Network management

Charter Communications is making the latest move on the telecommunications mergers and acquisitions front, announcing it will acquire Liberty Broadband. But it won’t be getting Alaskan operator GCI as part of the deal. Liberty Broadband, which owns shares in a broad range of communications businesses, acquired GCI in 2020. It also has a 26 percent ownership of Charter, or around 45.6 million shares of Charter’s common stock.

Cox Communications owns two companies that provide fiber broadband for enterprises—Unite Private Networks (UPN) and Segra. And Cox just cleaned up the portfolio of these companies by selling the Pacific Northwest assets of UPN to Ziply Fiber. Both UPN and Segra provide fiber optic communications services to commercial enterprises as well as organizations such as schools, governments, service providers and hyperscalers. Ziply will acquire UPN’s fiber assets, network and customers in Washington, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana.

Cable TV giant Charter Communications and Liberty Broadband Corp. have entered into a definitive agreement under which Charter has agreed to acquire Liberty Broadband, part of the empire of John Malone, in an all-stock transaction.

A fiery debate has erupted in the halls of telecommunications about traffic—the gigabyte rather than vehicular variety. On one side are the mountaineers, who argue data volumes will continue to climb as usage grows and more advanced applications take off. On the other are the dissenting levelers. Led by William Webb, an independent consultant and former Ofcom executive who has written several books on the topic, they foresee a plateauing of consumption as smartphone customers struggle to cram more gigabytes into the day.

In case you had any doubts about Verizon’s fiber ambitions, the company revealed just how far it thinks it can go by acquiring Frontier’s footprint. Once (and if) the acquisition closes, Verizon expects to reach more than 30 million fiber passings by 2028. In the longer-term, it’s targeting 35-40 million locations passed, a goal easier said than done, analysts noted.

AT&T CEO John Stankey says the company has seen better-than-expected results in the use of open-access models outside the operator's own fiber footprint. He said the economics of the open-access model is also worth a look within AT&T's own fiber footprint. AT&T's fiber network passes more than 28 million locations and remains on track to reach 30 million by the end of 2025.

A new wave of private capital and joint ventures is beginning to transform the way open access networks are financed and developed. What was once largely a public-sector initiative is now attracting billions in private investment from firms like the Canadian Northleaf Capital Partners and BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, betting heavily on shared network models.

A large Internet service provider (ISP) wants the Supreme Court to rule that ISPs shouldn't have to disconnect broadband users who have been accused of piracy.

Starting February 2025, Canada’s largest telephone companies, led by BCE and Telus, must provide smaller rivals with wholesale access to their fiber-optic networks in a bid to foster affordable access to high-quality internet services. The order from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, in essence, makes permanent a temporary order issued in November 2023. At the time, BCE responded with plans to curtail planned capital expenditures for the current fiscal year.

Wi-Fi provider Andrena has raised $18 million to develop its plans to provide decentralized broadband. More specifically, the telecommunications firm plans to further develop a decentralized autonomous wireless network (DAWN), which is a variety of decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN). DAWN is already operating in a test environment. If it works as expected, DAWN would enable customers to take advantage of wireless base stations on rooftops, which, when combined, would provide mesh internet access without the need for a centralized internet provider.