Author Archives: Doug Dawson, CCG Consulting

Space Shorts September 2025

Space has been a part of the communications networks since the communications satellite Telstar was first put into orbit in 1962. I remember as a kid tracking Telstar across the sky. Space today is an increasingly important part of communications. The following are a few pieces of space news I recently found to be interesting..

Low-Orbit LEO. The Spanish startup Kreios Space is working to develop a new type of satellite that can fly at lower altitudes. LEO satellites today typically fly at altitudes from 220 to 350 miles above the Earth. Kreios is working on satellites that would fly at an altitude of 125 miles. LEO satellites for companies like Starlink are parked high enough to avoid the drag caused by the upper atmosphere. Kreios would be able to fly lower by using air intake to drive electric motors that would generate enough thrust to maintain altitude. This would allow for long-duration orbits and the ability to move the satellite without needing any traditional fuel.

It’s not hard to understand the advantage of flying at lower altitudes. The satellites would be able to observe the ground in much greater detail. Communications and broadband satellites at a lower altitude would mean lower latency and faster communications times.  The company thinks the improvement in performance would be between 3 and 16 times better than the current LEO satellites flying at higher altitudes.

 Bluetooth Satellites. Hubble Network is a startup that is building a fleet of satellites to communicate with Bluetooth devices. The Bluetooth devices involved are different than the typical Bluetooth device that is designed to send a lot of data for a short distance. Instead, Hubble will connect to low-power Bluetooth sensors that only transmit a small amount of data. Hubble launched its first two satellites in 2024, now has seven satellites in orbit, and plans on having a full satellite constellation in place by 2028.

The advantage of the technology for Hubble customers is the use of low-power Bluetooth devices that are far less costly than connecting to cellular technology. Sensors can be placed anywhere on the planet that are out of reach of cellular networks and can be used for functions like tracking the movement of cargo ships. Hubble is already tracking millions of devices and expects to be able to keep track of billions. The company today is working with customers like Life360, which has a location-based safety service that can let families and friends share real-time locations with each other. The sensors can be used to track vehicle fleets and can provide instant feedback on things like driving speeds.

 Space Robots. I can’t think of a space sci-fi movie that didn’t have worker robots in the background taking care of the maintenance required to work in space. I saw an article about Icarus, a startup that is raising money to develop robot workers to replace astronauts on the ISS space station. That set me on a search to understand the space robotics market, and there is a space robot-race underway. Established companies like Maxar Technologies, Northrup Grumann, NDA, Honeybee Robotics, and Motiv Space Systems have been active in the field. They are joined by numerous startups, including Astrobotic Technology, GITAI, Rovial Space, BigDipper Exploration Technologies, Space 11, and Novium.

We’ve already seen space robots for many years, like the various Mars rovers like Nasa’s Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, and Perseverance, and China’s Zhurong. The companies listed are working on robots of all sizes, from the inchworm robots being developed GITAI to moon rovers being developed by several companies.

Asteroid Mining. There have now been several trips to explore asteroids and bring back samples. This includes NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex mission that returned samples from the Bennu asteroid in 2023 and the Japanese Hayabusa-2 mission, which returned samples from the Ryugu asteroid in 2020. These missions were government-funded and cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and were funded for scientific research purposes.

Startup Karman+ is working on being able to fund a round trip to asteroids for roughly $10 million, with the cost to hopefully drop in the future. This is the first step in developing an asteroid mining industry that would use robots to mine valuable metals from asteroids and round-trip rockets to ferry materials back to Earth orbit. This first mission only plans to bring back one kilogram of material and is a test of concept for the technology. The ultimate technology will need to mine the materials in space needed to create the fuel needed to return heavier payloads back to Earth.

FCC Killing USF WiFi Hotspots

After a prompt from Senator Ted Cruz, the FCC will be voting to ban using the Universal Service Fund to buy hotspots that can be lent to the public from libraries. This follows a similar action earlier this year when the FCC banned the Universal Service Fund from being used to put WiFi on school buses. With a 2:1 republican majority, this new proposal will be passed by the FCC.

Even if the FCC approves the resolution, the ban could be reversed by a future FCC. Senator Cruz is trying to get Congress to institute a permanent ban on using the USF for WiFi devices. The Senate approved a motion in May to ban WiFi from school buses, but this has yet to pass in the House.

