“Silver Buckshot” Needed to Crack Rural Digital Divide

By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief “We’ve been talking about the rural digital divide for about 20 years. New technology always comes to other areas before rural,” said Michael Santorelli, Director, Advanced Communications Law & Policy Institute at New York Law School, during a panel discussion Tuesday on closing the digital divide.

Santorelli cited an FCC report that pegs the digital divide as affecting 19 million Americans, defining broadband internet speed as 25 mpbs download/3mbps upload.

Indiana State Senator Eric Koch said, “This is one of those issues where there is no silver bullet” to solve the issue. Rather, “It will take some silver buckshot” to fix. “If there were an easy answer it would have been solved years ago.”

In 2014, Indiana formed a rural broadband working group. Just defining broadband and what it means to be “served” took up several initial meetings, according to Koch. Continue Reading

DOJ OKs T-Mobile-Sprint; Requires Divestiture Package

The Department of Justice said Friday it and the Attorneys General for five states reached a settlement with T-Mobile and Sprint concerning their proposed $26B merger. The settlement requires what the DOJ characterized as a “substantial” divestiture package in order to enable a viable facilities-based competitor to enter the market.

Under the terms of the proposed settlement, T-Mobile and Sprint must divest prepaid business, including Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile and Sprint prepaid, to Dish Network. The proposed deal also calls for the divestiture of certain spectrum assets to Dish. Dish will pay T-Mobile approximately $5 billion for the assets it is acquiring: $1.4 billion for the prepaid businesses and $3.6 billion for the spectrum.  

In addition, T-Mobile and Sprint must make at least 20,000 cell sites available to Dish and hundreds of retail locations, according to the DOJ. T-Mobile must also provide Dish with what it calls “robust access” to its network for seven years while Dish builds its own 5G network. Continue Reading

Colony Capital Acquires Digital Bridge for $325 Million

Colony Capital, Inc. (NYSE: CLNY), a global investment management firm, announced that it acquired Digital Bridge Holdings LLC (“Digital Bridge”) for $325 million. The Digital Bridge acquisition follows the May 2019 final closing of Digital Colony Partners, a $4.05 billion fund sponsored by Colony and Digital Bridge. Digital Colony Partners is dedicated to global opportunities in digital infrastructure and is the largest first-time institutional fund of this type.

Following a transition period, Marc Ganzi, a founder and Chief Executive Officer of Digital Bridge, and Managing Partner and an Investment Committee Member at Digital Colony, will become the CEO of Colony, succeeding Thomas J. Barrack, Jr., who will return to the position of Executive Chairman. Ganzi will focus with Barrack, the Colony board, and executive team to continue Colony’s strategic plan of selling non-core assets, reducing G&A, growing investment management, generating liquidity and de-risking, and maintaining REIT status and a dividend. Continue Reading

Dish Reportedly Reaches Deal in T-Mobile-Sprint Merger

Dish Network has reportedly agreed to pay $5 billion for wireless assets in a deal with T-Mobile and Sprint, setting the stage for the Justice Department to approve T-Mobile’s $26.5 billion acquisition of Sprint, reports Bloomberg. Sources say the DOJ could announce it approves the deal as soon as today.

Under the agreement reached after weeks of deliberations, Dish would pay about $1.5 billion for prepaid mobile businesses (likely Boost Mobile) and roughly $3.5 billion for spectrum, sources familiar with the talks told Bloomberg. Dish can’t sell the assets or hand over control of the agreement to a third party for three years. DISH will sign a seven-year wholesale agreement that will allow it to use T-Mobile’s network and market under the Dish brand. The agreement also reportedly includes a three-year service agreement for T-Mobile to provide “operational support” to Dish. Representatives for Dish, T-Mobile, Sprint and the Justice Department declined to comment.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai recommended in May that his agency clear the deal, but the Justice Department’s antitrust chief, Makan Delrahim, pushed for an agreement that would compensate for the fact that T-Mobile’s merger with Sprint would reduce the number of large carriers from four to three. Dish’s role would satisfy the government’s stipulation that there be four national wireless carriers remaining. Continue Reading

“Shenanigans” Lead to Bigger Tower Fine for WGBN

Because of the public safety risk of a tall tower to aircraft, the FCC escalated a $25,000 fine against Pentecostal Temple Development Corporation to a forfeiture order. Pentecostal Temple is the licensee of WGBN-AM and owns a two-tower array registered under ASR #1026648 (at 206-feet) and #1026650 (just over 200-feet in height) in Lincoln Borough, PA. Both towers were erected in 1947.

The Enforcement Bureau cited Pentecostal in 2016 for failing to properly light the towers and not notifying the FAA the lights were out; it also cited the owner for not cleaning or repainting the structures. Continue Reading

Report: Huawei Secretly Helped North Korea Build Wireless Network

Huawei secretly helped the North Korean government build and maintain the country’s commercial wireless network, according to internal documents obtained by The Washington Post and people familiar with the arrangement. Asked about the report, President Donald Trump said on Monday, “We will have to find out.”

Huawei partnered with a Chinese state-owned firm, Panda International Information Technology Co. Ltd., on a variety of projects there spanning at least eight years, according to past work orders, contracts and spreadsheets taken from a database that charts the company’s telecom operations worldwide. The former Huawei employee who gave the documents to the Post considered the knowledge to be in the public interest.

The documents raise questions about whether Huawei violated U.S. export controls to furnish gear to North Korea. The Commerce Department declined comment; it has investigated alleged links between Huawei and North Korea since 2016, but has not publicly connected the two. Separately, the U.S. Justice Department charged Huawei with bank fraud and violations of U.S. sanctions on Iran. The company pleaded not guilty, reports the Post. Continue Reading

T-Mobile-Sprint Talks With DOJ May be Freezing as Telecoms Face Ultimatum

Negotiations between T-Mobile, Sprint and the Justice Department have been ongoing for weeks as the carriers offer various types of concessions to get their deal approved. The concessions could include divesting spectrum and Boost Mobile in order to create a fourth carrier. But the talks may be stalling. If no agreement is made this week, the Justice Department might sue to block the deal, according to various accounts and first reported by CNBC.

T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom is said to be resisting a Dish demand for permission to potentially resell Sprint assets to a cable provider in the future. Wells Fargo Securities analyst Jennifer Fritzsche wrote in an investor note last week that such a move would offer cable operators, “a very clear path to own spectrum.”

Dish Network is reportedly the top bidder and offered an estimated $6 billion for the package. Boost Mobile is a mobile virtual network operator that Sprint owns and that uses Sprint's network. Deutsche Telekom is concerned if it agrees to the divestiture transaction as currently structured, a larger company could acquire Dish and those assets — effectively using the network of a combined T-Mobile-Sprint to compete against DK, according to Yahoo Finance. Continue Reading