Telecommunication

President Joe Biden’s administration recently announced a raft of nominations for various posts, but picks for four key telecommunications roles at the Federal Communications Commission and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) remain outstanding. Eight months into Biden’s presidency, both agencies sit without permanent leaders.

New operator IQ Fiber is looking to give AT&T and Comcast a run for their money in Florida, starting with a greenfield deployment to some 60,000 locations in Jacksonville. Though its initial plan will see it offer service in Jacksonville starting in early Q2 of 2022, the company is eyeing an opportunity to expand across at least four counties, including Duval, Clay, Nassau and St. Johns. The company is deploying an XGS-PON fiber network and plans to offer three service tiers with symmetrical speeds of 250 Mbps for $65 per month, 500 Mbps for $75 per month and 1 gig for $85 per month.

The next US mid-band spectrum auction is set to start on October 5 for spectrum in the 3.45 GHz range. The deadline to resubmit incomplete applications and upfront payments was September 7, so the Federal Communications Commission should soon be releasing a final list of participating bidders. AT&T, Dish and T-Mobile all submitted applications, while Verizon was on the incomplete list as of the initial filing deadline. AT&T appears to be favored to spend the most on 3.45 GHz spectrum, followed by T-Mobile and Dish.

Co-chair of the Senate Next Generation 9-1-1 Caucus Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Sen Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) announced a bill to create a $10 billion federal grant program for upgrades to the US's 911 centers (S.2754). Expanding 911 to accept more kinds of digital data would add more resiliency to a system that's still built around a copper-based telephone network. A next-generation 911 would allow the nation's 6,000 911 centers to accept texts, videos and photos.

Fiber Minnesota merged with two other fiber transport carriers – Broadband Visions (BBV) and SM Broadband (SMB) – to create what it says is one of the state’s largest transport networks. The new entity will operate under the Fiber Minnesota brand. It will have a backbone of 3,900 route miles, which is 60 percent more than the network had before the move. The newly constituted company will reach “nearly all corners of the state,” including rural areas that often are left behind, with redundant connectivity.

Comcast Chief Financial Officer Mike Cavanagh reported that subscriber additions for Comcast’s cable business—which consists of the Xfinity-branded broadband, pay-TV, landline and mobile phone units—slowed at the end of August 2021, and lags behind the same period in 2019 before the pandemic. Cable peers, such as Charter Communications, Altice USA and Cable One, also experienced stock share-price selloffs. During the height of stay-at-home pandemic orders at the beginning of 2020, companies such as Comcast and Charter added record numbers of broadband customers as people

Billions in federal funding have been made available to expand broadband access since the COVID-19 pandemic began, but Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA) CEO Claude Aiken argued some of that money is being wasted on wireline rollouts in areas already covered by fixed wireless access service.

Charter Communications brushed off the idea that it should be concerned about increased competition from fiber overbuilders, insisting the company has the network and marketing capabilities necessary to stay ahead of the game. CFO Chris Winfrey noted such competitive activity is “not new.

As public safety leaders and longtime citizens of cities directly impacted on September 11, 2001, frontline workers’ responses deeply affected us.

The arrival of new space ventures like Starlink and OneWeb is bringing about a disruption of sorts in the telecommunications sector, specifically the broadband internet market. That’s because the International Telecommunication Union estimates that just over half of the world’s total population has access to the internet.