BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: The Trump administration's protectionism is already having significant impacts on many American businesses and industries, and may begin to have significant impacts on the fiber broadband world. This post by Doug Dawson outlines some of the moves in Washington against both Huawei and ZTE, two Chinese telecommunications manufacturing giants. Incidentally, I had… Keep Reading
BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: We've been watching the progress of CityFibre closely because of what it is demonstrating on the other side of the pond: The future of broadband is in wholesale. Separating infrastructure from services provides significant advantages in being able to raise capital. This is necessary to construct gigabit fiber networks in order to… Keep Reading
AUSTIN, April 24, 2018 - The Rural Telecommunications Congress track at the Broadband Communities Summit here next week kicks off with a discussion about county-led economic development, and features the top technologies leaders from three divergent counties that each include different perspectives on delivering rural broadband. I'll have the privilege of moderating our first discussion, which… Keep Reading
BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: The role of wireless, which is one key piece of the broadband puzzle for rural areas, will be considered at the New America Foundation on Tuesday at Noon, together with Kelsey Guyselman, policy advisor at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and an array of industry players. Spectrum as… Keep Reading
BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: While Washington alternatively obsesses over net neutrality, beating up on Facebook, or other distractions brought to us by the man in the White House, how refreshing is it to encounter a piece like this. Mark Howell is demonstrating that leadership on a local level can make a difference in bringing people what… Keep Reading
BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: This is from Dave Burstein, a telecom geek/journalist/gadfly, and who frequently has some interesting observations about broadband technologies, and the politics behind them. In this pieces, he's reporting on the thoughts of leaders in the mobile industry, to the effect of just how overblown is the hype behind 5G wireless technologies. No… Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, April 11, 2018 – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrived at the Rayburn House Office Building Wednesday for the second day of his first trip to Capitol Hill as a witness, this time before members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. His prepared testimony was the same, but the atmosphere was quite different. Not… Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, April 10, 2018 – After months of seemingly-unending scandal over his company’s role in the 2018 election, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg began his first of two days of testimony on Capitol Hill Tuesday by making it clear he was well aware of the laundry list of problems with the company he created 14 years… Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, April 5, 2018 — As Facebook users continue to learn more about how the social networking pioneer allowed third parties to gain access to contact information, lists of friends, interests, and other information, the companies behind another social networking app are beginning to face scrutiny over whether they allowed far more sensitive information to… Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, March 23, 2018 – The odds that Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg will make an appearance on Capitol Hill to explain his company’s actions regarding the misuse of millions of Facecook users’ data by Cambridge Analytica – the “big data” company linked to President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign – just went up. After… Keep Reading
BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: Rural priorities are again receiving additional emphasis in the draft spending legislation currently before Congress. Though the proposed $600 million is lower than the $2.5 billion that some had been discussing, the pending Trump infrastructure package could allocate still more funds to rural broadband priorities. Although omnibus budget bills are considered "must… Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, March 16, 2018 – Questions about how the federal government will be involved in rolling out the next-generation infrastructure for wireless, known as 5G (for 5th generation) remained after a Wednesday infrastructure hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee. “With the rise of the internet and cell phones, we face the new challenge of building… Keep Reading
BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: A great summary of what to take away from the Trump administration's blocking of Broadcom's acquisition attempt for Qualcomm, an action that appears to be have been taken quite precipitously. According to The New York Times' story on the subject, "A presidential action against foreign investment in an American company is rare and… Keep Reading
BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: Think of all that has transpired over the past century and a half! Remembering Alexander Graham Bell, from Commscope On March 7, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received a patent for his revolutionary new device—the telephone. Since then, telephony has evolved in ways even this great thinker could not have imagined. After connecting the world… Keep Reading
BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: The debate over the role of violence in movies and video games never seems to end. President Trump's attempts to link video games to gun violence likely serves as another distraction effort in his "chaos"-driven White House. Trump reopens a seemingly settled debate on video games and violence, from PBS News Hour… Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, March 7, 2018 - Local government officials seeking to offer a corrective tonic on broadband deployment to the Federal Communications Commission may consider applying for the expanded Intergovernmental Advisory Committee. Nominations for the more-than-10-year-old group are due on Monday, March 12, at 6 p.m. ET, according to a public notice published by the FCC… Keep Reading
Rural broadband has never been a more pressing priority for our nation, and now is the time to join the conversation. The Rural Telecommunications Congress (RTC) has an exciting program at the Broadband Communities Summit this year from May 1-3 in Austin, Texas. When you register for the summit using the RTC discount code of RTC350, you… Keep Reading
Network neutrality is an important issue. We mustn’t allow transport owners to limit our ability to communicate. But, network neutrality in itself positions the internet as a telecommunications service. We need to step back and recognize that the internet itself is part of a larger shift wrought by software. I thought about this more when… Keep Reading
BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: Daniel Berninger has been a voice in the wilderness on the issue of net neutrality, and the Obama-era Federal Communications Commission's efforts to reclassify broadband internet access services as common carriers, since 2015. But as an internet entrepreneur, he has direct experience in working with the FCC on the regulation of Voice-over-Internet-Protocol… Keep Reading
BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: This piece by The Washington Post has, in turn, prompting some gloating by Republicans over at the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which criticized the "sweeping claims" of Democrats: "That consumers will see a sharp drop in Internet speeds if the Federal Communications Commission proceeds with its plan to unwind net neutrality… Keep Reading