Ownership

RightFiber, a brand of Ritter Communications, agreed in principle to acquire the City of Ruston’s fiber optic broadband network in Louisiana. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2025. RightFiber will continue serving existing business customers at that time. Ruston Mayor Ronny Walker said, “RightFiber’s personal approach and future-minded vision set them apart as a service provider.

Donald Trump has chosen former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to run the Justice Department, announcing his pick hours after Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration. Bondi, a 59-year-old Republican who worked for years as a prosecutor, is a more conventional pick than Gaetz. She has had a close relationship with Trump for years and served on his legal team during his first impeachment.

The Justice Department and a group of states asked a federal court to force Google to sell Chrome, its popular web browser, a move that could fundamentally alter the $2 trillion company’s business and reshape competition on the internet. The request follows a landmark ruling in August by Judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S.

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.

With USCellular's agreement to sell AT&T $1.018 billion of spectrum, all three of the major mobile operators "have taken a chunk" of the rural carrier's assets. The agreement includes the sale of 1,250M MHz-Pops of 3.45 GHz and 331M MHz-Pops of 700 MHz B/C block licenses to AT&T. This spectrum will likely enable AT&T to layer in better coverage on its existing 5G footprint. The sale, once approved by regulators, will add additional spectrum to AT&T's existing bandwidth to improve overall coverage. The 700 MHz band is valuable for distance coverage.

The industry is suddenly awash with talks of acquisitions and mergers. In September, Verizon announced the acquisition of Frontier Communications in an all-cash deal valued at $20 billion. T-Mobile has announced two acquisitions of fiber overbuilders.

Elon Musk—the most influential backer of President-elect Trump, thanks to his money, time and X factor—now sits at the pinnacle of power in business, government influence and global information (and misinformation) flow. As this election showed, politics and influence flow downstream from information control. Musk, once seen by many as a fool for buying Twitter, now controls the most powerful information platform for America's ruling party. X makes Fox News seem like a quaint little pamphlet in size, scope and right-wing tilt. Imagine you wanted to help mold America.

Rise Broadband announced it has acquired MidAtlantic Broadband’s 100% fiber-to-the-home broadband/internet business in Missouri. Operating under the Yondoo Broadband brand, MidAtlantic Broadband’s business in Missouri adds almost 10,000 residential and commercial locations across eight markets in the eastern part of the State. With this acquisition, Rise Broadband will now provide service in the cities of Kahoka, Canton, La Grange, Bowling Green, Elsberry, Potosi, Belle, and Bland in Missouri. 100% of homes passed are serviceable with fiber-optic service.