In the third installment of this four-part sponsored series, we look at some more key highlights from a new Heavy Reading study about the broadband industry's plans for closing the Digital Divide.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Tele2 builds wireless network for Axfood; Nokia helps tackle the digital divide in Senegal; UK toughens up online safety legislation.

Wi-Fi management systems that monitor and optimize individual access points and extenders 'is not enough,' says Airties CEO and CTO Metin Taskin. 'We are going all the way to the application experience.'

Ookla speedtest data from the past year shows download and upload speeds for fixed broadband increased by 28% and 30%, respectively, compared to 17% and 9% for mobile.

The man running technical operations for AT&T Stadium, and a dozen other entities, talks private networks, Wi-Fi consumption and the culture that keeps pushing for a better fan experience.

This week: Wave 7's LaShawn Williamson and Connect Humanity's Brian Vo join to discuss their partnership on a wireless build in Enfield, North Carolina, and the importance of community broadband providers.

Edgewater Wireless, a startup with ties to the cable industry, intends to find a home for its Wi-Fi-enhancing technology through its work with service providers and device makers.

The quick buildout of new broadband capabilities may leave vulnerable communities unprotected from scammers and cyberattacks.

As SVP, network engineering and technology, Portfolio will oversee the architecture and engineering of Charter's core access network. Charter also upped two in its product/tech org: Gary Koerper and Mike Baldino.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Cellnex says M&A is off the table for now; Arm IPO delayed; Germany backs French rockets.

Bids to build a wireless platform for the sprawling 27-square-mile North Texas airport are due this week. The airport wants a private network that routes people, bags and vehicles more efficiently than ever before.

Initially targeting the home, new tech developed by CableLabs strives to improve how smartphones connect to the best Wi-Fi link and, in turn, help cable ops cut MVNO costs by offloading more data to Wi-Fi networks.

Luis Martinez-Amago explores the recent separation of Technicolor into two separately traded companies, and what's next for Vantiva, the company that now runs what used to be the Connected Home unit of Technicolor.

This episode features Cyndi Barrera, sales vice president of SLED West at Presidio. We discuss a project Presidio worked on with Fort Worth, Texas, to bring Wi-Fi to all residents and other ways the company is working with municipalities to deliver connectivity.

Comcast is unleashing a wave of downstream speed increases ahead of a plan to make faster upload speeds available to customers on its 'xFi Complete' package.

A second Wi-Fi intranet has been discovered in Pyongyang, with verification required every time users access it.

HFCL has transitioned from an optical fiber cable manufacturer to a vendor offering products and system integration services.

This week: LiveOak Fiber's Steve Smith joins the show to discuss the company's plans to build out fiber to 80,000 homes and businesses on the Emerald Coast of Florida and the Golden Isles of Georgia.

Boingo's CEO said his company's new Las Vegas tech innovation lab will open later this year.

Light Reading's Jeff Baumgartner and Nicole Ferraro, and Omdia's Jaimie Lenderman discuss takeaways from the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo in Philadelphia, where vendors and operators shared network upgrade strategies, pondered PON and more.

Kyrio's new 'ARC Hotspot' platform automatically shifts all of a home's Wi-Fi connected devices to a mobile hotspot when the primary broadband link goes down.

Federated Wireless CTO offers his views on how Wi-Fi 6E proliferation can lead to better performing Wi-Fi networks.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Wi-Fi 6E trial in Portugal; Arm serves up new chip design; Liquid rents space on Eutelsat Konnect satellite.

MaxLinear's new family of gateway chips are designed to support multiple access networks and software platforms, and help its device and operator partners get a better grip on supply chain constraints.

The community behind the operator-backed open-source stack for video set-tops, broadband gateways and connected cameras, is also exploring use cases for connected TVs and 5G fixed wireless gateways.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Deutsche Telekom and Telefonica go roaming on the edge; it's showtime for SkyShowtime; Iskratel merges with S&T Slovenija.

This week in broadband builds: Charter, Comcast get millions in Alabama; NTIA awards $280 million for tribal networks; TDS construction in Idaho; Brightspeed's plans for Illinois and Michigan; and more.

The research, which focuses on broadband access in Philadelphia, comes as the FCC is considering policy recommendations and rules changes to eliminate 'digital discrimination.'

Althea, Nova Labs (Helium), Pollen Mobile and Hexagon Wireless are among the players in the burgeoning DeWi (decentralized wireless) sector. But the odds may be stacked against them.

