Labor

Plumbing, welding, electrician work—these may be a few of the best-known trades needed to keep our modern world afloat. But there is a new infrastructure in place that has quickly become as common and important to everyday life: the internet. Despite how simple accessing the internet via your mobile phone may seem, a vast physical infrastructure is needed to sustain it.

More than four years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, what do we know about how meetings have (or haven’t) gotten back to “normal,” particularly amid calls back to the office? An analysis of 40 million virtual meetings from 11 organizations suggests that some habits, like using virtual meeting options even when in the office, are sticking. Further, data shows that meeting participation and camera usage correlates with retention.

Cable company Charter Communications is cutting around 1,000 jobs as part of its efforts to consolidate its call center operations. Charter said it would work to transfer some affected employees to open jobs in other locations. In its latest financial filing, Charter reported around 101,000 full-time employees.

Remote work was uncommon prior to the pandemic. But since then, the share of Californians who work from home has increased dramatically, from 6% in 2018–19 to 19% in 2021–22. Most workers consider remote work to be a desirable job benefit and more people would like to work from home than currently do so, according to Public Policy Institute of California surveys.

As part of its ongoing strategic review, Crown Castle said it will cut between 3,000 and 5,000 small cell nodes out of its 2024 construction plans. The company also announced it will cut 10 percent of its workforce. Crown Castle's move casts yet another shadow over the small cell industry in general.

Wondering how the broadband equipment market is doing? Not great, according to Dell’Oro Group. In first quarter 2024, global revenue for the broadband access equipment market dropped 12 percent year-over-year to $4.1 billion, as spending in the market reached a two-year low. What’s the deal? Dell’Oro VP Jeff Heynen said that in some cases, operators are still working through excess inventory they built up in late 2022.

Companies that plan to apply for Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) funds should be planning now for how they’re going to staff their projects. Evan Feinman, director for BEAD with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), said state workforce groups typically wait until there is a job shortfall before they initiate training programs. “In this instance, we know there’s $42.5 billion of demand,” said Feinman. “They need to be ramping up training.

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.

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).

Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and Assistant Secretary of Commerce Alan Davidson will travel to OFS’s headquarters in Norcross (GA) with Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA) to celebrate the announcement of new jobs and increased domestic production of optical fiber and fiber optic cable thanks to President Biden’s Investing in America agenda. As a result of the Build America, Buy America Act and the Internet for All programs, OFS has announced it will create 100 jobs, including union jobs, and expand its US production of fiber for use in connecting locations across the US to reliab