Light Reading

Comcast recently launched a TV ad and erected a dedicated website that takes aim at the capabilities and features of T-Mobile's 5G-powered home broadband service, charging that they come up short when compared to what's delivered via Comcast's wired broadband services. In what's expected to be the first in a series of ads either targeting T-Mobile's service or perhaps the broader fixed wireless access (FWA) sector, Comcast's tongue-in-cheek "Vampires" ad features a family of four in a therapist's office lamenting the performance of T-Mobile's offering.

The airline industry has begun petitioning the Federal Communications Commission to make permanent changes to the operation of some 5G networks around airports. At the heart of the issue are 5G transmissions near airports in the C-band spectrum.

Louisiana officials have rejected a protest from Cable One's Sparklight which aimed to stop the state from awarding a $4 million grant to Conexon to build fiber broadband to 851 locations in East Carroll Parish (LA). Conexon was one of several service providers to receive broadband infrastructure grants through Louisiana's Granting Unserved Municipalities Broadband Opportunities (GUMBO) program as part of a $130 million funding round.

Small broadband providers in the rural US are scrambling to meet a September 1 deadline to submit coverage data to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) or risk being locked out of the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program (BEAD). FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel opened the agency's broadband data collection portal on June 30. The data requested will inform the first draft of a new federal broadband coverage map, which states will then have the opportunity to challenge with their own data.

Rural residents in upstate New York will soon benefit from a municipal open access fiber network, courtesy of the state's new $1 billion ConnectAll grant program and many years of advanced planning by local county officials. Back in May 2022, New York Gov Kathy Hochul (D-NY)'s office announced a $10 million pilot project as the first to be funded through ConnectAll. The initial pilot would target fiber builds in the village of Sherburne in Chenango County, the town of Nichols in Tioga County, the town of Diana in Lewis County and the town of Pitcairn in St. Lawrence County (NY).

Verizon and T-Mobile have been headlining the fixed wireless access (FWA) market in the US, signing up hundreds of thousands of new customers to their respective offerings in recent months. But all that action by the market's heavyweights has been obscuring a significant amount of upheaval among some of the sector's smaller FWA providers. For example, Cincinnati Bell (now doing business as altafiber) recently acquired Agile Network Builders, a fixed wireless network operator that was a subsidiary of American Tower.

While the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's notice of funding opportunity prioritizes fiber builds for those applying for Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program grants, a "high-cost threshold" exception has been a point of concern for fiber advocates like the Fiber Broadband Association (FBA) CEO Gary Bolton. That threshold is a cost, to be set by the states, at which they may choose not to prioritize end-to-end fiber deployment. FBA is trying to make sure the states and territories writing up their funding plans keep that threshold as high as pos