January 16, 2019 - One day after an event aimed at encouraging bipartisan solutions on technology policy, the non-profit group Next Century Cities launched its "Becoming Broadband Ready" toolkit together with Neighborly and the Internet Society. The 33-page toolkit (PDF) was set to be launched at an event at 1 p.m. ET in Washington (PDF),… Keep Reading
January 15, 2019 - Below is the link to, and livestream from, the Next Century Cities event, "Opportunities for Bipartisan Tech Policy." This half-day event aims to bring together members of Congress, community leaders, and policy experts. Keynote conversations and panel discussions will work to determine key policy goals and action steps for the new… Keep Reading
LAS VEGAS, January 9, 2018 - Here at the Consumer Electronics Show, it's impossible to avoid being bombarded by the energy - real and imagined - surrounding the 5G wireless standard that is just beginning to be deployed. Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg made the communications company's efforts to nurture, promote and deploy 5G the sum… Keep Reading
BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: We reported this news back in August, but it's worth highlighting again with this new new piece on SiFi Networks' project in Saratoga Springs, a city of 28,027 in upstate New York. Most notably, the article includes a link to the agreement between SiFi Networks and the city. Saratoga Springs to lay fiber… Keep Reading
BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: It's about time that Metro began covering the Washington subway! Metro, AT&T, Sprint, T‐Mobile and Verizon Wireless announce major milestone in tunnel wireless coverage, from WMATA: December 19, 2018 - Today Metro and the nation’s leading wireless carriers, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless announced that more than half of Metro’s tunnels… Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, December 13, 2018 – The Agriculture Department on Thursday unveiled the details of is $600 million broadband loan and grant program – dubbed “ReConnect” – and which was originally called for by appropriations legislation passed in March. “High-speed internet e-Connectivity is a necessity, not an amenity, vital for quality of life and economic opportunity,… Keep Reading
November 16, 2018 - With the launch of a group of communities in a "broadband accelerator" launched by the municipal finance portal Neighborly, the momentum behind open access broadband networks is continuing to build. On Thursday, Neighborly announced that it had selected 35 cities, including sizable communities of Cleveland, New Orleans and Richmond, as its… Keep Reading
BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: A lot of jargon in here, but the key message is that there are some real advantages for fixed wireless technology ("FWA," in the jargon of the piece) as opposed to networks built primarily for mobile uses. Cable companies can use fixed wireless to deliver broadband services to residential markets already served… Keep Reading
US Telecom recently released an update to its U.S. broadband industry capital spending series. Ford’s analysis shows that while the decline in capital spending in 2015 and 2016 stopped in 2017, investment in the telecommunications sector is materially compressed, being about $10-to-$13 billion (or 12-to-15%) below expectations in 2017 with nearly $24-to-$30 billion in investment lost to the Title II drama since 2015. Keep Reading
NEW BRITAIN, Conn., November 2, 2018 - Consumer Counsel Elin Swanson Katz is pleased to announce a broadband conference entitled, Connected New England: A Regional Broadband Convening at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford, Connecticut, (300 Capitol Ave.), Room 2C, on November 8, 2018, from 9:00 am – 4:30 p.m. Registration is required, but the event is free for government, academic, and non-profit employees to attend, while the registration fee for others will be $150. Press are invited to attend. The event is being co-hosted by Next Century Cities, a non-profit coalition of innovative municipalities that recognize the importance of leveraging gigabit level internet to attract new businesses and create jobs, improve health care and education, ensure civic participation, and connect residents to new opportunities. Keep Reading
BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: Critics of municipal involvement with broadband infrastructure will find all manner of reasons to oppose them, and this article from Motherboard elaborates on Federal Communications Commissioner Mike O'Rielly's views about the subject. This appears to be an extension of the thinking that, just as cable networks enjoyed a First Amendment right to… Keep Reading
BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: There's no question that California courts controversy, in technology and telecommunications as well as many other spaces. However, putting aside the drama over net neutrality, this bill removing restrictions on the public option will aid rural broadband. In particular, the measure allows community service districts to fund broadband much as they would… Keep Reading
BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: Seattle steps up to the plate as the first city to take on the Federal Communications Commission in the emerging battles over the rollout of so-called 5G, or fifth generation, wireless networks. 5G networks require an exponential expansion on transceivers, and many cities are frustrated by the sense that the FCC is… Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, October 15, 2018 - The Phoenix Center on Friday released a new report on how the existence of a “transaction window” could help facilitating market-based repurposing of electromagnetic spectrum. The eight-page report, “Expediting Spectrum Repurposing Through Market Transactions,” presents an economic model for a two-stage process: First, incumbent licensees are would be granted a… Keep Reading
What did you do on your summer vacation? Major broadband network operators spent the season making plans to deploy superfast 5G wireless broadband. 5G is the communications technology that offers broadband speeds of up to a hundred times faster than 4G, lower “latency” (basically, faster response time), and other benefits that will power the Internet… Keep Reading
BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: The Utah Telecommunications Open Infrastructure Agency has been outperforming expectations for some time; and never more so than recently. This post from FreeUTOPIA summarizes some of the reasons. In September, the entity signed a deal with Layton to allow the city to accelerate its build of the fiber-optic network. Expanding UTOPIA the… Keep Reading
BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT - Views differ on the extent of Google Fiber progress, or persistence, throughout the country, and particularly here in Utah. I have cousins in both Provo and Salt Lake, each of whom have Google Fiber, each of whom love Google Fiber. And yet reports such as this one highlight the key need… Keep Reading
BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: SiFi Networks appears to be gaining some traction in the U.S., based upon this report from Telecompaper. The company bring a public-private partnership model to a universal broadband build within cities, helping cities to get gigabit symmetrical service -- and to have control and/or ownership at the end of a period of… Keep Reading
PITTSBURGH, August 16, 2018 - Big telecommunications providers are not making it easy for communities to step up and offer robust broadband service, even in low-density areas that the private sector has declined to serve for years, according to experts speaking at a July 23 Next Century Cities conference here. Among the local examples: Medina… Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, August 7, 2018 – Many in the broadband industry commenting on broadband availability data exposed the weaknesses of current Federal Communications Commission data – and not only in the data itself but in the process by which it is collected. The Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications Industry Association conducted a request for comments on actions… Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, August 2, 2018 – The Federal Communications Commission voted to pass the new, so-called “One Touch Make Ready” policy, a measure designed to accelerate pole attachment processes for new broadband deployments. At the agency’s monthly open meeting today, the commissioners voted 3-1 to shift the framework for pole attachments to permit “simple” make-ready processes… Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, August 2, 2018 - Google Fiber and Verizon split with AT&T and Comcast over the so-called “One-Touch Make-Ready” policy, with the former claiming that the need for faster deployment speeds make the policy essential, and the other side claiming it oversteps existing rules and jurisdiction for pole attachment regulation. Later on Thursday, the Federal… Keep Reading
PITTSBURGH, July 31, 2018 - Rural electric cooperatives and not “small cell” deployment powered by 5G networks, may be the solution to closing the digital divide, according to Jonathan Chambers, former chief of the Federal Communications Commission’s Office of Strategic Planning. Speaking at the regional conference hosted last week here by Next Century Cities, a… Keep Reading
PITTSBURGH, July 30, 2018 - Many broadband experts speaking at the Next Century Cities regional summit here said last week that city jurisdiction should take precedence over federal rules in ensuring impactful broadband deployment. The conference highlighted some of these local voices, eager for broadband deployment even as they criticize recent Federal Communications Commission moves… Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, July 12, 2018 – In advance of the Federal Communications Commission’s open meeting on Thursday, agency Chairman Ajit Pai announced a local government representative as the new vice chair of the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee. The announcement may be one more volley in the back-and-forth feud between local governments and the agency over a… Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, July 12, 2018 - A Republican congressman on Wednesday criticized the U.S. government’s treatment of the ZTE ban as a waste of an opportunity that could have given the U.S. a leg up in the race for new technology. Earlier, the Commerce Department announced that the U.S. has signed an agreement to lift the… Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, July 9, 2018 - Colorado broadband officials stressed the importance of public-private partnerships in extending broadband access to unserved Americans in rural areas, and expressed doubts that the so-called fifth-generation wireless standard dubbed 5G will be the answer to closing the digital divide. Speaking at a webinar hosted by the Schools, Health, & Libraries… Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, June 28, 2018 – The CEO of T-Mobile on Wednesday defended his company’s proposed merger with Sprint against skeptical senators, claiming the merger is necessary in order for the U.S. to win the race for 5G wireless service against China. A Senate subcommittee hearing investigating the competitive effects of the proposed merger on the… Keep Reading
BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: Last week Google announced three new phones on its Project Fi network. Which raises the question (particularly for those iPhone users blocked out of the project) about what on earth is Project Fi, and how does it work? In sum, it's Google's version of a virtual mobile network stitching together elements of… Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, May 13, 2018 - AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson on Friday announced that the company was parting ways with the executive responsible for hiring Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen in an apparent effort to grease the skids for the company’s merger with Time-Warner. The revelations of the AT&T payment to Cohen revived questions over whether Trump… Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, May 9, 2018 -- Prospects for the Trump administration's $1.5 trillion infrastructure package appear to have dimmed to the point that White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders admitted Wednesday that she can't say there would be any movement on that legislation by year's end. "I don't know that there will be one by… Keep Reading
BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: We were present at the Broadband Communities Summit at which Blair Levin gave these remarks; thanks to the Coalition for Local Internet Choice for providing the complete and unvarnished record of this important and scathing speech. Remember that Levin was the former executive director of the FCC's ambitious National Broadband Plan, issued… Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, April 30, 2018 -- Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on Monday said he is "always hopeful" that progress will be made on President Trump's $1.5 billion infrastructure plan, even as Congress shifts its focus to the upcoming primary election season. "I'm always hopeful," he said when asked about the plan's prospects shortly after a swearing-in… Keep Reading
BROADBAND BREAKFAST INSIGHT: This falls into the category of a gaffe, or when a politically-minded business like AT&T accidentally tells the truth. Here, the truth is that 5G is not, current hype notwithstanding, a fiber-to-the-home killer. Instead, 5G will rely more directly on fiber build deeper into neighborhoods. And, as AT&T said, fiber-to-the-home would be… 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: 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
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