Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, recommended Friday that states “that have more than adequate funding through” other federal programs to deploy connectivity in unserved areas “should return unused” funding from NTIA’s $42.5 billion broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program. Cruz warned in his report that NTIA has engaged in what he sees as “unnecessary, duplicative spending and anti-competitive, anti-consumer technology bias” in its BEAD implementation. Cruz has actively participated in the review Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., has been conducting into the Biden administration’s handling of broadband money from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (see 2212060067).
California legislators voted to require wireless eligibility for state broadband funds on the last day of their session Thursday. Wireless is a “reliable substitute … when it’s impossible to use fiber,” said Assembly Communications Committee Vice Chair Jim Patterson (R) in an interview Friday. The Utility Reform Network (TURN) prefers fiber and remains opposed.
Different states could see varying levels of interest from ISPs in bidding on broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program projects due to how they craft project requirements, cable industry experts say. Among these are prevailing wages for subcontractors and middle-class affordability offerings. Unclear is how many BEAD eligible areas end up with just one bidder, or none, we're told.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said Thursday that they have the ears of Republican leadership on AI efforts, despite Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., becoming the latest to criticize Schumer’s Wednesday forum on AI regulation (see 2309130061).
AT&T Chief Financial Officer Pascal Desroches and Verizon CFO Tony Skiadas said at a Bank of America financial conference the companies continue to test soil under the lead-laden wires in their networks and so far have found no evidence of a public health threat (see 2307210004).
Telecom carriers are still figuring out which of their operations should be moved to a cloud-native architecture and which will remain longer on legacy networks, experts said during a TelecomTV summit Thursday. Speakers agreed the process will be messy.
The government needs to regulate AI to ensure companies are operating safely and in the “interest of the general public,” Tech billionaire Elon Musk told reporters Wednesday.
Expect the rapid growth in space launches to continue in coming years, driven by NASA and national security demands as well as by “almost unquenchable demand” for data via satellite connectivity, Peter Knickerbocker, Bank of America space practice manager, said Wednesday at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce aerospace conference in Washington. He said as many as 40,000 satellites could be in orbit by 2030. Knickerbocker also said venture capital investing in space dropped 50% in 2022, and investors' confidence will rebound when they see investment success stories.
Low-power broadcasters WWOO-LD Boston and XGen Network demonstrated an alternative to ATSC 3.0 in a livestream Wednesday by using 5G broadcast technology to send a television signal to a cellphone, airing a news broadcast and an emergency alert. WWOO is the only station broadcasting 5G in the U.S., and does so under an FCC experimental license. Though the tech is far behind ATSC 3.0 in implementation, it has been accepted by international cellular standards-making body 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and is expected to be receivable in next-generation mobile devices without additional hardware -- unlike 3.0, say 5G broadcast advocates. 3.0 “is a much more robust program right now,” but “we can get into cellphones,” said XGen CEO Frank Copsidas, who also heads the LPTV Broadcasters Association.
The Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance (NGMN) Wednesday published a “Cloud Native Manifesto,” a document aimed at getting operators on the same page on the move to the cloud. Experts said at a TelecomTV cloud native summit the move to the cloud is happening, but there is still confusion about the reasons for the shift.