[00:00:04] Hello and welcome. You're listening to the Broadband Exchange, the podcast from your friends at telecompetitor. I'm Ian Descher, Pivot's director of media and Story and managing editor of telecompetitor. It's time to review this week's broadband news. Let's get into it.
[00:00:20] River Street Networks filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week and reached an agreement to sell its assets to funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management.
[00:00:29] River street serves communities primarily in North Carolina and Virginia. It said its current customers should see no interruption in service during the restructuring. The company also obtained a commitment for approximately $20 million in financing from CoBank to support operations subject to court approval. River street is narrowing its construction plans to concentrate on its existing networks and projects close to completion. It intends to arrange for other qualified providers to take over certain unfinished expansion projects, working with government agencies on those transitions.
[00:01:01] The proposed oak tree sale is subject to court approval and could be displaced by a higher or better bid. River street said the process is intended to reduce debt and give the company greater financial flexibility for communities counting on its unfinished builds. The handoff of those projects will be a development to watch.
[00:01:18] Switching to Bede News, telecompetitor took a closer look at South Carolina's approach to the program's second funding round. We talked with South Carolina State Broadband Director Jim Stritzinger. His view is that for South Carolina specifically, this is a cleanup round rather than another start from scratch competition. The supplemental process is intended to capture locations left without a broadband commitment after the original funding plans were assembled. That could include locations revealed by updated FCC maps or addresses affected by defaults and changes in other federal or state programs.
[00:01:52] South Carolina has already used other funding sources to reduce the scope of its initial bead projects. That makes the second round a more targeted exercise, identifying the remaining gaps and making sure they are covered. Stritzinger acknowledged that other states have bigger challenges than South Carolina because many of them are dealing with large Ardoff defaults that will make the second round of bead crucial to filling large gaps in coverage.
[00:02:15] Another policy story looked at broadband affordability and the potential consequences of state rules for smaller providers. An analysis from the Pew Charitable Trusts examined how states are responding after the end of the federal Affordable Connectivity Program.
[00:02:30] Some states are requiring discounted plans. New York, for example, requires qualifying low income households to be offered Internet Service at either $15 or $20 per month, depending on the speed they offer. Providers serving no more than 20,000 households may qualify for an exception. Connecticut has a different rule applying to providers that do business, with state agencies requiring an eligible plan that costs no more than $40 per month with download speeds of at least 100 megabits.
[00:02:57] Other states are putting more emphasis on consumer subsidies. New Mexico, for example, has created a program to support broadband bills through its state universal service funding system, with subsidies of up to $30 per month or $70 on tribal lands. The worry for rural providers is that a mandatory low price may not cover the cost of operating a network in sparsely populated territory. The question for policymakers is how to help households afford service without making it harder for small providers to remain financially viable.
[00:03:27] Now to satellite broadband Last week Alaska Communications signed on as an authorized Starlink reseller for their business customers. The company will offer the satellite service as a primary connection in hard to reach areas or as a backup connection for organizations that can't afford to lose connectivity. Alaska's terrain and limited road network make that combination especially useful for businesses operating far from traditional communications infrastructure.
[00:03:53] Answering some questions from telecompetitor, Alaska Communications Chief Revenue Officer Dale Knipp stressed that the arrangement is about broadening the available solutions, not choosing Starlink. Instead of fiber or fixed wireless. The company plans to sell it both to current customers and to businesses it has not previously been able to reach.
[00:04:12] Another Starlink story last week offered a more skeptical assessment of the technology's longer term role.
[00:04:18] Strand Consult published an analysis of 10 common claims about Starlink and argued that satellite networks are unlikely to replace terrestrial broadband or mobile networks. One reason is capacity. Satellites can extend coverage into remote areas, but they do not have the same ability to serve dense urban traffic as networks built around towers and local spectrum reuse. Direct to device connections also face challenges indoors, where walls and buildings weaken satellite signals.
