Wireless Internet

In what is bad news for many other internet service providers (ISPs), both T-Mobile and Verizon have plans to continue their aggressive growth of FWA cellular broadband.

It’s clear we need more resiliency in our broadband policy. If nothing else, the hurricanes ravaging the U.S. Southeast have shown us that. In the last few weeks, pervasive wireless and wireline communication outages have left people that are already struggling in the wake of disaster completely cut off from resources, important news updates, and loved ones.

The House Oversight Committee recently decided to investigate the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) decision in 2022 to deny Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) funding to Starlink. The timing of this announcement clearly has political overtones since it was announced as Elon Musk took the stage at a campaign event with one of the presidential candidates. RDOF was awarded using a reverse auction, where the provider willing to take the lowest amount of subsidy winning the funding.

For competitive reasons, wireless carriers typically don’t reveal too many specifics about their network expansion and upgrade plans. So when T-Mobile executives were asked to elaborate on their plans for mid-band 5G upgrades, they steered the conversation to the tools they use to determine how they’re going to expand coverage – as opposed to detailing exactly where and when they will deploy. Their approach – and brace yourself, this is going to be a real shocker – is based on artificial intelligence (AI).

Elon Musk’s fast-growing satellite business Starlink could be poised to gain billions of dollars more in federal contracts and subsidies under a Donald Trump presidency, industry experts say, in a reflection of the world’s richest individual’s deepening financial stake in Washington politics. Trump has cast himself as a space patron, pledging to unleash funds for national-security installations in orbit and slash red tape for Musk.

The end of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) put the kibosh on the business plans of internet service providers (ISPs) working to tackle the urban digital divide. I’m aware of a several ISPs working to bring broadband to neighborhoods where the majority of customers qualified for the $30 ACP discount.

The arrival of on-device artificial intelligence could radically reshape the app/app-store model that has ruled the tech industry in the smartphone era. Traditionally, Apple and Google have dominated the mobile era by controlling the two major smartphone ecosystems and their associated app stores.

In the late hours of Thursday, September 26, Hurricane Helene made landfall at Keaton Beach (FL). On Friday, downgraded to a tropical storm, Helene made its way up the east coast, leaving a path of destruction through Georgia and the Carolinas.

Public Knowledge joined 14 other public interest, consumer advocacy, and civil liberties groups—including the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society—in a letter urging Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel to adopt the agency’s proposed cell phone unlocking requirement. The groups argue that doing so would increase consumer choice, lower costs, and improve competition in the wireless marketplace. 

UScellular is selling a portion of its spectrum licenses to Verizon for $1 billion as it looks to monetize the spectrum that wasn’t included in the proposed sale to T-Mobile.