Regulators Eliminate Incumbent Carrier Requirements
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Incumbent local exchange carriers will have to comply with fewer regulations as the result of an order adopted by the FCC last week. The commission also issued two notices of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that could lead to a further reduction in incumbent telco regulatory requirements. In large part, the moves were made in response to...Learn More
FCC Report Recommends Reducing Small Telco Rate of Return
A report issued by the Federal Communications Commission last week recommends a substantial reduction in the rate of return that the nation’s smallest telephone companies earn through the inter-carrier compensation (ICC) system. Since 1990 that rate has been 11.25% but if the recommendations made by the FCC Wireline Competition Bureau are adopted that rate could...Learn More
Report: Gateways Seen as Crucial for Broadband ARPU Growth
Broadband service operators globally are increasingly making use of residential gateways to provide wireless delivery of multiscreen (mobile phones, PCs and tablets) video to viewers in the home. The percentage of operators offering such services through residential gateways will grow fast, reaching 50% by 2014 from just 6% today, according to new research from Infonetics....Learn More
4G Americas: North America Now Has 57 million 4G LTE Subscribers
Worldwide LTE connections will surpass the 100-million milestone this week, with the U.S. and Canada accounting for 57 million of the global total, according to data from Informa Telecoms & Media. There are 172 operators in 70 countries with LTE networks up and running, according to the regional industry association and the Bellevue, Washington-based market...Learn More
Former FCC Chairman and GTCR Fund See Strong Rural Cable Future
Former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt hopes this week’s acquisition of tier 2 cable company NewWave Communications by investment firm GTCR will be “the first of many.” Telecompetitor spoke this week with Hundt, who headed up the FCC during the Clinton administration and is now an advisor to GTCR. “We believe cable is the universal American...Learn More
FCC Cracks Door Open on Naked DSL, Standalone Broadband
There has been some tension in the marketplace regarding broadband and voice service, particularly in rural markets. It stems from growing consumer demand for standalone broadband – that is subscribing to broadband without the requirement for an accompanying voice line (sometimes referred to as naked DSL). Regulated rate-of-return rural carriers are challenged with this marketplace...Learn More
CEO: Hosted Services Differentiate Windstream Business Offerings
Windstream has been gradually transforming itself from a local phone company serving tier 2 and tier 3 markets to a nationwide carrier focused on business services. And according to Windstream CEO Jeff Gardner, the company’s optimal strategy in that market is to focus on customers that spend in the range of $5,000 to $10,000 on...Learn More
NTIA: 18% of Rural Communities Lack 3 Mbps Broadband
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration has done a highly detailed analysis of broadband deployment in the U.S. -– looking at broadband availability by speed, by technology, by state, by county, and by various combinations of these factors. The upshot, the NTIA said, is that although the U.S. continues to make progress on broadband deployment...Learn More
Report: Small Cells with Wi-Fi Will Reshape the Wireless Industry
Incorporation of Wi-Fi functionality into small-cell base stations “will be a game changer for cellphone service providers,” affording them the means to offload traffic from heavily congested channels while “linking together billions of devices into a single network architecture,” according to a new report from IHS. IHS expects large-scale deployment of small cell Wi-Fi base...Learn More
Vonage Launches New Value Focused OTT Voice Service, BasicTalk
There is a new OTT VoIP offer available to residential subscribers today, courtesy of long time VoIP provider Vonage. BasicTalk launched on May 14th and offers a no-frills residential VoIP service for $9.99 per month, and is a new service brand from Vonage. “BasicTalk provides extraordinary value in low-cost home phone service at a flat...Learn More
Sandvine: 20% of Fixed Data Traffic is Mobile Offload
Fixed and mobile data traffic continues to grow by leaps and bounds across the U.S., North America and worldwide, according to Sandvine’s “Global Internet Phenomena Report: 1H 2013.” Mean monthly fixed access network usage amounted to 44.7 gigabytes (GB) through the first six months of the year, a 39% year-over-year increase, while mean monthly mobile...Learn More
Level 3 Offers Cloud VoIP Solution
There is significant momentum taking place with hosted IP voice services, and it’s not just a tool for the SMB market segment. Wholesale hosted IP voice solutions for carriers are on the rise as well and Level 3 is the latest to announce a cloud based voice offer. Their Carrier Cloud Voice solution targets “…CLECs,...Learn More