Network management

As fiber deployments grow, Comcast President Mike Cavanaugh thinks the company is well-positioned to handle the competition. “We’re very focused on the key competitor over the long term being fiber,” Cavanaugh said “The good news is we’ve competed against fiber for 20 years, we know how to compete against [it].” What’s driving the current competitive landscape, Cavanaugh went on to say, is “low move activity” and “the entry of fixed wireless.” He noted it’s difficult to say “which one is more significant.” Cavanaugh predicts fixed wireless access (FWA) will “run for a while,” but said Comca

Brightspeed’s origin story isn’t typical for the telecommunications industry, at least not for a company of its size. It all started with an investment premise that Apollo Global Management wanted to test. That premise: “If we invested in an under-invested wireline company, could we turn it into a growth company?” Apollo negotiated a deal to buy CenturyLink’s local service business in 20 states, which appeared to be an excellent place to test the premise. Only 2 to 3 percent of the footprint that Apollo bought from CenturyLink had been upgraded to fiber when the ownership was transferred.

Charter celebrated the $1.3 billion that the company is investing in rural areas of Texas. Charter will invest $700 million of the money to cover the full cost of network upgrades. The remaining $420 million will cover some of the cost of fiber deployment. The remainder of the cost of fiber deployment will come partially from money Charter won in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund program in 2020, and partially from public-private partnerships with counties and cities.

Here they go again. Using false and tired arguments, big cable is attacking three community broadband networks that residents and their elected officials chose to build and own. And like it did earlier in 2023 in Bountiful City, Utah, it is hiding behind a surrogate that doesn’t reveal its financial supporters. It is profoundly ironic that the country’s richest media companies are attacking “government-run” networks when they are at the same time bringing in billions of dollars of subsidies from the federal government and seeking billions more in grants from state governments.

GoNetspeed is on a fiber deployment spree. The fiber provider accelerated builds in the second half of 2023, with the expectation that by the end of the year it will pass more than 140,000 locations across Maine, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Alabama. In November 2023 alone, GoNetspeed announced new service availability in Portland and Rockland in Maine; Attalla, Alabama; Amherst, Massachusetts and Plymouth, Connecticut.

In a deal between two broadband and telecommunications operators in rural southeast Iowa, Kalona Cooperative Technology Company (KCTC) acquired Farmers & Merchants Mutual Telephone Company (Famtel).The transaction was about two years in the making. The companies had shared ideas over the years and, in October 2022, the KCTC board of directors signed a letter of intent to acquire Farmtel.

Israel told Elon Musk his Starlink satellite network will only be allowed to operate in Gaza with Israel's approval, as the entrepreneur met the country’s leaders amid a furore over alleged antisemitism on his social platform X. Musk declared in late October 2023 that his satellite internet service Starlink would “support connectivity to internationally recognised aid organisations in Gaza”, which has suffered lengthy blackouts under Israel’s bombardment.

In an attempt to boost broadband competition, Canada's telecommunication regulator, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), is forcing large phone companies to open their fiber networks to competitors.

The United States is no stranger to wildfires. These fires can ignite utility poles, melt aerial fiber optic cables, obscure wireless signals, or damage transmitting or receiving equipment. This kind of damage can cut homes off from key public safety resources, and prevent calls for help in the most dire situations. As states now know their share of the $42.5 billion Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, they should begin planning new network deployments and upgrades to withstand increasingly severe natural disasters.

The open access fiber network business model consists of a network operator who builds, manages and owns the fiber network and multiple ISPs who sell wholesale access to the network and resell it to residential and business customers. The ISPs are responsible for all the customer acquisition and support costs/activities, while the network operator is responsible for network operations. This type of shared network model is very popular in Europe largely because regulators have mandated it to level the competitive playing field.