Posts by Joan Engebretson
Joan Engebretson is Executive Editor of Telecompetitor. Joan has been writing about telecommunications since 1992. She has been editor-in-chief of two telecom industry publications—Telephony Magazine and America’s Network Magazine.
Under Engebretson’s leadership, America’s Network won several awards from the American Society of Business Publication Editors, including a 2001 national gold award for her commentary. In 2009, she won best on-line column in min’s Editorial and Design Awards.
Engebretson has a BA in journalism and an MBA from the University of Michigan.
Joan can be reached at joan@telecompetitor.com
WISPA Outlines Broadband Fixed Wireless Economics, Policy Goals Before Congress
+
Broadband fixed wireless economics are considerably better than those for fiber-to-the-home, said Claude Aiken, president and CEO of the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA) in written testimony presented to the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Communications and Technology yesterday. Aiken urged subcommittee members to support spectrum policy favorable to WISPs. He argued that by...Learn More
Study Explores Mobile vs. Fixed Internet Preferences, But Results Need a Closer Look
An authoritative study commissioned by the Internet Innovation Alliance contains valuable information about mobile vs. fixed internet preferences. Researchers at CivicScience surveyed 10,000 people for the study and the researchers appear to have been quite diligent about ensuring an appropriate mix of respondents. But beware how the findings are spun. On a conference call with...Learn More
Climate Change and Telecom: 4,000 Miles of U.S. Fiber Will Be Underwater by 2033, Researchers Say
CenturyLink, Inteliquent, AT&T and other network operators got some bad news today in the form of a climate change and telecom report released by researchers at the University of Wisconsin- Madison and the University of Oregon. The researchers project 4,067 U.S. miles of fiber conduit and other U.S. internet infrastructure to be underwater by 2033,...Learn More
Data Reveals Subscriber Choices for Video Packages Among Major Pay-TV Providers
New video tiers, sometimes referred to as “skinny bundles,” are becoming increasingly important in the pay-TV business as service providers seek to minimize the impact of a consumer shift toward more economical offerings streamed “over the top” using broadband connections. Video tiers are under transition as subscriber choices for video packages change. Pay-TV providers haven’t...Learn More
FCC Takes Next Steps to Free Up 3.7-4.2 GHz Mid-Band Spectrum
The FCC voted today to take stock of satellite earth stations operating in the 3.7-4.2 GHz spectrum band with the goal of making unused spectrum available to wireless network operators. The commission is also seeking input on what direction it should take in making spectrum in that band available to providers of fixed or mobile...Learn More
Economists Put the Tab at $61 Billion to Bring Fiber Broadband to Rural U.S.
The cost to deploy fiber to unserved U.S. rural areas is about $61 billion, said Jim Stegeman, president of CostQuest Associates, an economic consultancy that specializes in telecom. Among CostQuest’s credentials: the company created the cost model used to determine broadband deployment costs for the Connect America Fund (CAF) subsidy program. Stegeman made his comments...Learn More
Frontier Delivers UCaaS from its Own Cloud at Lower Prices
Frontier today launched Frontier AnyWare UCaaS, a unified communications-as-a-service offering that the company will deliver from its own redundant data centers. The Frontier UCaaS offering is underpinned by software from Mitel, a Frontier spokesman told Telecompetitor in an interview. Frontier has offered cloud-based collaboration since 2014 through a partnership with Mitel, the spokesman noted. Delivering...Learn More
Gluing Fiber to the Road: FiberTRAX Aims to Reduce Fiber Costs, Deployment Times
Washington D.C.-area startup Traxyl offers a new take on fiber deployment: gluing fiber to the road. The company’s FiberTRAX offering uses a methyl methacrylate (MMA) coating designed to enable fiber to be deployed without trenching by adhering it to road surfaces, thereby reducing the cost and timelines involved in fiber deployments. Traxyl claims a 10-year...Learn More
CBRS Profitability Report: Wireless ISP Could Break Even in Year 3
A wireless internet service provider (WISP) could break even on an investment in CBRS band technology within three years, according to a CBRS profitability analysis from Senza Fili Consulting. By year 5, the analysis shows the WISP earning a profit margin of 51%. The CBRS band includes 150 MHz of spectrum in the 3550 to...Learn More
Senate Farm Bill Would Put New Limits on RUS Broadband Loan Program
The Senate yesterday passed its version of a 2018 Farm Bill that would put new limits on broadband loans made through the USDA Rural Utilities service. The Senate Farm Bill RUS broadband loan limitations pertain to the percentage of a deployment project that can involve an overbuild of existing broadband facilities. The RUS broadband loan...Learn More
Behind AT&T $5.25 Million 911 Outage Settlement
AT&T will pay $5.25 to settle a FCC investigation into two 911 service outages that occurred in March and May 2017. The AT&T 911 outage settlement involves calls placed by customers on the carrier’s voice over LTE (VoLTE) network. According to a FCC press release, the March AT&T 911 outage lasted five hours and resulted...Learn More
CWA Wants to Make T-Mobile, Sprint Job Commitments Binding
The Communications Workers of America (CWA) union wants T-Mobile and Sprint to make a binding commitment not to eliminate jobs in their proposed merger. According to a CWA analysis, as many as 30,000 U.S. jobs could be lost as a result of the planned Sprint, T-Mobile merger. The majority of those losses (26,000) would result...Learn More
