Aiming for 100% coverage with super-fast broadband by next general election in 2020
Authorities in the United Kingdom are looking to deliver broadband access to what it calls the final 5% of the population who live in areas so remote or rural they do not...
President Obama: 'If we don’t get these young people the access to what they need to achieve their potential, then it’s our loss; it’s not just their loss'
President Barak Obama joined the growing chorus of lawmakers who want it to be easier and cheaper...
Australian telco aims to cover 600,000 premises with LTE technology
SHANGHAI – NBN Co, the Australian company rolling out the country's National Broadband Network, expects to commercially launch LTE service in the fourth quarter of the year. The announcement was made by Paul Fletcher, Parliamentary...
WASHINGTON – In a tongue-in-check effort to highlight a perceived lack of competition in the broadband space, a group of telecom companies and trade groups launched a faux pharmaceutical campaign for Competify.
The campaign, which included a full-page ad in The New York Times, notes...
AT&T offers low-cost broadband commitment to consumers
AT&T is offering up low-cost broadband options as an incentive to government regulators currently debating the telecom giant’s year-long attempt to acquire DirecTV.
In a filing earlier this month with the Federal Communications Commission, AT&T said that should the...
Pai and Wheeler split on how to pay for expanding broadband into underserved America
WASHINGTON – From a podium in Omaha, Neb., FCC Republican Commissioner Ajit Pai, announced his vision of bringing broadband Internet services to rural America.
Contrary to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler’s...
Quarter-billion-dollar investment is coming from FCC’s Connect America Fund
WASHINGTON – Frontier Communications has announced the receipt of $238 million from the Federal Communications Commission’s Connect America Fund to expand broadband Internet access to 1.3 million rural Americans across 28 states.
Dan McCarthy, Frontier president and...
Is broadband access key to elevating low-income Americans into the middle class?
WASHINGTON – Efforts by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler and Democratic lawmakers to expand the Lifeline Assistance Program to provide low-cost Internet connection to low-income Americans is facing resistance from Republican lawmakers.
Sen....
CTIA lobbyists support the push to bridge the digital divide
WASHINGTON – Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), in conjunction with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.), introduced legislation to modernize the Universal Service Fund’s Lifeline Assistance Program to include subsidized access to broadband.
The...
Carrier wants feds to limit spectrum auction bidding credit for designated entities
WASHINGTON – Carrier AT&T has asked the Federal Communications Commission to impose strict guidelines on the 2016 spectrum auction, limiting the bidding credit for designated entities to $10 million and imposing strict build-out...
Telkomsel, Indonesia’s largest mobile operator, selected Cloudera, which it claims is the first unified big data platform powered by Hadoop, to help them become a higher-value broadband service provider.
Up until now, Telkomsel has been largely a voice and text message-based business, but is hoping this partnership...
The Federal Communications Commission voted today to reclassify broadband as a utility, saying that both fixed and mobile broadband access should be regulated as telecommunications services. The agency is reclassifying broadband under Title II of the Telecommunications Act.
The FCC's order includes three key new rules....
Local utilities want more autonomy on network development
WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a statement issued Feb. 2, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler positioned himself as a defender of both small business and government regulation.
The issue being considered by the FCC is a proposed order...
First in Europe to auction 700 MHz band
Germany’s Federal Network Agency, which regulates the telecommunications, utilities, postal and railway industries, announced it would conduct a spectrum auction in the 700 MHz range in May and June. The news came on the heels of...
FCC ups minimum speeds required for broadband standard
The Federal Communications Commission redefined broadband speeds in a statement that also detailed the failure of broadband development in rural America to keep pace with the rest of the country.
A report that studies whether “broadband is being...
Access to high-speed broadband seen as necessity for economic progress
The White House is throwing its support behind the continued expansion of high-speed broadband services, noting access has become a “necessity for economic progress.”
President Barack Obama today plans to provide details on efforts to increase...
Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column where C-level executives and advisory firms from across the mobile industry share unique insights and experiences.
This week’s column continues the regulatory discussion started in late November focusing on the touchy issue of paid prioritization. To...
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) spectrum auction bids passed the $16 billion mark on Tuesday, far in excess of the federal regulatory body’s $10.5 billion minimum goal. Round 16 of bidding will kick-off on Nov. 19.
Dubbed Auction 97, the FCC-led spectrum auction includes a total...
Argentina auctioned 10 bands of spectrum and raised about $2.23 billion. The bands auctioned were 850 MHz, 1900 MHz, 1.7/2.1 GHz and 700 MHz. The auction focused on increasing the country's mobile Internet access, including LTE. Four pre-qualified companies bid in the auction: three market incumbents —Telefónica,...
French telecom equipment provider Alcatel-Lucent announced a four-year deal with Thailand's True Corporation to provide an IP transport network integrating True’s mobile, cable and Internet services and allowing for expansion of LTE services.
True claims to be the only carrier in Thailand to offer LTE...
SAO PAULO – No matter who becomes Brazil’s next president after the Oct. 26 runoff election, the agenda to universalize Internet broadband must move forward, according to Paulo Bernardo, Brazil's minister of communications. Bernardo used his speech before a full audience at the opening session of Futurecom in...
Editor’s Note: In an attempt to broaden our interaction with our readers we have created this Reader Forum for those with something meaningful to say to the wireless industry. We want to keep this as open as possible, but we maintain some editorial control...
With the help of investment firm Blackstone, Telefónica is launching Axonix, a mobile advertising exchange platform, which it claims is the first owned by a telecom company. The Axonix venture is set to resurrect the technology of the ad exchange MobClix, which went bankrupt last...
Fresh off dumping its U.S. wireless interests for a cool $130 billion, Vodafone continued to expand its European play announcing plans to acquire Spain’s Grupo Corporativo Ono for $10 billion.
Vodafone noted that Ono currently serves more than 7.2 million homes with its next-generation network,...
