Ziply Fiber’s $500 million expansion continued this week with an announcement of an additional five markets in Washington and Idaho. The new markets bring the total to 41 this year and 57 since the company began the expansion 18 months…
Rural Broadband
FCC Authorizes 21 More Winning RDOF Bidders Including Cox Communications
The FCC has authorized 21 more winning bidders in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF). The only large bidder on the list is Cox Communications, which had funding authorized for nine states. Cincinnati Bell also had funding authorized for deployments…
California’s South Valley Internet Offers Symmetrical Gigabit Wireless
South Valley Internet, a competitive broadband provider serving a semi-rural area south of Silicon Valley, has launched a symmetrical gigabit service using fixed wireless technology. We talked to Elise Brentnall, South Valley Internet president & chief operations officer, about the…
Charter Updates FCC on RDOF Plans, Withdraws Census Blocks
As the RDOF program gets underway, there’s a lot of clean up taking place with the rural broadband funding program. As the largest winning bidder by number of locations to be funded, cable MSO Charter is participating in this clean…
FCC Ready to Authorize More Smaller RDOF Winners, Gets Set for Defaults
The FCC said today that it is ready to authorize funding for 42 companies that were among the smaller winning bidders in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction. Also today, the FCC released a list of defaulted census blocks…
NTIA Lists Broadband Infrastructure Program Funding Applicants, Challenge Process Begins
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has released a list of entities that applied for funding through the NTIA Broadband Infrastructure Program (BIP). The list includes the census blocks to which each entity proposes to bring broadband, and NTIA…
Arcadian Infracom Plans Rural Southwest Fiber Build with Navajo Nation
Arcadian Infracom will use an investment of as much as $140 million from investment firm TIAA, which focuses on the retirement market, to accelerate fiber projects in the four-corners region of the southwest. Arcadian Infracom calls itself “an internet infrastructure…
Great Plains Communications’ Latest Acquisition is USA Communications
Great Plains Communications said today that it has acquired USA Communications. Great Plains, which is backed by investment firm Grain Management, has been expanding through acquisitions and by making its own fiber deployments. Its 13,500-mile fiber network reaches parts of…
Missouri Fixed Wireless Trial Seeks to Use Machine Learning to Improve Service
A trial of fixed wireless technology in the small rural Missouri town of Turney aims to use machine learning to improve service. An intelligent router and a machine learning algorithm will be used to predict which household needs more bandwidth…
Facebook, Appalachian Power, GigaBeam Collaborate on Rural Virginia Broadband Build
Facebook, Appalachian Power and GigaBeam are each playing a role in supporting a new broadband build in rural Grayson County, Virginia – an area in the Blue Ridge Mountains where 57% of citizens lack broadband access. GigaBeam will be making…
Shentel Not Letting Up on Glo Fiber Build Momentum
Shentel is hitting the gas on its Glo Fiber high-speed internet business in the wake of the sale of its mobile business to T-Mobile. In the past month, Shentel announced three separate fiber builds in the mid-Atlantic. The company announced…
Rural Outreach Strategy Has T-Mobile Awarding Grants to 25 Rural Communities
In a continuation of its outreach to rural America, T-Mobile has announced grants to 25 communities in what the carrier says will be a continuing stream of grants. The communities receiving T-Mobile grants are Atmore and Wedowee, AL; Clarksville, AR;…
