the Next-G game is just getting started, and US companies can win by playing to American strengths, said Sudharman Jayaweera, a program director at the National Science Foundation. In addition to telephone companies lagging, no US vendor has significant market share in the 5G infrastructure equipment market, which is dominated by Huawei, ZTE and other companies, Jayaweera said. The US lags in both research and true 5G networks.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has said 2024 will be “the year of execution” for Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD). But the agency still has a ways to go in approving initial proposals for each state and territory. Louisiana was the first to get its plan approved in December.

In 2021, Los Angeles County leaders decided they wanted to close the digital divide in some underserved areas. So, the county issued a request for proposal, soliciting bids from broadband providers. Surprisingly, WeLink, a relatively unknown fixed wireless access (FWA) provider, won the contract, beating out incumbents such as AT&T and Charter Communications.