Telecommunication

The part of the bipartisan infrastructure bill dedicated to distributing $42.5 billion in broadband funds would give preference to companies with a record of following labor and employment laws—a requirement that, practically speaking, could give an advantage to professionalized union workforces over the constellation of subcontractors that power the telecommunications industry.

Facebook is partnering with Appalachian Power, a utility that serves the southeastern region of the US, and Virginia-based internet service provider GigaBeam Networks to bring fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) and wireless internet service to approximately 6,000 unserved households in Grayson County (VA). In Virginia, Facebook is building new long-haul fiber routes that will connect its Virginia, Ohio, and North Carolina data centers.

Comcast hasn’t been shy about touting its network investments on the road to DOCSIS 4.0, but CEO Brian Roberts argued its efforts to innovate around devices and services are also a key part of its plan to fend off broadband competition. Roberts observed that the way consumers use broadband today is “virtually unrecognizable” from ten years ago and said the pace of change is likely to accelerate.

The digital divide has remained stubbornly persistent for decades, even as the internet has become steadily more inextricable from daily life, business, health care, and education. Research group BroadbandNow estimates that 42 million Americans have no broadband access, while a depressing 120 million people in the US are without any connection fast enough to even call the internet, according to Microsoft. These disparities are particularly severe among Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, and rural communities.

There might be a business case for AT&T to deploy fiber to more than the 30 million locations that the company aims to make fiber broadband available to by 2025, said AT&T CEO John Stankey. Defining the business model for fiber deployment may not be as clear cut as some might believe, Stankey suggested. Another impending development that could impact the fiber deployment business case, according to the CEO, is the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that passed the Senate

Comcast announced new steps to help advance digital equity for even more students and families.

Frontier Communications is on track to beat its goal of building fiber to 495,000 homes in 2021. CEO Nick Jeffery stated that Frontier will hit 600,000 homes passed in 2021, which is 105,000 more homes than planned. When asked about supply chain issues, Jeffery said that the company hasn’t experienced any issues yet and he is confident that it won’t because Frontier announced its accelerated fiber build before many other fiber providers announced their plans. This allowed the company to get contracts with vendors before many others.

Former Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler argued incumbent cable operators are in prime position to scoop up federal broadband funding and have little to fear from potential overbuild activity.

Shawn Bone, a senior telecommunications counsel for Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell (D-WA), is joining Verizon on October 11 as its director of federal regulatory public policy. Bone, who has worked for Senate Commerce Democrats for more than nine years, will focus on broadband at Verizon.

Pennsylvania-based operator Blue Ridge Communications unveiled a plan to rebuild its entire 8,000-mile hybrid fiber coaxial (HFC) network with fiber to the home (FTTH), taking what it says is a commonsense step to future-proof its system. Company executive Mark Masenheimer says Blue Ridge got its first taste of fiber when it completed a greenfield build in the city of Westfield earlier this year covering 1,600 homes.