The press release from the FCC included the following quote from Senator Cruz, “the Biden FCC hotspot program endangered kids, duplicated existing federal funding, and violated the law.” I am perplexed by the argument that lending WiFi units to homes endangers kids. The argument is based on the idea that lending a hotspot to a home can lead to unsupervised use of the Internet by children. That certainly is possible, but what does that say about the FCC’s mission to get a broadband connection into every home, which obviously can result in the same thing? Just under 90% of homes already have broadband and WiFi, which is even higher if you include kids using cellphones. It makes no sense to ban the lending of WiFi devices with the reason that WiFi is dangerous, when the FCC is designated by law to be the champion of broadband for everybody.

It also seems like an overstatement to say that using the Universal Service Fund to fund the distribution of WiFi devices is illegal. This argument is based on the idea that the USF Schools and Libraries fund should be used only to provide broadband directly at schools and libraries, and nowhere else. The previous FCC thought this program fit within its authority. The current FCC can decide to change the policy, but it’s hard to see a way to characterize a policy decision by a previous FCC as illegal.

I’ve talked to numerous librarians who tell me that WiFi lending is one of the most popular programs at their library. Folks wait for months to get a WiFi hotpot to use for looking for a job, doing homework, or generally enjoying the many benefits of broadband. Every library that lends hotspots tells me they wish they could get more devices.

The good news for libraries is that hotspots can be funded in many ways other than through the Universal Service Fund. A lot of school networks provide hotspots to students who don’t have home broadband. A number of non-profits provide hotspots to students and families who are in shelters or who become homeless. There are a lot of local efforts in communities across the country to fund and provide computers, cellphones, and hotspots for those who need them. Unfortunately, the NTIA killed the Digital Equity Act that would have provided billions of dollars to fund devices.

FCC to Ease Copper Retirement

At the end of August, the FCC issued a new Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would make it even easier for telephone companies to tear down copper networks. The Rulemaking proposes to change the disclosure laws, meaning that there won’t be a lot of required notice to the public or other carriers when copper will be retired. This Docket would formalize the temporary process instituted in July where the FCC exempted telcos from many of the notice procedures for two years.

It turns out that the current FCC regulations include dozens of different kinds of notices must be given when a telco wants to tear down copper. The NPRM goes through many pages and specific language changes that are needed to eliminate the many rules associated with decommissioning copper. I have to admit that I didn’t realize how complex it is to decommission copper until I read this document.

While this is titled as an NPRM, where the FCC asks for public feedback on various proposed changes to FCC regulations, this doesn’t feel like an NPRM where the FCC is really seeking feedback. Instead, this feels like a document where the FCC has already decided what it is going to do, and this process is a formality, since not going through an NPRM and getting public feedback can lead to legal challenges. This is not that unusual, and all prior FCCs have issued some NPRMs where the results were a foregone conclusion.

This is the first FCC document in many years that hints at dismantling the vestiges of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) that is in place to interconnect telephone companies. As hard as it is to believe in 2025, a lot of that network still includes connections between telcos, called trunks, that still use the TDM technology that drove copper networks. Small telcos, CLECs, cellular carriers, and others that directly interconnect with the big telcos should be on the lookout for the disconnection of TDM trunks that carry traffic between local companies.

That will make for an interesting change in the telephone network. One of the things that protected the PSTN from the big nationwide or regional outages was that the network was arranged into regional networks that surrounded large tandem switches, most often, but not always, owned by the biggest telcos. Since 70% or more of telephone calls are somewhat local and don’t leave a region, the local PSTN trunk network allows calls to travel for free between telcos and others in a region. I would expect that, as the PSNT is dismantled, small telcos and CLECs will have to pay to carry calls to and from the replacement network.

I find it likely that as copper is retired, the tandem switching network will go with it, and the big telcos will likely establish a handful of national tandem hubs where everybody else will have to bring traffic. This has been on the wish list for the big telcos for several decades, and if they are allowed to finally dismantle the PSTN, then regional tandem switches will not be far behind.

I wrote about a similar issue in a blog last year when I warned about the dangers of 911 consolidation, which is creating large 911 hubs, meaning that a 911 call can be carried far out of state before it’s answered. That greatly increases the chance of 911 calls not working because of network issues that happen in another state. I’ve been recommending that States should consider not allowing 911 calls to be routed outside of their State.

Broadband Shorts September 2025

The following topics are interesting, just too short of a topic for a full blog.

Criminal Damage to Undersea Fibers. Finland filed criminal charges against the top officers of an oil tanker in connection with damage done to undersea cables in December. The National Prosecution Authority in Helsinki indicted the captain and two first officers of the Eagle S, a Cook Islands-registered tanker that is suspected of being part of a shadow fleet of ships that transports Russian oil in violation of international sanctions. The officers are charged with aggravated criminal mischief for allegedly dragging the ship’s anchor for more than 56 miles across the Gulf of Finland on Christmas Day, cutting five electric and telecom cables and causing almost $70 million in damage. Press releases at the time assumed the damage was accidental.

AT&T Class Action Lawsuits. Millions of AT&T customers are eligible to file claims in the $177 million legal settlement related to two data breaches. The first data breach happened in March 2024 and involved customer data, including date of birth and social security numbers. The second breach in July 2024 exposed calling and text records for nearly all AT&T cellular customers. Multiple lawsuits were filed against AT&T and were consolidated into a single settlement, with $149 million for the first breach and $28 million for the second.

Starlink Introduces Introductory Rates. Starlink has joined the ISP competitive fray and now offers introductory rates to attract new subscribers in rural areas where the company has excess capacity. In affected areas, the introductory rate for monthly broadband is cut from $120 to as low as $85. The company also introduced a new Lite plan for as low as $59 per month for customers with low broadband needs. The plan doesn’t guarantee broadband, and speeds might be deprioritized in times of heavy usage in the area. Starlink has also slashed the price of its receiver in some areas to as low as $89. The discounted rates are only guaranteed for a year, and if customers switch plans or have a service interruption, their rate reverts to the full rates.

Windstream Reunites with Uniti. A decade after the company split into two parts, Windstream and Uniti are reuniting into one company. The original split was unique in the industry and established Uniti as a Reit (Real Estate Investment Trust) that took ownership of the network and leased it back to the telco. The companies are being recombined since the company believes the value of the recombined business will be greater than the value of the two separate companies. The new company will retain the Uniti name and the UNIT stock symbol. The company will keep the Kinetic brand for Windstream fiber customers.

Wi-Fi 7 Adoption at 2%. Ookla reports that one year after introduction, WiFi 7 adoption is just under 2% in the U.S. Nobody expected instant adoption because ISPs need to update customer routers, and customers need to upgrade home devices to be able to use the 6 GHz spectrum being used for WiFi 7. Ookla reports that average speeds with WiFi 7 are almost 400 Mbps faster than the average speeds on Wi-Fi 6E devices and more than 600 Mbps faster than basic Wi-Fi 6. The big advantage of WiFi 7 is the multiple channels available with 6 GHz and the larger size of the channels, which together eliminate contention at a customer site of multiple devices trying to use a small number of channels.

FCC to Bar Chinese Testing Labs. The FCC has begun the process to withdraw the ability of three Chinese labs to certify devices for us in the U.S. The FCC has already withdrawn the testing capability of four other Chinese labs. Many people are not aware that the FCC approves broadband and wireless devices to make sure they meet the claimed specifications. This is particularly important for wireless devices since poorly designed devices can bleed into nearby spectrum bands. In recent years, as many as 75% of devices have been tested and certified in China.

AT&T Accelerating Copper Retirements. The FCC placed a two-year moratorium on notifications related to copper retirement in March and proposed changes to make this permanent. AT&T reacted quickly to the change in regulation and has begun the process of retiring copper in around 500 wire centers, or 10% of the AT&T telco exchanges.

A School Without WiFi

There was an interesting article in the Washington Post that talked about an elementary/middle school in West Virginia that is finally going to get WiFi for students. The Green-Bank Elementary-Middle School is located within the National Radio Quiet Zone. This zone was established in 1958 to provide an area around the Green Bank Observatory, the first national radio astronomy site that has the world’s largest steerable radio telescope. The quiet zone restricts the use of WiFi, cellular spectrum, microwave radios, and other kinds of spectrum to protect the work at the observatory.

In August, the observatory announced that it would allow the school to begin using WiFi for students. The school had been asking for this for many years, since a lot of public education now involves the use of student computers. Without WiFi the students couldn’t use Chromebooks like those used at other schools around the state.

This has caused students to fall behind compared to other schools, and Green Bank students have been at or near the bottom nationwide in demonstrated proficiency. As an example of what lack of broadband means, students can’t use many of the functions of the Eureka Math curriculum, which includes a lot of interactive instructions online.

Lack of WiFi has also meant that the community hasn’t been able to take advantage of the many technologies that use WiFi, like medical monitors and a huge number of smart home devices, although some homes in the area have been using WiFi at home in defiance of the frequency ban. I’m picturing many homes in the Quiet Zone with category 5 cables everywhere to connect to computers and TVs, reminiscent of the times before WiFi became prevalent. I remember the relief when I first got Verizon FiOS on fiber that came with WiFi.

Interestingly, the lack of computers in the school kept a school environment reminiscent of schools a few decades earlier, when there were no computers or devices in schools. Students haven’t learned to rely on computers to help them learn. The article cites a parent at the school who said that the lack of connectivity has also meant that students weren’t as interested in having a cellphone.

It’s interesting that the post had several articles a week earlier that talked about the new movement across the country to ban cellphones from schools because of the tremendous distraction caused when students are more interested in checking social media all day than in talking to each other. Schools that have already banned cellphones reported that after an initial period when students and parents were very unhappy with the ban, the cellphone ban has caught on. Students are forced to talk to each other instead of being glued to a screen all day.

Getting fiber connectivity to schools has been a priority for well over a decade. A report by Education Superhighway back in 2017 reported that 97% of schools had a fiber connection. The bandwidth needs of schools continue to grow. For many years, the FCC set the goal for schools to provide at least 1 Mbps per student, meaning a gigabit of connectivity for every 1,000 students. I’ve talked to numerous school districts that believe the right goal is now 3 to 5 Mbps per student, and growing every year.

Big Changes in Federal Grants

There was an Executive Order (EO) in August from the White House that made some fundamental changes to the way that federal grants work – some positive and some negative. The EO is titled Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking.

The Order instructs the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to overhaul the Uniform Grant Guidelines (2 C.F.R. Part 200) and other related documents related to all federal grants. The new rules are going to impact every stage of the grant life cycle, from the application process through compliance. The rules don’t only impact future grants but potentially affect all existing grants that are in the process of being implemented. Following are some of the key changes from this EO.

Stronger Oversight and Accountability. Each agency must name a senior appointee who will manage the process for all new grants. Before any new funding opportunity is announced, it must undergo review and approval by the senior appointee. This process mandates input from subject-matter experts, identified by the agency head. Grant announcements must be “written in plain language”. The senior appointee must review all open grant programs every year to assess progress and to make sure the program is still consistent with the agency priorities. Prior to issuing grant awards, the grant panel or program officers who will be making the awards must engage in a meeting with the senior appointee. Until the new review process is in place, agencies are prohibited from issuing new grant opportunities.

Grant Restrictions. Grants cannot be used to fund, promote, encourage, subsidize, or facilitate 1) racial preferences, 2) denial that sex is binary and that sexual preferences are chosen or mutable, 3) illegal immigration, or 4) any initiative that compromises public safety or promotes anti-American values.

Grant Applications. Grant applications must be more accessible and less burdensome. All parts of the application process must be written in plain language. Applications should only include requirements that are strictly necessary for a review of the application. The decision on who wins grants rests with the senior appointee or their designee. Grant awards must be consistent with administration policies and statutory requirements.

Termination for Convenience. All grants must include terms that allow the grant agency to terminate a grant “for convenience”. This means an agency can cancel a grant at any time and doesn’t need a reason. An agency can decide to change priorities and cancel all open grants that don’t meet the new priorities. Current grantees must agree this change for existing grants.

Grant Drawdowns. Grantees will be required to provide a detailed, written justification for each drawdown request. This is to prevent premature use of federal funds and to make sure that disbursements are tied to project milestones and agency oversight.

Limitations on Overhead Costs. The EO directs the OMC to revise the Uniform Guidance to restrict the use of grant funds to cover facilities and administrative expenses. This might include costs like administrative salaries and general institutional support.

What Does This Mean for a Grant Recipient?

It’s positive that grant applications should be easier. Some federal broadband grants have complicated instructions and forms.

The biggest change is that a grant recipient has a new risk that grants that cover multiple years might be canceled before the project is completed. Agencies don’t need a reason to cancel a grant and can do so at their convenience. This adds new risk for accepting a federal grant, with the risk increasing as a project is partially implemented.

It sounds like drawing funds will take more work. Gone will be any grant draws that are not based on actual invoices or milestones.

To some degree, this potentially dilutes grant programs developed by Congress since the Agency in charge of the grant seems to have more discretion in determining the grant rules.

Broadband Technology Improving

As has happened continuously since the introduction of DSL and 1 Mbps cable modems, the major broadband technologies continue to evolve and get faster.

Cable HFC technology is getting faster. Harmonic, one of the makers of core cable broadband technology, recently announced that the company had achieved a 14 Gbps speed with DOCSIS 4.0. The test was achieved during a CableLabs interoperability event. The speed was achieved in a mock-up that included achieving the faster speed using technology provided by multiple other vendors.

The test was achieved with an updated CMTS (which is the main hub router in a cable modem network). The speed beats the old record of 10 Gbps, also achieved by Harmonic. It’s unlikely that any cable companies will try to achieve that speed since it would mean sacrificing some upload speeds with current DOCSIS 4.0 technology. But a faster CMTS would allow a cable company to offer a true 10 Gbps download product. These kinds of breakthroughs are also important since they are the first step towards developing the next generation of electronics.

Faster home broadband service from fiber is also improving. Earlier this year, Nokia announced the availability of two different 25 Gbps customer modems, making it realistic for ISPs to offer the faster 25 Gbps service on a PON fiber network.

Nokia also recently announced the release of a 25G PON card for the network core that can simultaneously support all of the flavors of PON, including GPON, XGS-PON, and 25G PON. The company said the card would easily be able to handle the upcoming 50G PON. Having a core with this flexibility will allow ISPs to keep customers on older GPON technology without having to force an update when the newer technologies are introduced to the network.

Finally, Nokia announced the release of some new home WiFi 7 gateways for the home. The  Beacon 4 gateway can reach speeds of 3.6 Gbps, and the tri-band Beacon 9 gateway offers 9.4 Gbps speeds. These are added to a line of gateways that top out with the Beacon 24, which can achieve home WiFi speeds of 24 Gbps. The new generation of WiFi 7 routers offers the possibility of superfast speeds inside the home using 6 GHz spectrum, while at the same time still connecting to older devices using 2.5 and 5 GHz spectrum.

Another major announcement is the new generation of Tarana radios for fixed wireless. The specifications on the new radios are a leap forward in capacity and performance. The first-generation G1 radio platform could support up to 1,000 customers per tower, 250 per sector. Each sector could accept up to 2.5 gigabits of backhaul bandwidth. The new G2 platform can support up to 512 customers per sector (2048 for a tower). The radios can accept as much as 6 gigabits of backhaul bandwidth per sector.

We can’t leave out satellite technology. The first-generation Starlink satellite weighed around 570 pounds and had a total downlink budget of about 20 Gbps. Starlink is introducing its third generation of satellite that weighs almost 4,200 pounds and has a downlink budget of 1 Tbps and 160 Gbps in aggregate uplink capacity.

This is a sampling of technology improvements and is not meant to exclude improvements being introduced by other vendors. There are many other important improvements including faster lasers for long-haul fiber routes and point-to-point broadband connections using light.

My USF Comments to Congress

A bipartisan group in Congress is tackling the topic of USF reform. They created a portal to solicit comments, which are not being made available to the public. I provided comments to the group on two topics.

The first is Lifeline support, specifically for low-income MDUs. There are two issues faced by those trying to bring broadband to MDUs that have tenants who can’t afford a broadband subscription. The first issue is bringing the needed infrastructure for better broadband. There was hope that BEAD might provide some of the needed solution since non-deployment funds could be used to upgrade low-income MDUs. However, it looks like NTIA might not give the non-deployment funds to states, even though that was mandated by Congress. I’m working with some non-profits that are looking for other ways to fund infrastructure upgrades.

The bigger issue is that the landlords or ISPs that serve low-income MDUs need some ongoing subsidy since tenants can’t afford to cover the cost of broadband. Lifeline can be used for that purpose today in a limited way. However, most Lifeline recipients direct the savings to their cellphone rather than to home broadband.

I’ve suggested some changes to Lifeline that could make it a powerful tool for improving broadband in low-income MDUs.

  • At least for these MDUs, the FCC should double the current $9.25 Lifeline subsidy. That would be enough to make a meaningful subsidy for monthly broadband for a building. It would be great if the Lifeline subsidy were increased in the future for inflation. The $9.25 subsidy meant a lot more when it was created in 1997 than it does today.
  • Landlords should be able to become Lifeline recipients on behalf of their tenants. It would be particularly beneficial if landlords could require tenants to assign them the Lifeline as a component of a rental agreement. For the assignment of Lifeline, a landlord would provide free broadband.

My other comments to the Working Committee were related to the giant subsidy programs in the High-Cost Program. Anybody who has been reading my blog knows that I think the FCC has done a poor job with some of these large subsidy programs.

The CAF II program that gave over $10 billion to the largest telcos was nearly a total failure. Telcos were supposed to use the money to upgrade rural DSL to 10/1 Mbps – but the program started making subsidy payments in the same year that the FCC increased the definition of broadband to 25/3 Mbps. There have been wide criticisms that the telcos never made many of the upgrades and just pocketed the summaries, such as this complaint filed by the Public Service Commission of Mississippi.

RDOF was not a massive failure and, in many cases, was successful, like with the many cooperatives that used the funding to build fiber to their members. But like CAF II, RDOF also failed in many ways. The program started by using terrible FCC broadband maps to define the RDOF areas, and this effort missed many millions of locations that should have been eligible, as witnessed by the many locations not eligible for BEAD. The program ended up with massive defaults on 1.9 million of the 5.2 million locations in the reverse auction. Probably the biggest problem was the mess the RDOF awards made of the broadband landscape by awarding a subsidy to a hodge-podge group of Census blocks that were interspersed with Census blocks that should have been included. This has made it highly challenging to find a broadband solution for the remaining areas and is a big reason that BEAD grant costs are higher than what people think they should be.

My recommendation to the Working Committee is that Congress should not allow the FCC to unilaterally create new giant subsidy programs on its own. It’s poised to launch the 5G for Rural America Fund that looks to have as many problems as the other past programs. Congress should find some way to get buy-in for new programs from outside the FCC. This sounds like a major criticism of the FCC, but this is a regulatory agency that is not staffed by folks who are attuned to what it takes to lure ISPs and carriers to solve the broadband and cellular gaps in rural America.

Here We Go Again

It looks to me like history is repeating itself. We’re seeing the same hype cycle for 6G that we saw for 5G. The big push for 5G was mounted on several fronts. Telecom vendors preached the wonderful new features that 5G would bring to the market. The big cellular carriers got on board and pushed for 5G as the easiest path to get the FCC to award them new spectrum. To be fair to the carriers, they definitely needed new spectrum because the 3G/4G networks were becoming badly overloaded. The government was brought on board to push for 5G with the story line that the U.S. was losing the 5G war to the Chinese.

5G proponents promised a lot of amazing improvements, which were largely dependent on two claims. First was that 5G would bring gigabit speeds that were ten times faster than 4G through the use of millimeter wave spectrum and new technologies like network slicing. There was a promise that latency would fall to less than 1 millisecond, significantly better than fiber. The hype for 5G was over-the-top. 5G was going to bring us self-driving cars powered by ubiquitous 5G networks along every road. 5G would enable doctors to perform surgery remotely from across the country. 5G was going to fuel an explosion of smart factories that would bring complex manufacturing back to the U.S. 5G speeds were going to eliminate the need for investing in expensive fiber networks.

We’re starting to see the same hype cycle starting for 6G. The carriers have been making a huge pitch over the last year to get more spectrum, and have already won the first half of that battle when the H.R. 1 legislation instructed the FCC to find 800 MHz of new mid-range spectrum for the carriers. The lead-up to that bill included policy lobbying claiming that the U.S. is losing the battle for 6G to the Chinese (sound familiar?).

Vendors are also leading the charge again. It’s not hard to understand their motivation since they will benefit tremendously from a new round of major upgrades to cell site electronics. When vendors make claims of future technologies, it’s as much to lobby the carriers as it is any policymakers. Today’s blog talks about the claims of upcoming technologies being made by Hemanth Sampath, Vice President of Engineering at Qualcomm in an interview with FierceNetwork.  In the interview, Sampath was asked about the user experience he expects to become mainstream in the next 5-10 years. His response not only requires a nationwide upgrade to 6G but also would mean a ubiquitous, constant connection between devices and AI data centers.

