Category Archives: The Industry

ATSC 3.0 Back Again

One of the most interesting announcements at CES this year came from four of the nation’s largest TV broadcasters. E.W. Scripps Company, Gray Media, Nexstar Media Group, and Sinclair announced the formation and launch of EdgeBeam, a new wireless venture.

The companies would use the spectrum that TV stations still own. You may recall a few years ago that the FCC held an incentive auction to try to lure TV stations to give up spectrum, and many of them did if they were offered enough money by an auction bidder. However, many TV stations retained the spectrum because they saw value coming in the future from owning it.

The number one use for the spectrum is to take advantage of ATSC 3.0 technology. ATSC 3.0 is a major upgrade for broadcast TV that overlays broadband into an over-the-air TV transmission signal. This opens up a whole world of possibilities for TV stations. When the technology was first introduced, stations talked about using it to provide reliable 4K video through the air, allow for video-on-demand, provide immersive high-quality audio, and greatly improve the broadcast emergency alert system. TV stations also envisioned a whole array of digital features that are standard with streaming services like program guides, actor bios, and any other kind of added information a station wants to send to customers.

The EdgeBeam venture is going to go far beyond that original vision. The CES announcement focused on three new ventures:

  • Automotive connectivity, including software updates, infotainment, precision navigation, and safety enhancements.
  • Content delivery networks (CDNs), where EdgeBeam could improve ubiquitous over-the-air streaming services.
  • Improving the accuracy of GPS.

The broadcasters are envisioning a world where TV stations expand their viewership by delivering free programming to cellphones and cars, funded by their standard advertising models. A lot of people might still be happy with network TV if they can easily view it on the go.

There are a few unique aspects of the available spectrum tied to ATSC 3.0 technology. A TV station can deliver about 25 Mbps of broadband to all receivers in its over-the-air footprint, and as a broadcast technology, the bandwidth doesn’t get diluted by the number of users. ATSC 3.0 technology could be delivered to any device that has a chip capable of receiving it. That could be cars and trucks, drones, marine vessels, phones, tablets, and television sets.

There are a few interesting consequences if the group can hit the market. First, this creates real competition to AT&T and Verizon, which currently claim to serve over 55 million connected cars with 5G. EdgeBeam would be competing in the accurate GPS business with Iridium and NextNav that are tackling this with satellites.

Perhaps the biggest consequence of TV stations using their spectrum is that it won’t be available to the cellular companies that have been eyeing it and hoping for another incentive auction. It’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out at the FCC, which clearly favors freeing up more spectrum for 5G.

The biggest hurdle will be getting device manufacturers to include ATSC capability into their chips. The technology has been built into some TVs, but not much of anything else.

Shutting Down Copper in Europe

The only other part of the world that built widespread copper telecom networks was Europe. The big telcos in the U.S. are working towards eliminating copper, and the same is happening to different degrees in Europe.

The following chart published recently by the FTTH Council of Europe shows the differing degrees to which countries on the continent have made the transition from copper to fiber.

Eight countries have published formal plans for transitioning away from copper: Sweden, Spain, France, Denmark, Netherlands, Croatia, Hungary, and the UK. Many of the other countries might have more informal plans, but some have no plan.

A few countries have announced goals for finishing the transition from copper: Sweden (2026), Spain (2025), Luxembourg (2030), France (2030), and Finland (2025). Portugal says it’s in the process of completing the closure of copper networks.

What’s startling in looking at the chart is the widely varying priorities for eliminating copper networks. Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Finland are nearly finished the transition while Germany, the Czech Republic, and Greece have barely started the process.

The U.S. would fall in the center of this chart. The Fiber Broadband Association was quoted recently saying that 56.5% of homes have fiber at the end of 2024 – up from 50% at the end of 2023.

A few other countries had a lot of historical copper. Canada had fiber to about 45% of homes at the end of 2023 and has a goal to have fiber everywhere by the end of 2030. At the end of 2023, about 68% of homes in Australia are served by fiber. The Australian government recently announced a $1.9 billion grant program to build more fiber and has the goal of having fiber to everybody by the end of the decade.

Starlink vs. Kuiper

Strand Consult published an article on its website that makes numerous prediction for broadband and related industries in 2025 and compared to the company’s 2024 predictions. It’s fascinating and well worth reading. There is one prediction in particular that got me to thinking.

In its 2024 predictions, Strand Consult compared Elon Musk’s Starlink to Jeff Bezos’ Kuiper and said that Bezos had opened a burger bar while Musk runs an interstellar McDonald’s. The 2025 observation agrees with that assessment.

My first reaction was a chuckle because it’s an amusing analogy. But then I started to think about the companies to see how accurate it is.

Starlink has a huge head start on Kuiper, with 6,000 satellites already in orbit. It’s a no-brainer to say that Starlink is far superior as the two companies sit today. In fact, if Starlink is an interstellar McDonald’s, Kuiper is not even a menu at a burger bar yet.

But Strand is not talking about the current companies, but their long term potential, and that gets more interesting. Kuiper has a huge hurdle ahead to launch enough satellites to have a viable service. All indications are that the company is on the verge of doing so, but until those birds are in the sky, Kuiper is not much more than a blueprint of a company.

But what about after Kuiper has enough satellites to offer decent residential broadband? Starlink will still be ahead as it keep launching new satellites. Starlink plans will always have more a lot more satellites than Kuiper. But Starlink is now beginning the cycle where a lot of it’s launches will be replacing satellites that have hit the short short end of functional life.

The interesting thing about Starlink is that it seems ready to chase a wide range of new opportunities. It offers home broadband, but it’s expanded to also service mobile folks in campers and hikers. Starlink recently hinted that it’s going to chase other revenue opportunities, like encryption services for governments and communications infrastructure for militaries. This will greatly increase earnings per satellite but will divert a lot of broadband capacity to those big bandwidth users.

I think Strand’s observation is based on the belief that Kuiper is likely to concentrate on just selling broadband to people. It’s a boring product compared to many business lines that Starlink will be chasing. And that’s where I think the burger bar analogy gets interesting.

Jeff Bezos is a master of bundling. He makes money by getting people to buy multiple services, and it’s hard to think he won’t do this with satellite broadband. He might bundle this creatively with Amazon Prime! and other products, where the add-ons bring more profit than his satellite broadband alone.

I think the best way to think about Kuiper’s future is to compare it to the FWA cellular broadband being sold by Verizon and T-Mobile. The big ISPs all rail against FWA and say that it’s not adequate broadband. But the public is saying otherwise, and the two companies have taken the market by storm by adding over 10 million new customers while the rest of the ISPs in the country flounder.

My bet is that Kuiper broadband is going to be priced far below Starlink, and just like with FWA cellular broadband, a whole lot of ISP customers, including those who use Starlink today are going to be lured by the price.

The Strand prediction feels right to me. Starlink will be doing big, exciting things around the world for governments and huge corporations. It will be selling connections with a wow factor. Meanwhile, Bezos might be selling nothing more than plain household broadband bundled with other everyday products – but selling a lot of it.

This makes me wonder if ten years from now, the pedestrian Kuiper might have more customers while Starlink might make more money. It’s a big possibility unless Bezos is lured into competing head-to-head with Starlink on the big stuff. I think both companies will claim they are being highly successful, and it will likely be true – with each following a different business model. That might be the inherent advantage of satellite broadband – unlike a normal ISP network that can only pursue opportunities in the immediate geographic vicinity – a satellite company can choose from a wide range of business plans.

AT&T to Retire Copper

AT&T has made it official that it plans to shut down copper networks everywhere except California by the end of 2029. This is not exactly news since the company has been quietly shutting down copper all over the country.

California is a special situation because the California Public Service Commission has never deregulated AT&T as a local telephone company and the state is going to make AT&T prove to it that customers will not be stranded when the copper comes down. Even California regulations have not stopped AT&T from quietly killing copper in California, as described in this blog I wrote early in 2024.

AT&T says it will offer an alternate technology to customers – either fiber or wireless. AT&T announced in early December that it plans to build fiber to 45 million additional passings by the end of 2029. That will certainly cover a lot of remaining DSL neighborhoods in cities and towns. But I have to wonder if AT&T is really planning on building fiber everywhere in cities. The concept of building ubiquitous fiber is counter to its historical construction plans of only building fiber in neighborhoods with the lowest cost per passing.

Consider my City of Asheville, NC. AT&T currently claims to have built fiber to pass 17,500 of 32,600 passings in the city. Is AT&T really going to build fiber to everybody else in order to replace DSL? If AT&T has already built fiber in the lowest-cost neighborhoods, it will cost a lot more per passing to cover the rest. 45 million passings is a huge number, and while it’s possible the company could build to this entire city, it would be a lot easier to build to neighborhoods with the best demographics and quietly disconnect copper DSL in the rest.

Replacing copper in rural areas is a much bigger challenge. AT&T says it will replace rural copper with FWA wireless technology – but that implies having rural towers in place that will reach everybody. FWA technology only covers roughly a two-mile circle around a tower, and in most counties, AT&T towers covers maybe a quarter of the geographic footprint. The company has no financial incentive to add new cell towers in sparely populated rural areas.

AT&T can’t tell the truth and say it will offer an alternative for only a portion of rural customers, but that’s the reality. AT&T can’t bring cellular broadband to places where cellphones barely work. The company is not about to say that it will offer an alternative for only some portion of copper customers, but that is what will ultimately happen.

I can’t imagine AT&T building in high-cost urban neighborhoods or sparely populated areas where construction makes no financial sense. Wall Street would crucify AT&T if it tried to bring a DSL replacement to everybody in the historical monopoly footprint. Even worse, doing so might entice regulators to treat AT&T like a monopoly again and make them really be the carrier of last resort.

One interesting part of the announcement is that the company says it has a new technology that will allow people to keep their old analog devices that worked on copper networks – things like medical monitors and burglar alarms. Telcos that upgrade copper technology face public grief over people who want to keep their old devices running. The technology AT&T is offering is not new and has been around for decades. The device is a emulation device that can create a TDM  bridge from an ethernet connection. Telcos have been offering this technology for decades to businesses that wanted to maintain old PBX and keysystem telephones. What’s new is that AT&T has condensed the technology to a small box that can be set next to a home router.

The Zero Click Web

I wonder how many of you have noticed a subtle change in the way that you navigate the web? We’re in the midst of a transition to the zero click Internet, meaning users no longer have to click on links to reach web sites to find content. Instead, big platforms are trying to supply the content people want to keep them from leaving the platform.

The example of this that most of you have encountered is Google search. When you now ask a question on Google, the first thing offered is a short answer to your question. Google has been scraping the web and responding with answers to some questions for a few years. But after Google introduced AI it now provides fairly robust response to questions.

I expect the average person is happy with most of Google answers, so they don’t click through to the web site where the answer was generated. If you are looking for a fact, the Google response is really useful. For instance, if you ask for the number of consecutive games played by Cal Ripken, Google tells you it is 2,632 games. If I don’t want any additional color for that answer, the Google response is perfect.

However, the Google response is not adequate if you ask a more complex question. I asked about the outlook for interest rates in 2025 and got the following response, “Fixed income markets anticipate that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates in 2025, but not by much. Short-term interest rates are expected to end 2025 close to 4%.” I don’t know about you, but I am not going to trust Google to boil down opinions from different economist and bankers into a single opinion and a few sentences. When I asked that question, I was already prepared to read to multiple articles to get different opinions on the topic.

I find this to be a dangerous trend because many folks will take the Google response as the answer. If somebody is thinking of buying a house and using a variable-rate mortgage, they might want to know if some subset of economists are predicting a big boost in interest rates. Accepting Google’s short answer is easy, but it is not the answer. Google clearly seems to be quoting a single source, and it doesn’t even tell you who that is.

Google is not the only one doing this. Social media sites like Facebook and X started to discourage external links a few years ago so that people wouldn’t leave their platforms. When news is posted on social media it is often now a text blurb only with no link to the source.

There are several consequences of the zero click Internet. As I’ve pointed out, a lot of complex information is getting boiled down to short answers, and many folks are not digging any deeper. In a world full of disinformation, that’s a bad trend.

This also means that fewer people are reading articles and blogs, and that means a gradual diminishment of digital publishing. As AI is used to write short blurbs, even big publishers like magazines and newspapers will wane in influence, because people will be reading short summaries of articles but not the actual articles.

Perhaps the biggest change from the zero click Internet will be the death of the traditional web advertising model that measures success through clicks. When folks aren’t clicking through to web sites, advertising will have to be done and compensated in a different way. I have to imagine the current Google AI has already caused major havoc with SEO consultants who help companies attract more web traffic. Over time, domain names will become less important as people get the summary version and don’t visit websites.

Chinese Hacking of our Networks

It seems like there is more disturbing news every day about Chinese infiltration of our telecommunications networks. A recent headline said that nine large ISPs have now been infiltrated.

Tom Wheeler, a previous Chairman of the FCC, recently wrote an article for the Brookings Institute that speculates that the ability of the Chinese to infiltrate our networks stems back to decisions made decades ago that have never been updated for the modern world of sophisticated hacking.

Wheeler points to the 30-year-old Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) that created a backdoor into telecommunications networks so that the FBI and others could wiretap suspected terrorist activity. This is not necessarily how Chinese hackers are gaining access to our networks, but having this backdoor it is an example of the neglect that has been paid to our networks over the years.

Wheeler describes how he participated in the negotiations between law enforcement and the industry while he was the head of CTIA – the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet  Association. At the time, law enforcement was concerned about the rapid evolution of the analog public switched telephone network (PSTN) to digital and wanted to make sure that it had a way to track bad actors regardless of the technology being used.

Over the ensuring decades, the FCC started the process several times of talking about dismantling the old PSTN, but there was never enough enthusiasm or interest among carriers to make it happen. The PSTN is still very much alive and provides an entry point into every telecom company network.

There was also not much emphasis over the years of demanding strong security measures for the newer digital technologies like VoIP. Nobody envisioned a world where foreign governments would devote significant efforts to infiltrate each other’s networks.

Wheeler also pointed to the new Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) technology being put into place inside cellular networks. O-RAN is a new technical standard that seeks to make it possible for multiple vendors and technologies to provide equipment for the cellular industry instead of the small monopoly of vendors in this space worldwide. O-RAN is based on open-source code that will allow for cheap hardware. Wheeler points out that, while this is great for the worldwide cellular industry, it’s hard to enforce security with open-source software. A recent report from the European Union warns that O-RAN will increase the number of security risks for 5G networks.

Wheeler notes that U.S. carriers and law-enforcement seems to have been blindsided by the ability of Chinese hackers to exploit our networks. He says that his FCC started the process of creating cybersecurity standards for telecom networks, but that carriers resisted the cost of tackling the issue. The Ajit Pai FCC went so far as to cancel the effort create cybersecurity rules.

The Department of Homeland Security established the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to tackle the issue, but that agency has no regulatory authority to force carriers to comply with its efforts.

The FCC and other parts of the government are now rushing to try to find a solution for the Chinese hacking, and we can expect new requirements soon from the FCC or elsewhere in the federal government. And maybe we will finally dismantle the TDM-based PSTN.

BEAD Spending in 2025

I’ve seen some vendors speculating that BEAD is finally going to unleash a big pile of spending in 2025. I don’t want to be the one to burst their bubble, but even if the BEAD grants continue to move on the current path, there will not be a big wave of construction from BEAD this year. All bets are off on BEAD spending if the new administration pauses or majorly reworks BEAD.

It’s easy to understand the renewed enthusiasm, because the BEAD process recently went into overdrive. The coming change of administration has loosened the paperwork at NTIA and there are a ton of states rushing to open grant portals. In most states, the timeline recently got shortened by at least a few months.

There is still a lot of paperwork to get through before we see construction. The process for a State that is just now opening its BEAD portal is as follows:

  • A State has to accept, evaluate, and tentatively accept grant applications. If there are locations not awarded in the first round, most states have already scheduled a second round of grants. The grant process doesn’t end until a grant office has an ISP willing to serve every BEAD-eligible location. While having satellite broadband in the mix can speed up this process, some states are going to want to use a second, or even a third round if their goal is to maximize fiber construction.
  • Once a state has tentatively chosen an ISP to serve every location, it has to write a voluminous final report to the NTIA that describes, in detail, how the State followed the NTIA rules in making the grants. The NTIA recently relaxed the rules for writing this final report, but States still have to take the time to describe everything they did in the grant process.
  • The final reports have to be sent to NTIA and be approved, and NTIA is going to need some time to review the reports – with likely a lot of new people.
  • Next, the State broadband office has to finalize a contract with each ISP. NTIA has been encouraging states to negotiate contracts while the final report is pending. But contracts can’t be finalized until NTIA blesses the final report, and contracts would have to reflect any NTIA comments about the final report. Any actions by Congress or NTIA to relax the rules will definitely delay the contract process.
  • The press release day comes when ISPs sign the contracts. Some ISPs will sign contracts quickly, but others will balk at some of the provisions in the State grant rules.

The press release day does not mean construction starts immediately. ISPs next have to proceed with environmental studies, start lining up rights-of-ways and easements, and doing field engineering along roads to get ready. Anybody building fiber on poles will have to get that process rolling, and it’s hard to envision that finishing quickly except in places where poles are nearly perfect – meaning not in rural America. Depending on the size of the grant, these activities could well take up much of 2025 for most grant winners. NTIA is encouraging ISPs to start these construction process before they have a signed contract, but I can’t envision any ISP willing to do that.

Construction can’t start until the environmental study has been approved, and I’ve been hearing rumblings that some parts of the country are going to see a backlog of environmental scientists who are also doing similar studies for roads, bridges, and dams approved by the same giant pile of federal money.

States with seasonal construction due to winter weather will have a particularly hard time starting any meaningful as we reach the end of 2025.

One issue that will flummox vendors is that some states have announced a painfully slow process for reimbursing ISPs for construction costs. ISPs in that kind of environment are not going to rush to pre-buy materials if they won’t reimbursed until construction is completed.

This is not to say that there won’t be some construction done in 2025, but it is not going to be the floodgate the vendors are hoping for. The doors should be wide open for spending in 2026 and 2027, when most of the BEAD money will be spent.

I’ve always predicted that no more than perhaps 5% of the BEAD money will be spent in 2025, although the current rush to get grants awarded could goose that little higher. I can already hear the booing from every vendor reading this – but there doesn’t look to be any easy way to get the plows in the ground.

Measuring Internet Adoption

We supposedly have a decent handle these days of the number of locations that can buy broadband due to the FCC broadband maps and data collection effort. While some folks will argue about the accuracy of the FCC maps, we know a lot more than we did just a few years ago. The maps are supposed to disclose where ISPs are capable of serving but not where they have customers.

But we still don’t have a handle on how many homes have broadband connections – particularly by neighborhood and geographic areas. That’s because ISPs are not required to report in that level of detail. And they shouldn’t be, because the identity of customers is probably the most important trade secret for any ISP.

Policy folks have always wanted to know more about broadband adoption rates. It’s hard to develop state and local policies and programs to get more Internet into homes without knowing specifically who does and doesn’t have broadband, computers, etc.

In September, NTIA and the Census Bureau announced the first results of a joint initiative to produce more granular data on broadband adoption. The Local Estimate of Internet Adoption (LEIA) uses a combination of existing data and statistical modeling to improve estimates of adoption by neighborhood.

Project LEIA got kicked off by making an estimate of the broadband adoption rate in every county in the country. This was done using 2022 data and was released in September 2024.  This first trial used microdata from the Census American Community Survey, ancillary data from the FCC, and new modeling techniques to make more accurate estimates.

There is work being considered to change the estimates based on the new realities of the market. Originally the goal was to count landline broadband connections. However, the proliferation of FWA, satellite, and other WISP broadband networks makes it important to count broadband adoption regardless of the network used to deliver it.

There is also consideration being given to expanding LEIA to make estimates by Census tracts. This is a lot more granular since there are 3,144 counties, but 84,400 Census tracts. Broadband availability and adoption has varied significantly by region in every county I’ve ever worked in.

The Census is also considering changes to the questions asked about broadband and computers in the American Community Survey.

Is Your Router Spying on You?

If you’ve followed the telecom industry at all you’ve heard of the effort to rip-and-replace Chinese network gear used mostly in cellular networks and in some fiber networks. The U.S. government ordered that such equipment be replaced, although it has funded the replacement in dribs and drabs.

There is heightened scrutiny of Chinese electronics since the recently discovered Beijing-sponsored cyberattacks that that are reported to have infiltrated the networks of major U.S. ISPs and carriers. U.S. officials recently said that they have been unable to expel the Chinese hacking presence that was instigated by the Salt Typhoon Group from China.

In something that is scary news to a lot of folks, an announcement was recently made that the Justice, Defense, and Commerce Departments have all been scrutinizing WiFi and other routers made by TP-Link. The announcement say this is the most commonly used routers in the U.S. and is marketed under a number if brand names including TP-link, Tapo, Kasa, Omada, VIGI, Aginet, HomeShield, and Tapo Care.

The scrutiny of TP-Link routers started in October when Microsoft reported that the routers have been targeted by Chinese hacking groups. Security experts say the company has a history of not responding quickly when security flaws are identified in its gear. The U.S. government hasn’t announced a specific link between TP-Link and the Chinese hackers, but the recent warning of concerns means there must be strong suspicions.

It’s hard to know what the U.S. government might do if it is established that TP-Link routers are a security risk. They could ban the routers, sending millions of homes and businesses in search of new devices. They might take a softer approach and suggest that people replace them. It’s hard to imagine the government funding the replacement of home and business routers in the same way it is doing for carriers.

Perhaps the government will push for more U.S manufacture of routers. Luckily, unlike many kinds of electronics, there are alternatives to Chinese routers. Netgear routers are manufactured primarily in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and Taiwan. Linksys is Manufactured in Taiwan and Vietnam. There are smaller brands manufactured around the world – but not many routers are made in the U.S.

What’s probably the most interesting aspect of the sudden focus on WiFi routers is that security experts have been complaining for years that most routers on the market have shoddy security measures and are easy to hack. Perhaps one outcome of the sudden focus on routers will be new government rules demanding better security for all devices.

It’s always a little hard to distinguish politics from reality. Politicians are suddenly lining up to dump on the Chinese, which is easy to do for an issue with no domestic political backlash. Everybody from the incoming FCC Chairman Brandon Carr to many in Congress are suddenly saying that something needs to be done. Only time will tell if this is rhetoric or a real threat.

Attributes and Benefits of Good Cellular Coverage

Somebody asked me recently for a list of the primary benefits of having good cellular coverage. I was surprised to find out that I had never thought about this before. Following are the benefits I could think of, and I’m sure I’m missing plenty more.

  • Mobility. The original and still primary benefit of cellular coverage is mobility. Kids won’t believe this, but thirty years ago, it was virtually impossible to communicate with others if you were away from a landline. Family members did not communicate during the day. Business travel was massively challenging and there were long lines at payphones. Cellphones introduced the reality of ‘communicate anywhere’ that revolutionized the way that people live and work.
  • It’s the Newest Utility. I think cellular coverage is the newest utility because everybody expects it. In 2023, 98% of adults had a cellphone. The average American connects to the Internet just over 7 hours per day, with the usage split almost evenly between cellphones and other devices like computers or tablets.
  • It’s How We Talk. Cellular has displaced landlines. In the 2000 U.S. Census, 97.6% of homes had a landline. At the end of 2023, home landline penetration was under 30%. People don’t just talk using cellular phone calls. We use cellphones for talk-to-text, for one-on-one video connections like Apple’s FaceTime, or for group discussions on apps like Teams. People can also talk directly through various apps.
  • Public Safety. The ability to locate a 911 caller on a cellphone was a huge technology breakthrough. Public safety got even better when 911 centers began accepting texts. 80% of all calls to 911 in 2023 came from a cellphone.
  • Payments. Money has moved to cellphones for many people. Some interesting statistics for the U.S. from 2023. 48% of consumers used a digital wallet. 73% of consumers use mobile banking. 45% of all payments to another person were made using a mobile device. 27% of all bills were paid using a mobile device. Contactless payments are estimated at $220 billion.
  • Health Monitoring. Millions of people routinely monitor sugar levels, blood pressure, and sleep issues with their smartphones. It’s now routine medicine to send people home from surgery with devices and an app to monitor vital signs.
  • Back-up for Home Broadband. While roughly 90% of homes have broadband, people scramble and use cellar broadband any time there is a glitch or outage in the broadband connection.
  • Back-up for Communities During and After Disasters. During and after disasters, the cellphone often becomes the only broadband.
  • For Some, it’s the Only Form of Connectivity. Depending on the community, between 5% and 10% of adults have no access to landline broadband at home or the office, and the cellphone is their only source of connectivity.
  • Fewer Dropped Calls or Service Interruptions. Good cellular coverage means a higher quality of connection, meaning fewer dropped voice calls and less interruptions of broadband connections.
  • Better Battery Life. Cellphones expend a lot of power looking for a stronger signal when coverage is poor. My experience after Hurricane Hellene was that my phone lasted only three hours on a charge when the only cellular was one bar of 4G.
  • Businesses / Landlords want Good Coverage. Landlords need good cellular coverage to find and keep tenants. Businesses of all types say they lose customers if cellphones won’t work inside their business.
  • Employees Expect It. Employers with poor indoor cell coverage report they have a harder time finding and retaining employees.
  • Apps Have Revolutionized the Economy. Entire new industries like Uber and DoorDash only exist because of cellphones. Practically everybody has become reliant on GPS to navigate when driving. A large percentage of smart farming and smart farm machinery rely on cellular connectivity. People who build infrastructure rely on geolocating to document the exact position of objects.
  • Paperless IDs. One of the newer applications is to use a cellphone app to prove identity and age. This got a jumpstart during the pandemic to prove people were vaccinated but has expanded greatly for other identity purposes.
  • Entertainment. A huge percentage of entertainment is consumed on cellphones. This includes things like streaming music, gaming, and streaming video. A huge percentage of social media is consumed on cellphones. People now document everything they do with pictures and video clips. There is seemingly an app for everything – you can use a smartphone to identify a constellation, a bird call, a song, or a flower.
  • FWA Cellular is Now Home Broadband. For the 10 million households using FWA broadband, cellular now also brings the many benefits of home broadband – an entirely other list.