Reporting

The Washington state legislature has voted to end limits on municipal broadband, and the bill lifting those restrictions now awaits the signature of Gov Jay Inslee (D-WA). The state Senate passed the bill (HB 1336) April 11 in a 27-22 vote, and the state House passed it in Feb. There's still one complication. A second bill (SB 5383) that would do much less to eliminate barriers to municipal broadband solutions passed the House on April 11 and had previously passed the Senate. The two competing bills have been sent to the state governor and it is expected one will be vetoed.

The White House released state-by-state arguments (in the form of "fact sheets") for why the President's almost $2 trillion infrastructure plan (American Jobs Plan) is necessary including painting a glass-half-empty of broadband availability, including speed and competition and price in the definition of broadband issues that need $100 billion in subsidy money to address. For example, for New York, the White House talks about almost a third of New Yorkers who live where "there is only one broadband provider" offering at least "minimally acceptable speeds." And even where broadband is availa

Opponents to Verizon’s planned acquisition of prepaid TracFone often cite the negative impacts they believe it will have on Lifeline subscribers and the prepaid market overall. But Verizon is pitching the transaction as a means of improving TracFone’s ability to provide Lifeline-supported services and better serve the prepaid sector. Verizon said that TracFone, as part of Verizon, will become a stronger competitor against the flanker prepaid brands of AT&T (Cricket ) and T-Mobile (Metro).

Both Verizon and T-Mobile have been touting fixed wireless access of late as a way to help close the digital divide, take market share from cable companies, and reap new revenues. But the fixed wireless access players are being questioned about the desirability of wireless as compared to fiber. The analysts at Cowen recently hosted Verizon CTO Kyle Malady, who admitted that fixed wireless is not fiber-like. But Verizon also has experience with fiber via its Fios product, which has been in place for eight years.

Consolidated Communications CEO Bob Udell highlighted 5G and public-private partnerships as two key opportunities for providers to close the broadband gap in the rural US, but warned state-level restrictions could hamper the latter’s potential. The company recently set a goal to cover at least 70% of its footprint with gigabit broadband services by 2025.

Verizon said it is working with the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to recall 2.5 million hotspot devices after an investigation found the devices’ lithium-ion batteries could overheat and pose fire and burn hazards. The Ellipsis Jetpack mobile hotspot models MHS900L, MHS900LS, and MHS900LPP were imported by Franklin Wireless Corp. and sold between April 2017 and March of 2021.

A research note from telecom financial analysts at MoffettNathanson Research shows the firm estimates SpaceX’s total addressable US market at full deployment at between 300,000 to 800,000 households, or less than 1% of the market. It’s a particularly noteworthy number, considering that SpaceX is poised to receive nearly $900 million from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) to cover some of the costs of bringing broadband to unserved rural areas.

The Starlink broadband network will probably stick with one price instead of offering different tiers of service, said SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell. SpaceX has been charging $99 a month for the Starlink beta service, plus $499 upfront for the user terminal/satellite dish, mounting tripod, and router. Even if SpaceX has just one price for most customers, it will probably offer a cheaper plan to people with low incomes.

The White House wants to lower broadband prices and make the industry more competitive — a sign that President Biden's approach to the telecom sector will be much tougher than his predecessors'. The White House infrastructure package included $100 billion for broadband deployment, with plans to channel funding to government-owned, non-profit or cooperative networks and a push to reduce prices. "A very positive signal that was sent — that should send chills up the spines of the incumbents — was recognizing that the market is not competitive and Americans generally are paying too much for bro

As expected, the Federal Communications Commission has asked the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit to hold off on hearing a challenge to its response to the court's remand of its Restoring Internet Freedom net neutrality deregulation order, suggesting that challenge could ultimately be moot depending on how the new FCC deals with multiple petitions to reconsider that response. "Only one of the three Commissioners who voted for the Remand Order remains on the Commission, while two of the remaining Commissioners dissented, and one of those dissenters has since become the Acting Chairwoma