Jay Rolls and David Strauss of Broadband Success Partners talk industry M&A, 'open access networks,' cable's various network upgrade paths and fixed wireless access.

In this podcast, Verizon's Mark Paff described in detail the service provider's role in emergency response scenarios and explained that Verizon's efforts are 'all done in close coordination with the local responders that are setting up that incident command center after the event.'

About 70 communities and 39 public safety agencies have received Verizon Frontline support for wildfire response efforts this year, according to the service provider.

This week in broadband builds: Charter and Windstream win in North Carolina; Comcast gets $10 million in Maryland; Lumen launches 8 Gbit/s; Internet Society awards EPIC grants. Plus construction and launches from Fidium Fiber, Brightspeed, Metronet and more.

This week in broadband builds: Starry goes to Vegas; USDA doles out $401M; Florida co-op enlists Conexon; AT&T, Comcast, Charter get GUMBO grants; Consolidated's construction in Ellensburg, Washington; Metronet declares Greencastle a 'gigabit city'; Brightspeed's plans for Pennsylvania.

Nick Feamster, director of research for the Data Science Institute at the University of Chicago, recently joined the Light Reading Podcast to discuss his team's research based on the Internet Equity Initiative data portal, which uses Ookla Speedtest data to map out Internet inequities.

Plume's Bill McFarland on how home network data shows how IoT brands perform and why IoT support and management is a critical to broadband service strategies.

This episode features Ji Soo Song, broadband advisor at the US Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology (OET). We discuss the department's Digital Equity Education Roundtables initiative and how educational institutions can use infrastructure funding to help close the digital divide for students.

Juniper's EX4100 switch series integrate with the Mist Wi-Fi Assurance service to automatically determine where there are gaps in coverage in enterprises' WLAN deployments and verify the correct placement of access points.

Cisco is reportedly in talks about acquiring a Wi-Fi player currently owned by two of India's biggest operators.

AT&T, Verizon and other operators have already engaged in a round of pricing and service fee increases. But analysts suggest we haven't seen the last of the price hikes.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: MTN unveils 5G target; Ekinops passes the Microsoft audition; Zen and the art of getting a decent Wi-Fi signal.

Charter expects to shed some broadband subs amid the transition to the ACP. Despite this 'special circumstance,' Charter's CFO still expects the overall broadband picture to stay positive in Q2.

Multi-gigabit speeds to the home is on trend, but 'massive reliability' across every link in the local area network is critical, says Plume board appointee Tony Werner.

After closing a deal that covers Assia's CloudCheck and Expresse products, DZS says revenue tied to software and services is on pace to reach $50 million annually and climb to $100 million by 2025.

Altice USA CFO Michael Grau told JP Morgan investors the third-largest US MSO will keep its cable network as it overbuilds that plant with fiber-to-the-home.

The Cable One-backed wireless ISP said it intends to launch gigabit-class services later this year following recent field trials that tapped into the 6GHz spectrum band.

CEO Charlie Vogt said DZS will target more software and enterprise licensing deals as it finalizes its purchase of Assia's analytics assets.

Qualcomm has launched a family of 'Pro' series Wi-Fi 7 chips for high-end access points, mesh devices, gateways and premium home routers. Chips are sampling now, with commercial availability expected in about a year.

CEO Charlie Vogt says the deal, which includes Assia's CloudCheck Wi-Fi and Expresse data analytics products, will be 'accretive from day one.' The Wi-Fi piece will put DZS in closer competition with Plume, AirTies and Minim.

Charter, which added 373K mobile lines in Q1, has begun rolling out 'Spectrum Mobile Speed Boost,' a feature that provides 1-Gig speeds to mobile devices in-home, even if the customer's home broadband is provisioned to deliver less than 1-Gig.

Broadcom is getting into the game with a new Wi-Fi 7 'ecosystem.' Qualcomm and MediaTek are also in the mix, and MaxLinear says it will participate in Wi-Fi 7 testbed activity this summer.

The cable operator has begun to deploy a new DOCSIS 3.1 gateway that supports the 6GHz band to broadband customers on its two fastest speed tiers.

Nokia showed its lab to Light Reading and discussed its approach to 25G PON, beacon devices for mesh Wi-Fi home networks, fixed wireless access (FWA) technologies and more.