Light Reading
Heat is a huge villain in mother nature versus the network
Network performance is never more front-of-mind than when a natural disaster strikes and connectivity is a lifeline to first responders, family and friends. But many service providers operate in regions where extreme heat or cold can create year-round challenges to managing their network infrastructure. Kim Bowman-Scott, VP of field operations, west; and Ron Wilson, director of network service operations for Optimum, say extreme heat can cause the most network management headaches.
BEAD bonanza disappears from vendors' 2025 hopes
It was initially viewed as a "once in a lifetime" funding effort, a moonshot geared toward connecting all Americans to the Internet after the COVID-19 pandemic revealed the extent of the digital divide in the US.
Comcast gets more aggressive with mobile as it bumps broadband speeds
Comcast has pushed ahead with a new mobile offering aimed at customers who take one of the operator's higher-end home broadband speed tiers. Comcast combined that announcement with a wave of free speed upgrades—including faster upstream speeds—across its prepaid and postpaid home broadband services. On the mobile end, Comcast is now offering new and existing home broadband customers an unlimited line of Xfinity mobile for a year when they subscribe to broadband speeds of 400 Mbit/s or faster.
Groups beg Senate not to rip Wi-Fi hotspots from students, library patrons
Over 30 organizations have signed a letter urging US senators to vote against a resolution that would overturn a Federal Communications Commission decision to allow E-Rate funding to be used for Wi-Fi hotspots for students, school staff and library patrons.
Nokia's moonshot misfires
Nokia has been hyping its planned moon network for almost five years now. However, the robot carrying the network to the moon landed wrong and, as a result, Nokia was unable to notch a PR win by placing the first cellular call on the moon. The company said the network ran on the moon for about 25 minutes after Intuitive Machines' robot landed. "Unfortunately, Nokia was unable to make the first cellular call on the moon due to factors beyond our control that resulted in extreme cold temperatures on our user device modules," the company said.
Satellite operators stay niche, play friendly with telephone companies and tout multi-orbit capabilities
For many years, the satellite industry faced a PR challenge: being out of sight and, therefore, out of mind. That's the case with geostationary orbit satellites, which fly some 36,000 km (22,000 miles) above a designated spot on the equator. The debut of SpaceX's Starlink low-earth orbit satellite broadband service in 2020 began shifting that perception. Starlink's launch has impacted more than industry PR.
AT&T CEO relishes cable's broadband squeeze
US cable operators have been struggling to regain their footing in broadband as they try to grow subscribers again in the midst of an array of pressures including fiber and fixed wireless access competition, a slow housing move market and the impact of the end of the Affordable Connectivity Program. Several US cable operators are responding by leaning into convergence.
A hunt for cable's CBRS deployments turns up... not much
US cable companies Comcast and Charter Communications have long suggested that they will build their own small-scale public wireless networks using their 3.5GHz CBRS spectrum holdings. Doing so, according to the companies, will help them reduce their MVNO payments to Verizon.
How the end of the Affordable Connectivity Program is hurting low-income Americans
This episode of The Divide features a conversation with Danielle Perry, chief compliance officer at TruConnect, and a board member at the National Lifeline Association (NaLA), where she also chairs NaLA's regulatory and government affairs committee.