Fierce

Broadband offers an economic lifeline for residents on Tribal lands, but face time with local officials is required just as much as funding and technological flexibility to make it a reality, according to Muralnet CEO Mariel Triggs. Muralnet was founded in 2017 to help bring internet service to Tribal lands by working with indigenous communities to design, build and develop sustainable plans to operate local fixed and wireless networks. It’s no secret that delivering broadband on Tribal lands presents a number of unique challenges.

Two independent telecom service providers–TDS Telecom and Shentel–have touted their increasingly fiber-focused broadband expansion plans. Jim Butman, president and CEO of TDS Telecom, said TDS is pressing ahead with a self-funded fiber expansion that mostly will focus on out-of-territory growth, with a few exceptions where the provider uses a full fiber deployment to defend some of its ILEC areas from competitive overbuilders. “We have plans over the next five years to make the business much more fiber-centric," said Butman.

Charter Communications rolled out a new fixed internet plan which will effectively offer free service to customers who qualify for the Federal Communications Commission’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). The move follows similar efforts from Verizon, Comcast and Mediacom to make fixed service available at no cost to ACP customers. But the catch is that most ACP subscribers are using the subsidy money for mobile broadband. The operator’s new Spectrum Internet 100 plan includes access to download speeds of up to 100 Mbps with no data caps as well as a modem, router and in-home Wi-Fi.

Altice USA isn’t afraid to march to the beat of its own drum and actually thinks it’s going about network upgrades the smart way by jumping straight to fiber rather than following other cable incumbents in pursuing DOCSIS 4.0. The operator recently laid out a plan to overbuild its hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) network to blanket 6.5 million locations with fiber by 2025.

The US Census Bureau released new data showing how the population changed on a county-by-county basis between July 2020 and July 2021,  and information analysts say it offers interesting insights for cable companies, fiber players and policymakers alike. The Bureau's report shows Los Angeles (CA) and New York (NY) counties lost the greatest number of residents to migration, while Maricopa County (AZ), Riverside County (CA) and Collin County (TX) gained the most.

Verizon’s deployment of mid-band spectrum for 5G is delivering boosts to download speeds for users connected to C-band, according to new analysis from Opensignal –  getting the carrier closer as it works to catch up to speed leader T-Mobile. Verizon and AT&T both started activating C-band spectrum in the 3.7 GHz range on January 19.

There’s a lot of money flowing to 5G network buildouts right now as US wireless operators race to expand their 5G coverage. In fact, it’s likely that 2022 to be the peak year for 5G spending by US wireless operators. Stefan Pongratz, vice president at Dell’Oro Group, said that the company expects US wireless capital expenditures to grow at a double-digit rate in 2022 and then taper off in 2023 and 2024. One reason behind this is that both AT&T and Verizon are ramping up their mid-band 5G deployments in the C-band and the 3.45 GHz spectrum bands.