Broadband Industry Says Biden’s Competition Order Gets the Facts Wrong

 The telecom industry is reacting strongly to the Executive Order on competition signed by President Joe Biden on Friday. In it, Biden challenges the industry for what the White House calls “unclear pricing, high fees and landlords’ restricting tenants’ choice of ISPs.”

The White House says the point of the changes is to promote competition in the economy, to lower prices for families, increase workers’ wages and promote innovation. The “lack of competition drives up prices for consumers. As fewer large players have controlled more of the market, mark-ups (charges over cost) have tripled,” notes the administration. The result is consumers are paying more for things like prescription drugs, hearing aids and broadband.  

The Executive Order includes 72 initiatives by more than a dozen federal agencies to promptly tackle some of the most pressing competition problems across the economy. The orders will: “Save Americans money on their internet bills by banning excessive early termination fees, requiring clear disclosure of plan costs to facilitate comparison shopping, and ending landlord exclusivity arrangements that stick tenants with only a single internet option.” Continue Reading

T-Mobile 5G Powers Launch of Driverless Car Service in Vegas

  

Yesterday, T-Mobile announced that Halo Cars launched one of the first commercial driverless car services in the U.S. running on the carrier’s 5G network in Las Vegas. When visitors and residents summon the all-electric robotic car, a driverless Halo arrives at the pick-up location to take the rider to their destination.

Halo, a company purchased by Lyft in February of 2020, has been testing operations on the T-Mobile 5G network since it began driving on dedicated Las Vegas roads earlier this year. Halo said they are collaborating with local municipalities to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) to address traffic congestion and carbon emission challenges by connecting public transit systems to on-demand, driverless cars. The company expects to begin offering rides to customers later this year with service initially available in urban parts of the Las Vegas Valley. Continue Reading

Ganzi’s DigitalBridge Forms Wireless Towers Platform in Asia

 By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor DigitalBridge Group, headed by CEO Marc Ganzi, has announced that it has formed a tower platform focused on the Southeast Asia market, known as EdgePoint Infrastructure. To date, EdgePoint has secured more than 10,000 sites across Indonesia and Malaysia and is evaluating additional growth across the Asia-Pacific region.

EdgePoint has a controlling stake in PT Centratama Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk, which owns and manages over 4,000 sites, and it purchased 4,247 towers from Indosat Ooredoo. In addition, EdgePoint has acquired Asiaspace in Malaysia and is considering further acquisitions. The company has also engaged in build-to-suit programs with carrier customers in Indonesia that will soon extend this to Malaysia as well. Continue Reading

FTC Charges Broadcom With Monopolizing Chip Market

 The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a complaint charging chip supplier Broadcom with monopolizing the market. The agency said on Friday the company used exclusive deals to monopolize semiconductor components that are used to deliver broadband and television internet services. 
 
The FTC also issued a proposed agreement that would settle the Commission’s charges. Under the proposed deal, Broadcom must stop requiring its customers to source components from Broadcom on an exclusive or close to an exclusive basis.
 
The “complaint reflects the Commission’s commitment to enforcing the antitrust laws against monopolists, including in high-technology industries,” said FTC Bureau of Competition Acting Director Holly Vedova. “America has a monopoly problem.” She said the action “is a step toward addressing that problem by pushing back against strong-arm tactics by a monopolist in important markets for key broadband components.” Continue Reading

Atlantic Broadband to Buy WideOpenWest’s Ohio Broadband Systems

 Last week, Cogeco Communications Inc. (TSX: CCA) announced that its subsidiary, Atlantic Broadband, has entered into an agreement with WideOpenWest, Inc. (WOW) to purchase all of its broadband systems located in Ohio. 

The WOW Ohio broadband systems pass approximately 688,000 homes and businesses in Cleveland and Columbus and serve approximately 196,000 internet, 61,000 video and 35,000 telephony customers, as of March 31, 2021. 

"The acquisition of WOW's Ohio broadband systems allows us to add significant scale to our growing and profitable U.S. broadband business," said Philippe Jetté, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cogeco Communications. "The acquisition also represents a strong strategic fit for Cogeco Communications as it is complementary to Atlantic Broadband's existing footprint and capitalizes on its existing platform. Under the guidance of Atlantic Broadband's experienced management team, we are in a unique position to grow our customer base, revenues and earnings, and to pursue our market expansion strategy." Continue Reading

Valley Forge, Metaphorically Speaking

  One of my favorite haunts in the Philadelphia area is Valley Forge. It’s a curious site, as epic Revolutionary War places go, since no battle took place there. George and the boys camped out here. It was real cold too. And while the history-nerd thrill seekers could overlook it as a non-event, the story of what took place not only determined the outcome of the war but serves as a metaphor for a company or an industry going through a long, hard season of isolation, reassessment and regrouping as a body.

The backstory on the place is the British had taken up cozy winter quarters by occupying Philadelphia following a series of battles, mostly unsuccessful for the good guys. Brandywine, Germantown, Fort Mifflin and Paoli, legitimate battle sites all around Philadelphia where the Continental Army was outflanked, over-powered, out-smarted and, in one case, flat-out massacred by an early morning surprise attack bayonet charge. Men trying to surrender were shown “no quarter” by their merciless foe. The option then was to attack the Brits in Philly, risking it all and possibly razing the fledgling capital city to the ground, or retire to an encampment for the winter well outside of town and reassess the whole situation. Some firebrand generals, spoiling for revenge, lobbied for the attack. Washington, who always got the opinions of his top brass before making a decision, opted for the time out. Continue Reading

AT&T To Run Its Mobility Network on Microsoft’s Azure Platform

 AT&T announced yesterday it will move its 5G mobile network to the Microsoft cloud. The alliance provides a path for all of AT&T’s mobile network traffic to be managed using Microsoft Azure technologies. The companies will start with AT&T’s 5G core, the software at the heart of the 5G network, that connects mobile users and IoT devices with internet and other services. AT&T said the move is designed to increase productivity and cost efficiency while focusing on the delivery of large-scale network services that meet its customers’ evolving needs.

Microsoft, in turn, will gain access to AT&T’s intellectual property and technical expertise to grow its telecom flagship offering, Azure for Operators. Microsoft is acquiring AT&T’s carrier-grade Network Cloud platform technology, which AT&T’s 5G core network runs on. AT&T’s Network Cloud platform has been running AT&T’s 5G core at scale since the company launched 5G in 2018. This move brings real-world production 5G workloads to Azure for Operators. Continue Reading