Telecommunication

Midco’s chief technology innovation officer Jon Pederson says the operator’s use of fixed wireless access (FWA) technology to serve certain remote locations is actually benefitting its efforts to expand its fiber network. Pederson, who has worked for the regional US broadband provider for more than three decades, explained Midco deploys fixed wireless access service for customers in some of the most remote parts of its footprint. As it runs fiber to new towers for that service, he said it’s also taking the opportunity to push fiber into nearby communities along the way.

In response to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Federal Communications Commission established universal service mechanisms to help ensure that all Americans have access to affordable telecommunications service. Congress mandated that these programs be supported by contributions from every telecommunications carrier that provides interstate telecommunications, and other providers of telecommunications services if the FCC finds contributions from such providers to be in the public interest.

Fiber-optic cable, which carries 95 percent of the world’s international internet traffic, links up pretty much all of the world’s data centers, those vast server warehouses where the computing happens that transforms all those 1s and 0s into our experience of the internet. Where those fiber-optic connections link up countries across the oceans, they consist almost entirely of cables running underwater—some 1.3 million kilometers (or more than 800,000 miles) of bundled glass threads that make up the actual, physical international internet.

The Federal Communications Commission alongside the Department of Labor, Department of Education, and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced the members of a cross-agency working group that will collaborate to identify the current and future needs of the telecommunications industry workforce, including the safety of that workforce.

New York Gov Kathy Hochul (D-NY) signed into law State Senate Bill S7028, which aims to help bridge the digital divide in rural areas in the state.

Privacy advocacy groups Free Press Action and Fight for the Future are urging Senate Democrats to quickly confirm Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] to the Federal Communications Commission and Alvaro Bedoya to the Federal Trade Commission. President Joe Biden renominated both nominees on January 4 after the Senate failed to confirm them in December 2021. Both the FCC and the FTC currently have 2-2 partisan splits, making it difficult for their Democratic chairs to advance controversial items.

Industry lawyers and consultants predict the recently enacted $1 trillion infrastructure measure is likely to create more investment opportunities for private-equity firms in areas they already favor, such as telecommunications, while doing little to expand their presence in the government-dominated transportation sec

AT&T opened enrollment for its discounted internet service plans that are being offered as part of a federal program designed to lower the cost of internet access for low-income Americans. Called the Affordable Connectivity Program, the initiative is overseen by the Federal Communications Commission and funded through the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law, passed in November 2021. AT&T said the benefits can be applied to a variety of eligible AT&T internet plans, as well as eligible AT&T and Cricket Wireless plans.

AT&T CEO John Stankey revealed the operator is conducting market tests of a multi-gig fiber service and plans to capitalize on an industry shift to bundled connectivity. Stankey stated rising bandwidth demand for use cases like video will require a robust fixed connection and highlighted a positive consumer response to a multi-gig fiber pilot it is running.

In many ways, 2021 feels like the year fiber became real. Companies across the board unveiled plans for sprawling fiber deployments and billions in funding began pouring in from governments and private equity players alike. But the firm focus on fiber as we head into 2022 begs one big question: what does the future look like for cable? “I don’t think that you can talk about cable without also talking about fiber,” said Jeff Heynen, Dell’Oro Group VP of Broadband Access and Home Networking.