Wireless Telecommunications

Linda Hardesty asked, “What if, in ten years, young people don’t subscribe to fixed broadband at all?” Her story is based on a U.K. research group that predicts that within ten years there will be a lot of young people who will never have subscribed to a landline broadband product. Hardesty asks if the same might be true for the U.S. It’s not an obvious answer.

Two of the nation’s major telecommunications companies are feuding over a plan to boost service for police, firefighters and other state and local agencies—a move Verizon Communications says would amount to a $14 billion gift to rival AT&T.

A SpaceX rocket has failed for the first time in nearly a decade, leaving the company’s internet satellites in an orbit so low that they’re doomed to fall through the atmosphere and burn up.

A partnership between Osage Broadband in Oklahoma and Tarana, a fixed wireless technology provider, will bring broadband to 2,300 square miles of underserved and indigenous communities in Osage County. This broadband/fixed wireless partnership will combine technologies to deliver high-speed broadband connections to the residents and businesses of Osage County. Osage Broadband and their partner AtLink Services will provide connectivity—via fiber, in most cases—to Tarana’s towers.

SpaceX’s Starlink Mini satellite is now available for everyone in the United States. Starlink Mini is a compact, portable kit designed to be able to fit in a backpack, enabling the user to have high-speed, low-latency internet on the go. The service promises speeds of 5-50 Mbps, with setup possible in as little as two minutes. The standard Starlink service plan offers 150-250 Mbps. The base hardware for the Starlink Mini is available for $499. Service is available starting at $50 per month, which provides the user with 50 G of data.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will hold an Open Meeting on the following subjects on Thursday, July 18, 2024, which is scheduled to commence at 10:30 a.m. in the Commission Meeting Room of the Federal Communications Commission. 

On April 24, members of Congress wrote to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel to "urge the FCC to carefully consider and account for the impact of investments funded by the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) to maximize the reach and efficiency of the 5G Fund." On July 2, Chairwoman Rosenworcel responded, agreeing that it is critical to maximize the efficiency and impact of federal broadband programs.

In April 2024, AT&T learned that customer data was illegally downloaded from our workspace on a third-party cloud platform.

According to survey data from Recon Analytics, the net promoter scores of Verizon and T-Mobile for their fixed wireless access (FWA) broadband absolutely demolish the net promoter scores of Comcast and Charter for their hybrid fiber coax (HFC) broadband services. “FWA’s numbers are off the chart,” said Recon Analytics principal Roger Entner. However, he cautioned that there is a “selection bias” in the data because with FWA, people do their own installation, and if they aren’t happy with the service they can return the gear within three days. NPS scores are a big deal.

Hurricane Beryl, the first hurricane of the 2024 season to hit the U.S, spiraled 80 mile per hour winds through Houston, Texas, and is now heading northeast and beyond. More than 2 million people in Texas are without power. There are reports of outages on the AT&T and Verizon cellular networks in Texas in the wake of storm, as well as disruptions to Internet service providers such as Xfinity. Here’s what’s going on with the big three mobile operators: