'We will roll out a new brand representing a superior fiber product and a transformative customer experience,' hinted Consolidated Communications CEO Bob Udell during the company's earnings call.

If confirmed, Biden's pick for FCC Commissioner, Gigi Sohn will bring a strong voice for open, affordable Internet and public networks, just as the administration prepares for the largest federal broadband investment in history.

AT&T announced it plans to eliminate the 8Mbit/s speed cap it has long applied to its Cricket-branded prepaid service. And that's not the only new development in the sector.

The Light Reading editorial team gathers for a recap of the of some of the issues that were scattered, covered and smothered at Mobile World Congress Los Angeles 2021.

Meanwhile, investors grow concerned as broadband sub growth at Charter slowed in the third quarter amid a decline in sales activity and record low churn. But one analyst believes such concerns are overblown.

TeleSign and BICS more than compensate for Belgian operator's domestic weaknesses.

CEO Rami Rahim highlights fifth quarter of year-over-year growth for the networking company, while pessimistic about the supply chain in 2022.

This week in our WiC roundup: Working from home has career progression downsides; the FCC makes gender equality waves; social media potentially a bright spot for women in tech; and more.

Amazon's profits may drop to zero over Christmas amid supply chain grief, as Q3 income sinks by half. But thankfully for Jassy, AWS income is up 40%.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Orange and Oracle team up in West Africa; Sky integrates Apple TV+; MTS does private networks with Ericsson.

Huawei continues to wilt under the pressure of US sanctions, with total revenue sliding 38% in the third quarter.

Apple reported that supply constraints cut $6 billion out of its most recent quarterly financial report. And CEO Tim Cook said 'I don't feel comfortable in making a prediction' about what will happen next.

Financial settlement surfaces weeks after a New York court hit Locast with a permanent injunction that banned the company from operating a service that delivered free streams of local broadcast TV feeds.

The long-term trajectory for Comcast's connectivity business remains undimmed, and the company intends to accelerate the growth of its mobile business, Comcast Cable CEO Dave Watson says.

Telecom Italia downgrades full-year outlook; pushes back timeframe for 'stabilization' of domestic revenue.

Microsoft, Google and Amazon fielded plenty of executives at this year's MWC LA show. Their goal is to get mobile network operators to put their core network services in the cloud.

Emerging-markets operator again upgrades its EBITDA outlook for full year 2021 following a better than anticipated performance.

The Apple TV+ and Apple TV apps are coming to Comcast and Sky devices, and the Xfinity Stream and Sky Go apps are now set to arrive on Apple TV boxes.

Eutelsat spreads its sat broadband empire to Spain and Portugal. But after spurning Patrick Drahi's takeover offer, is it still on the auction block?

Tareq Amin, CEO of Rakuten Symphony and CTO of Rakuten Mobile, talks about his company's success in open RAN and how it plans to change the economics of building 5G networks for other operators.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Asian lockdowns hit Telenor's third quarter; Vodafone Portugal grabs 5G spectrum; Swisscom feels the pressure.

Strong chip demand and higher prices have powered Samsung Electronics to one of its best quarters, with net income climbing 31.3% to 12.29 trillion won.

Finnish vendor says it could have sold more were it not for the semiconductor crisis and shows that its turnaround strategy is bearing fruit.

The ICT industry is one of the worst climate offenders on the planet and its billions of customers will ensure it remains so.

At MWC LA, Light Reading spoke with VP Parm Sandhu about NTT's approach to assisting enterprise customers in building, deploying and managing their private 5G networks.

Although vendors from Parallel Wireless to Altiostar talked up the technology, open RAN didn't receive much love from big US network operators like AT&T and Verizon during this week's show.

High-capacity millimeter wave spectrum may have range limitations, but it will play an important role in multiband strategies and is poised to support a broad range of use cases, Qualcomm's Don McGuire says.

AT&T said it will brand its forthcoming C-band network as '5G+.' In doing so, it will use the same basic strategy as Verizon. However, it's not clear whether AT&T will charge extra for the service.

The Supreme Court of British Columbia will hold a hearing November 1 to hear submissions regarding the legality of Edward Rogers' attempt to replace five independent directors without convening a meeting of the company's shareholders.

Google's profits grew by a yearly 69%, but it's unlikely to be more than a third-place player in cloud.

UK-based broadband provider plans to cover 600,000 premises by 2025.

The Chinese and US technology ecosystems are heading their own separate ways, but a full divorce will be difficult.

The Halo collar includes a GPS-based invisible fence that connects to an app, and also provides a 21-day training program from Cesar Millan.

Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea have asked the Department of Telecommunications to extend the 5G trial by a year, according to media reports.

Buoyed by soaring demand for digital transformation, Redmond company sees quarterly cloud revenue top $20 billion for first time during its fiscal first quarter.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Nokia's Nuage Networks lands SD-WAN deal in Iraq; Telecom Italia takes out digital insurance; Swisscom gets its groove on.

The remote workforce is increasingly using a broader range of devices to access enterprise applications from the home, which means companies need to be on the defensive against a growing threat attack surface.

A deal between Verizon and Amazon for satellites will first focus on cell site backhaul but could expand internationally with 'joint solutions' for large enterprise customers.

Senior cable technologists envision DOCSIS 4.0 upgrades, spectrum mid-splits and high-splits, DAA rollouts, XGS-PON deployments and more as the industry strives to maintain its competitive edge.

In the drive toward a cloud-powered, globally scaled Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) ecosystem, the 5G Future Forum is touting the need for specifications, interoperability and widespread collaboration.

Following much public hand-wringing over the fate of the FCC, President Biden nominated Jessica Rosenworcel and Gigi Sohn as commissioners, with Rosenworcel designated as Chair. Biden also nominated Alan Davidson for Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information at the NTIA.

Facebook will make deep changes to try to win back young users. So far its ad revenue has held up, but its political fortunes tell a different story.

Speaking to shareholders, Calix CEO Carl Russo was optimistic about the company's ongoing success with small ISPs. But he notes Calix is experiencing the 'direct effects' of low global vaccination rates.

For all their software activity and hope, telecom operators will struggle to avoid a utility fate.

That's down from a reach of 82% in 2016 and a reach of 86% in 2006, according to Leichtman Research Group.

India's Department of Telecommunications has revised the Indian Telegraph Act right of way rules to make it easier to install aerial optical fiber cable.

It's become conventional wisdom that the pandemic has massively accelerated digital transformation.

France-based operator maintains guidance for 2021 as core profits and revenue drop slightly in Q3.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Motorola faces ESN probe; KPN enjoys steady Q3; VEON opts for Amdocs out east.

Dish Network, already a bit of a maverick in the 5G arena, said it plans to use the do-it-yourself 5G network that startup Helium is constructing with cryptocurrency payments.

Specialist chips will muscle x86 out of open RAN in more densely populated areas, says the operator's chief digital officer.

The Italian phone incumbent is switching open RAN software suppliers in a decision that could bode ill for Rakuten.

AT&T said it holds onto the data to comply with law enforcement requests. However, the company keeps its data far longer than its rivals Verizon and T-Mobile.

Rogers Communications counters that Edward Rogers' 'purported' board meeting with proposed directors is unlawful and is 'therefore not valid.'

Startup Lynk hopes to provide ten-cent text messaging services from its satellites by acting as a space-based roaming partner for terrestrial mobile network operators.

The cable operator, which is pushing ahead with a big FTTP project in the UK at Virgin Media O2, is in talks about ways to split out its infrastructure assets and services business, Bloomberg says.

Netflix digs in against attempts by South Korea's SK Broadband to make it pay for using their network, after Squid Game's unexpected popularity.

British satellite maker Inmarsat claims to be the first foreign operator to get approval in India to sell high-speed broadband to planes and ships.

In perhaps the most unusual deal of the year, Telstra is to acquire Pacific operator Digicel with some generous backing from the Australian government.

Rakuten Mobile is to buy South Korea's Estmob with its Send Anywhere service to boost Symphony platform.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Telia Carrier tackles number provisioning with Telesmart.io; Ofcom leans on operators to tackle scam calls; Tesco's online outage.