[00:04:45] Strand Consult highlighted another difference. Satellites in low Earth orbit have relatively short service lives around five years. In the case of Starlink, that means ongoing launches are necessary just to maintain the constellation before accounting for expansion. The firm's conclusion was not that satellite is unimportant. It sees a valuable role for Starlink in remote coverage and network resilience, just not as a wholesale replacement for fiber and terrestrial wireless.
[00:05:09] And speaking of satellites, last week AST Space Mobile announced a timetable for bringing service directly to ordinary sm.
[00:05:17] It expects to begin offering intermittent satellite based cellular broadband in the United States before the end of this year, along with initial service in several other countries. AST Space Mobile said it has already enabled more than 3,000 coverage cells in the US and is working toward roughly 5,600 to establish the footprint for its initial service. The company partners with mobile operators, including AT&T and Verizon.
[00:05:42] Back on the ground, C Spire expanded its converged Home Internet and wireless offering in Mississippi. The company added 5G home Internet to its One Plan, making the bundle available to roughly half a million additional households beyond its fiber footprint. The plan starts at $99 per month and comes with a five year price guarantee. Homes already served by C Spire Fiber will continue to receive fiber through the bundle for other eligible households. The company is using spare capacity on its upgraded wireless network to provide fixed wireless service.
[00:06:14] C Spire said its 5G home Internet offering has unlimited data and no long term contracts, and customers can set up the indoor router themselves. The company attributed the wider availability in part to upgrades at 36 cell towers.
[00:06:28] Another wireless announcement took aim at a common obstacle to switching carriers the remaining balance on a phone. US mobile and PayPal introduced a program called Free your Phone that provides zero interest advances that to help qualifying customers pay off devices financed through other carriers. The advances are limited to $1,000 per person over their lifetime, with repayment options ranging from six weeks to as long as 24 months, depending on eligibility. PayPal makes the credit decisions. Approved applicants must buy an eligible U.S. mobile plan within six hours to receive the funds. U.S. mobile said customers are free to leave its service without changing their repayment obligation. In other words, the offer tries to remove one barrier to changing carriers without imposing a new long term wireless contract. The program's website indicated that a waitlist is already in place.
[00:07:18] Meanwhile, J.D. power had encouraging news for business wireless providers. Its latest US Business Wireless Satisfaction study found improvement in every business segment. The overall score rose nine points from last year to 735 out of 1,000.
[00:07:33] Respondents gave providers better marks for plan clarity, contract terms, flexibility and value.
[00:07:39] T Mobile ranked highest among large enterprises and small businesses, while Verizon led among mid sized companies. While the results were Generally good news, J.D. power said businesses continue to place considerable value on getting timely help from a knowledgeable person. Digital support tools may be improving, but phone based service remains an area where customers see inconsistency.
[00:07:59] That point leads into new research commissioned by Consumer Cellular that came out last week. The survey focused on adults aged 50 and older and asked what happens when automated customer service cannot solve a problem.
[00:08:11] Among consumer cellular customers surveyed, 87% said they would consider leaving a company if an automated system trapped them in a loop with no path to a person. The figure was 82%. Among prospective customers, 97% of surveyed customers agreed that speaking with a human should always be an option.
[00:08:29] The research also found that complete resolution and human access ranked far above speed as customer priorities.
[00:08:36] Consumer Cellular said it is using AI to help representatives prepare call summaries and improve coaching, rather than simply replacing conversations with automation.
[00:08:45] Finally and related Telecompetitors spoke with employees of broadband software company gaia about why AI's biggest near term benefits may happen behind the scenes. The team described opportunities to automate internal workflows, bring customer information together across systems, and give technicians useful context before they arrive at a home. They also talked about AI agents that can act toward a defined goal rather than merely answer a question in a chatbot window. The point was that automation can make human service better. A technician who knows a customer's history can spend less time hunting for information, and a provider with more flexible internal systems can introduce new offers more easily. The technology may do its best work when the customer barely notices it is there. And that's it for this week. Thank you for listening to the Broadband Exchange. You can read all the articles we mentioned
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