telecompetitor

Cable operator Charter is participating in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) clean-up and notifying the Federal Communications Commission of census blocks it intends to remove from its RDOF plans. The FCC notified 197 winning bidders about concerns with their RDOF applications, suggesting there were numerous census blocks in those bids that shouldn’t qualify for the RDOF program.

The Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA) has sent a letter to the governors of all 50 states asking them to ignore a prohibition against using American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) broadband funding for fixed wireless deployments. The prohibition is included in the interim rules issued by the US Treasury for $350 billion in ARPA funding directed to state and local governments.

There might be a business case for AT&T to deploy fiber to more than the 30 million locations that the company aims to make fiber broadband available to by 2025, said AT&T CEO John Stankey. Defining the business model for fiber deployment may not be as clear cut as some might believe, Stankey suggested. Another impending development that could impact the fiber deployment business case, according to the CEO, is the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that passed the Senate

Fiber Minnesota merged with two other fiber transport carriers – Broadband Visions (BBV) and SM Broadband (SMB) – to create what it says is one of the state’s largest transport networks. The new entity will operate under the Fiber Minnesota brand. It will have a backbone of 3,900 route miles, which is 60 percent more than the network had before the move. The newly constituted company will reach “nearly all corners of the state,” including rural areas that often are left behind, with redundant connectivity.