Competition/Antitrust

Corning isn’t specifying how long its lead times are for its fiber products, but Mike Bell, senior vice president and general manager of Corning Optical Communications, stated, “Our normal lead time, what we would prefer our lead time to be, is a month. It’s much longer than that right now.” Bell said, “I’ve been in this business for 30 years, and I’ve never seen demand on the scale we’re seeing now.

Scale matters, SpaceX’s lawyer Pratik Shah argued to a panel of three federal appeals court judges — but only the comparatively small-scale plans for upcoming satellite launches, not the gargantuan scale of Elon Musk’s ambitions in the sky and the coming frenzy of launches from some of the most powerful companies on the ground. Shah assured the court the issue wasn’t 4,400 or so satellites originally on the license the Federal Communications Commission granted to SpaceX.

Nik Coates, the town administrator for Bristol (NH), is working on a project that would bring New Hampshire closer to the goal of universal coverage. Coates is also part of the Grafton County Broadband Committee, which applied for $26.2 million in federal funds that would go toward building out broadband in that county. But the grant process – through the National Transportation Infrastructure Agency – is facing a challenge from incumbent providers who say they are already providing service in the region.

Braintree Electric Light Department (BELD) — a nonprofit, publicly owned power utility and broadband internet provider — announced it has sold its internet business to Comcast. The sales price was not disclosed. BELD said the deal will have no impact on its electric division. BELD’s approximately 2,500 internet and phone customers will have their service transferred to Comcast, beginning this year. Comcast has already been an incumbent provider in Braintree (MA) for 18 years. Comcast also announced it was buying Russell Municipal Cable TV in Springfield (MA).

In the past few weeks, the Biden Administration has finally moved forward with nominations to the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission. As the agencies move forward, fully staffed at last, we hope they will both recognize the role they can play in promoting net neutrality – meaning, in preventing ISPs from taking advantage of their effective gatekeeping roles to favor some services over others. Most people think of net neutrality as the province of the FCC, at least at the federal level.

There was once a time when the words “fixed line” turned investors cold — as the extraordinary growth of wireless telecoms and mobile data made cabling seem antiquated. Yet, in the age of full-fibre broadband, those tables have turned.  Investors are backing a new generation of smaller, alternative cabled networks — dubbed “alt-nets” — forcing larger incumbents to increase their investment in broadband.

Atlantic Broadband, the US’s eighth-largest cable operator, announced a major growth plan that will extend fiber services into communities not previously served by the company. Atlantic Broadband will invest $82 million in its current fiscal year to extend its reach to nearly 70,000 additional homes and businesses, providing Gig internet, home WiFi, Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) and voice services via advanced Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) technology.

Ahead of the December 1 vote in the Senate Commerce Committee, Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel, who’s been re-nominated to another term as commissioner, and Federal Trade Commission nominee Alvaro Bedoya answered questions from lawmakers on topics ranging from broadband and spectrum use to social media use and antitrust. Rosenworcel told senators point-blank that she had no plans to regulate broadband rates — a concern prompted after she previously seemed open to the option as a way to increase broadband access.

The central US appears to have caught the eye of equity investors, with Bluepeak becoming the latest privately-funded fiber company to plot a major expansion there. Right now, Bluepeak offers service to around 60,000 subscribers in South Dakota and parts of western Minnesota under the name Vast Broadband. Planned investments include a $140 million build in Oklahoma to bring fiber to more than 140,000 homes and businesses across the state.

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced that the items below are tentatively on the agenda for the December Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Tuesday, December 14, 2021: