News

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will use the map as the foundation for allocating over $42 billion in broadband infrastructure subsidies

Back in November 2021, the long-awaited Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) was written into law, provisioning roughly $1.2 trillion in government funding for infrastructure projects across the US, spanning highway maintenance to power grid updates.

In May, as part of the IIJA, the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program was formally announced, setting aside $42.45 billion to provide high-speed ‘Internet for All’ across the country. These funds were set to be allocated by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to the areas in the US with the poorest broadband access.

Identifying these areas, however, is no easy task, not only given the nation’s scale but also its federated nature, which often obfuscates cross-state data gathering processes.

As such, the IIJA required the FCC create a National Broadband Map (NBM), collating data from across the country to both identify underserved areas and serve as a benchmark from which to assess grant requests.

This week, the FCC have unveiled their first draft of the NBM, including nationwide data on the availability of both mobile and fixed internet services.

The map is devised primarily through the meshing together of two data sets: a ‘broadband serviceable location fabric’, essentially listing all physical structures (such as homes and businesses) where broadband could be required, as well as coverage data provided by the ISPs themselves.

“[The National Broadband Map is an] important milestone in our effort to help everyone, everywhere get specific information about what broadband options are available for their homes, and pinpointing places in the country where communities do not have the service they need,” said FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel.

As part of the NBM’s release, the FCC are inviting comments from the general public, allowing them to submit data about broadband availability in their own area. In this way, the FCC hopes to keep iterating on the NBM, making it increasingly accurate over time.

There are fears, however, that this process of gradual improvement will take too long. The NTIA is expected to announce BEAD funding in June of next year, hence the organisation recommends that challenges to the current map are submitting January 13, 2023, if they are to be considered during subsidy allocations.

Thus, even though the NBM will be gradually improved over the coming years, for many states it could in fact be too late for them to benefit from it in the form of BEAD funding.

Want to learn more about the US broadband landscape? Join the experts in discussion at the Connected America conference – book now and save 80% off your ticket!

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The post FCC unveils National Broadband Map first appeared on Total Telecom.

VIEWPOINT

Any major event puts immense pressure on the communications network as fans share updates as they happen. It demands network planning and effective management to ensure that quality is maintained even as a growing number of people use the network at the same time. Typically, it also leads to an exponential increase in bandwidth demand as fans share videos on social media and with their friends.

Ooredoo and Huawei have signed a Key Event Assurance Agreement to provide a best-in-class user experience during the upcoming world-famous football event, FIFA World Cup 2022, in Qatar starting November 20. Over 1.2 million international visitors will likely visit Qatar to watch the 32-team tournament. In addition, several Government representatives, journalists and global football leaders will be visiting Qatar to watch the games and billions of fans will be watching on television.

“This strategic partnership between Ooredoo and Huawei looks set to be a winning team as the largest single-sport competition in the world comes to Qatar. Ooredoo continues to be committed to upgrading our customers’ world, and with 1.2 million fans expected to convene over the 29 days of the event, our common goal is to deliver transformational digital experiences for all, as well as to the billions watching on TV around the world,” says Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulla Al Thani, Deputy Group CEO and CEO of Ooredoo Qatar.

“Huawei has rich experience in various international sporting events. Huawei will use multiple leading technologies in partnership with Ooredoo to contribute to the success of this exceptional sports feast taking place in Qatar,” says Li Peng, President of Carrier BG Group, Huawei.

Preparing the networks for the mega event

As part of the agreement, the two companies will be working as one team to provide the best possible network experience to international visitors as well as domestic football fans as they get ready to enjoy the event held once every four years.

More than 100 Huawei experts from across various domains will be working round the clock at Ooredoo Qatar’s Operations Center to ensure the success of the assurance program. Further, global Huawei expert support is also ready to provide a service guarantee.

The two companies, Ooredoo and Huawei, are undertaking several measures to ensure a best-in-class experience during the event. As part of the preparations for the event, the latest network equipment is being deployed in seven stadiums. Further, they are also fine-tuning the network and identifying and addressing any network-related issues before the event. Ooredoo and Huawei are also conducting comprehensive resilience tests in all stadiums as part of preparing the networks for this major event.

In addition, augmented Reality (AR) assisted operations will be used across stadiums and broadcast networks to provide quality and an error-free experience.

Boosting Broadcast Experience

Ooredoo and Huawei have also deployed state-of-the-art international broadcast network solutions that will carry live broadcasting traffic of the event globally. In addition, three 24×7 operations centres have been set up for seamless handling of the broadcast traffic to the world.

The two companies have also launched next-generation TV services through their fixed broadband network in the lead-up to the major football event. This will provide an immersive experience for viewers in Qatar who decide to enjoy matches from their homes. Ooredoo and Huawei experts will work round the clock to ensure that any network glitch does not mar the viewers’ experience.

As part of the preparations, Ooredoo and Huawei will also work to upgrade the Voice over LTE (VoLTE) network to ensure a superior experience even as the number of users increases significantly. The two companies will also work together to ensure the platform remains agile and robust and they are able to offer customized packages to the end user.

The domestic and international football fans can be assured of world-class voice, data and broadcast experience during the upcoming FIFA World Cup 2022 with the two industry leaders.

The post Ooredoo and Huawei Collaborate to Ensure World-Class User Experience During Upcoming Mega Football Event first appeared on Total Telecom.

Sky UK (Sky Broadband, Sky TV etc.) has reportedly rolled out a new update for their broadband-based Sky Stream and Sky Glass TV services, which means that customers of the service will now see even more adverts appearing both before on-demand shows start and mid-show during breaks. Both IPTV services are special in that they […]

Openreach (BT) has today announced that they’ve doubled the number of customers they’ve connected, via various different UK ISPs, to their new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network in Northern Ireland from 100,000 to 200,000 in the space of a year. The operator’s new full fibre network currently covers around 80% of homes and businesses across […]

Residents and businesses on EE’s mobile network in the area surrounding the tiny rural hamlet and civil parish of Leaveland in Kent (England) have complained after a fault with the operator’s local mast left them without a working 4G connection, as well as a poor signal in other areas (via other masts), for two weeks […]

UK ISP Virgin Media (VMO2) has confirmed that the first trial customers on their new XGS-PON powered Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network were connected this month, which in the future will make even faster latency and symmetric speeds of up to 10Gbps possible across their entire network. At present around 14.3 million of Virgin Media’s premises […]

Alternative network provider Netomnia – supported by UK ISP YouFibre – has today revealed new details on their plan to rollout a gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP / XGS-PON) broadband network to homes and businesses across the West Midlands towns of Stafford, Wednesbury and Walsall. The operator, which has already covered 300,000 UK premises (up from 265k […]

Openreach (BT) has informed ISPreview that its Fibre Community Partnership (FCP) scheme, which works with disadvantaged parts of England, Wales and Scotland to help co-fund the deployment of new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP networks, will become available again for new applicants “early” in 2023. Projects under the FCP programme, which tend to be co-funded […]

Broadband ISP Zen Internet has today resolved a problem, which appears to have been occurring for almost two weeks, that caused some of their wholesale partners and related fibre (FTTC and FTTP) customers to suffer from performance problems (e.g. slower than expected speeds, poor latency and high packet loss). Feedback suggests that Zen didn’t initially […]

STARTUP STORIES

Essen based startup, Your Easy AI, thinks it has a solution to the skills shortages preventing so many from capitalising on artificial intelligence with software enabling development of artificial intelligence within minutes, without programming or AI knowledge. Their Startup Story is the latest in our regular series.

Tell us about your start up
The lack of artificial intelligence experts prevents many companies from realizing the potential of their data. Our software enables companies to create AI without these experts. With Your Easy AI, decision-makers can create AI that solves their business questions without prior programming or AI knowledge.

Our customers are businesses, that do not have their own (or a small) data science department and most are currently located in the DACH-Region.

What is your USP?
Existing software solutions can either only be operated by a data scientist or are so complex that normal employees cannot use them to analyse data. With our software, we empower employees to solve business questions independently.

What is your relationship with the telecom sector?
The telecom sector is a very important component of the growing AI and Auto-Machine Learning market. A partnership provides the necessary infrastructure to deploy our software, as well as ensure interoperability across platforms by utilizing cloud-based computing.

How have you got to your current stage of development?
Jan and Patrick started to work on the prototype in 2020 already. After successful prototyping throughout 2021, the company was officially founded in April of 2022. We are proud to have received support from the startup-incubators startport, and BRYCK. A few months after founding, we finalized our first pilot projects and received our first revenue. We were able to win the Unicorn-Pitch, the SlushD Cash Award, as well as the RuhrPitch. We are also very happy to have recently been accepted by the AI-Founders program!

Why did you establish the business?
The founders, Patrick and Jan, have known each other since their days in the same chess club. During Patrick’s time teaching non-parametric statistics, he realized, that the lack of data scientists is one of the biggest hurdles for companies in adopting AI for process optimization. In 2020 he paired up with Jan, who received awards for programming artificial intelligence and both started to work on a prototype that drastically simplifies the analysis process.

Who inspired you?
Wolfgang Grupp (German entrepreneur)

What does the future hold for your business?
We are planning to reach profitability in Q1 of 2023 and start to scale up after that. Future technological developments include a project to teach an AI how to program another AI.

COMPANY CV
HQ: Essen, Germany
Employees: 6
Last Funding: Private Loan, Still bootstrapping
URL: https://youreasyai.de/
Founders
Patrick Imcke, CEO & Founder
Jan Dette, CTO & Founder

Come and meet Your Easy AI at Connected Germany, 6 – 7 December 2022 – Mainz Congress, Germany

The post Putting the art into AI first appeared on Total Telecom.