Sampath envisions a migration during the coming decade away from today’s technology that is app-based, and smartphone-centric or screen-centric. He believes we’ll quickly migrate to what he calls a more natural environment where people will pair smart glasses and a smartwatch to interact with AI agents. He said, “instead of just carrying one device like a phone, you’ll now have multiple devices that you’ll be carrying and you’ll be able to seamlessly work across these different devices by speaking to them, or the glasses see what you see.”

He admits that existing 5G can’t enable that future and that we’ll need an upgrade to 6G, which will have “the extra capacity, the foundational technologies to squeeze more capacity in the existing bands as well as provide new spectrum”. He believes new 6G standards will enable better AI-friendly protocols.

Along with 6G, his vision means that users would be constantly connected to a digital twin in the cloud that will process the inputs from smart glasses and other devices. A constant connection to an AI datacenter will be needed so that computing is done in the cloud to protect the battery life of personal devices.

It’s a bold vision, and one that will require huge capital investments from cellular carriers. The carriers had no choice but to make the upgrades to 5G to prevent a collapse of the 4G network. But in doing so, carriers realized that there was very little new revenue to be derived from increasing cellular bandwidth and capacity. The carriers recognized this quickly and all stopped far short of implementing the full set of 5G features. Carriers are going to be skeptical about making huge investments that depend on millions of people willing to foot the monthly bill that would enable Sampath’s vision. The one wildcard in the vision is that AI companies will support the idea, because just like the cell carriers, they are searching for a recurring revenue to support AI.

Going, Going, Gone?

We now know the next BEAD fight, and it might be the biggest fight yet. On September 5, NTIA issued a press release talking about the progress of the Benefit of the Bargain round for States to award BEAD funding. The press release announced that 36 of 56 States and Territories have made tentative BEAD awards and have submitted their final proposals to NTIA.

The header of the Press Release is that “Plans include broad range of technologies and save American taxpayers at least $13 billion”. The Press Release went on to say, “In the plans submitted today, states are already projecting savings of at least $13 billion for American taxpayers”.

The $13 million referenced by NTIA is the difference between the funding allocated to each state for BEAD and the amount being awarded to BEAD grants. According to the IIJA legislation that created BEAD, any funds not spent on infrastructure were to remain with the States to pursue other activities related to improving broadband. The legislation included some specific examples related to activities that promote the adoption and meaningful use of high-speed internet, including workforce development, digital literacy training, subsidies for internet-capable devices, telehealth initiatives, and the installation of Wi-Fi in multi-unit residential buildings. States were free to propose other ideas, and many have.

When NTIA issued the new rules for making BEAD grants in June, the agency said that funding for non-deployment funds was under review. It’s now pretty clear that NTIA plans not to expend the non-deployment funds and take credit for saving the expenditure for the U.S. Treasury.

The $13 billion number will grow. That amount comes from the States that have already submitted final plans. If the same ratio of non-deployment funds holds for the remaining states, then the amount of non-deployment will be around $25 billion. There are ten States where the non-deployment funds are more than $500 million, led by North Carolina at $1.1 billion and Georgia at $1 billion. The others include Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Interestingly, the amount of non-deployment funding grew significntly when NTIS stressed making BEAD awards to satellite technology.

I describe this as a fight because States aren’t going to easily let this funding go. First, States have worked hard to reach consensus for specific plans for using the non-deployment funds. As an example, West Virginia plans to use non-deployment funds to create a database of utility poles in the state, to update security on the State’s own network, to award grants for expanding rural cell towers, and for training programs for technical jobs in the telecom sector. These are typical of the plans in other States and all work to further broadband deployment.

States are also unhappy about the NTIA statement because the funds were directed by Congress, and States believe they are entitled to the non-deployment funds. Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry sent a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick this week that emphasized that the non-deployment funds belong to the State. In Louisiana, the non-deployment funds are in the range of $850 million.

It’s not hard to imagine a coalition of State Attorneys General from red and blue states together suing NTIA to get the non-deployment funds. There are similar lawsuits underway for withheld funding for healthcare and education.

The bottom line is that a lawsuit might be inevitable. NTIA statements make it clear that it wants to claim the savings by keeping the non-deployment funds, and there are States that are likely not going to let the funds go without a fight. But maybe there is a compromise somewhere in the middle.