C Spire has finished the two-plus years, multi-million-dollar construction of a 225-mile-long fiber optic cable route from Kiln, Mississippi to West Mobile, Alabama, the company announced. Alabama consumers and businesses represent a critical portion of C Spire’s $1 billion investment…
In this next installment of Telecompetitor’s Broadband Industry Innovator video series, I speak with Sean Middleton, Director of Strategy and Operations, at Finley, about the importance of middle mile infrastructure for utilities and their potential telco partners. The issue is…
Small telcos can sometimes do astonishingly big things. Case in point: MTA Fiber Holdings, a wholly owned subsidiary of Alaskan telecom cooperative MTA that is responsible for the creation of AlCan ONE, the first-ever terrestrial fiber network connecting Alaska with…
A draft of the Senate infrastructure bill shows $40 billion in broadband funding going to individual states to go toward the cost of deploying broadband to unserved or underserved areas. The program would target areas lacking service at speeds of…
Facebook and MCNC, the non-profit operator of the North Carolina Research and Education Network (NCREN) are “co-investing” to build a high-speed fiber network interconnecting the rural North Carolina communities of Dobson and Forest City. The latter community is home to…
Intelligent Fiber Network, the statewide Indiana fiber network that until now was owned by 20 Indiana telcos, has raised $13 million for network expansion and gained another owner. Wabash Valley Power (WVPA), an Indiana-based not-for-profit generation and transmission cooperative, and seven…
Facebook is getting into the fiber transport business. The social media giant requires a tremendous amount of network capacity to deliver all those social posts, ads, and videos all across the globe. As a result, Facebook owns and operates a…
The House of Representatives and the Senate have reached a compromise on the 2018 Farm Bill that would raise the annual budget for USDA broadband loans, loan guarantees and grants to $350 million from 2019 to 2023 and allows funding…
A C Spire electric utility company partnership announced today aims to bring more than 300 miles of fiber to remote areas of Mississippi. The partnership with Entergy Mississippi calls for C Spire to build and own the network, with Entergy…
Indatel, a provider of connectivity to rural and urban areas nationwide, is embarking on a new strategy it calls “Tent Stakes,” which it hopes will extend the Indatel network reach. Until now Indatel members primarily have included statewide and regional…
The Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) is winding towards a close, according to the latest quarterly update from NTIA, which highlights broadband stimulus program results. The report dated October 2015 but only released publicly last week, provides a summary of…
Hoping to “change the math” for rural broadband in Maine, a middle mile provider is introducing some interesting incentives for last mile broadband access. Maine Fiber Company (MFC) on November 13 announced two ¨open access¨ broadband initiatives that present funding…
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