RURAL BROADBAND:
Microsoft will try to bring better broadband to two million rural Americans in the next five years. The company’s so-called Rural Airband Initiative is an attempt to partner with local providers to boost wireless internet.
The FCC will invest $4.5 Billion in rural 4G LTE broadband expansion to rate of return carriers via alternative Connect America model (A-CAM).
FIBER:
Study Shows Home Values Up 3.1% with Access to Fiber.
Can Easier Make-Ready Change the Business Case for FTTH? “Make ready” costs (the cost of readying an aerial facilities pole for a new set of communication cables) might represent $4,000 to $35,000 per mile of cost for a new distribution network. That represents about a low of two percent and perhaps a high of eight percent of total distribution network costs.”
The war over high-speed access is fought on 40-foot-high wooden sticks.
POTS
End of copper landlines coming soon. Some people are not happy!
AT&T Looks to Discontinue Copper Landline Phone Service State By State.
Frontier bet $17B on landlines — and is in serious trouble by the WSJ!
MERGERS:
Atlantic Broadband, a Cogeco Comms subsidiary, will acquire all of the cable systems under the MetroCast brand for $1.4 B. [source]
The telecommunications industry has lost 39,200 jobs in the last year. [source]
Cincinnati Bell is buying Hawaiian Telecom for $650M.
Acquisition complete: Mitel owns Toshiba UC Systems Business Assets.