If the writers of HBO's Succession are lacking ideas for corporate-level, family-fueled drama and intrigue, they need only look to Canada's Rogers Communications for inspiration.

T-Mobile said it now plans to shutter its 3G CDMA network by March 31, 2022, but complained that 'partners haven't followed through on their responsibility to help their customers.'

In response, the NCTA called the report 'a highly distorted view' of ISP data collection policies that inappropriately attempts to lump broadband providers into the same category as the Big Tech platforms.

The O-RAN Alliance's new specs cover complex technologies, including non-real-time RAN Intelligent Controller architecture, RAN control, xhaul transport testing and open RAN security.

Swedish vendor told it was slow to provide information relating to the US$1B payment agreement from 2019.

Allison Kirkby's Telia sees its net income drop by 36% in the third quarter, as it sells towers and struggles through a restructuring.

Cable and mobile technologists view telco rollouts of 5G millimeter wave technology as potentially strong competition to cable broadband service, particularly in unserved and underserved areas.

Optical networking supplier puts the blame of slimmer profit margins firmly at the door of the 'semiconductor crisis.'

AT&T again signaled its interest in cloud gaming, and cloud computing in general, by offering a Batman game for free to its customers using Google's Stadia infrastructure.

Chinese operators are the latest to report a healthy bump in earnings and revenue.

Access to the core YouTube app on 'new' Roku streaming devices is in jeopardy as a battle between Roku and Google nears the six month mark.

Intel sees shares fall as its PC chip business and margins shrink, but Gelsinger is betting big on spending its way to being a major-player foundry.

The US operator is still slashing thousands of jobs as it tries to cut about $6 billion off its expenses.

The project has the potential to support 5G networks anywhere they're needed, 'all while outside the range of existing cellular networks,' according to the DoD.

Light Reading recently caught up with Bhattacharya during a fireside chat at Light Reading's Big 5G Event in Denver to discuss the role mentors and sponsor have played in her career, and what she sees as the current biggest barriers for women in the industry.

Meanwhile, WarnerMedia's HBO and HBO Max base nears 70M, thanks to international expansions, helping to offset a subscriber hit resulting from the media giant's decision to halt distribution of HBO content via the Amazon Channels platform.

This week: Ryan Meche, director of LUS Fiber, a municipal fiber provider in Lafayette, Louisiana, on why the city chose a municipal broadband model, how it's funded and how it works and the company's plans for a potential NTIA grant.

Not many open RAN vendors can support 2G, and that technology seems likely to be around for years.

At the exact same time that AT&T executives were boasting that their 'aggressive acquisition and retention efforts continue to bear fruit,' T-Mobile launched a new $1,000 competitive attack.

CommScope and a pair of partners are developing chipsets and a network architecture for DOCSIS 4.0 that aims to expand the ecosystem for vendors and MSOs. It should also prevent Broadcom from cornering the market.

Liberty Global-owned Belgian operator appears to have fully pivoted away from Chinese supplier ZTE.

New report from trade association Mobile UK says government can burnish their green credentials by doing more to promote 5G.

The operator is to add another 7,000 software experts to its team by 2025 as it aims for more technology independence.

A group of investors that includes Marc Ganzi are reportedly exploring to acquire broadband network owner Uniti Group and its Windstream business.

Big US cable operator aims to start high-split spectrum upgrade trials and accelerate rollouts of mid-split upgrades as it seeks to create more upstream capacity in its HFC plant.

With more than $15 billion in winning bids, the FCC's 3.45GHz-3.55GHz spectrum auction officially passed its reserve price. Now, though, auction winners will need to buy more radios.

'Despite a relatively healthy third quarter report - albeit against relatively easy year ago comps - there are reasons for disquiet,' wrote the financial analysts at MoffettNathanson.

In its first disclosure of fixed wireless access subscriber figures, Verizon said it added 55,000 FWA subs in Q3 2021, representing about 42% of the 129,000 net broadband subscribers it added in the period.

San Antonio is the latest Google Fiber market to get access to a relatively new service tier that pumps out 2Gbit/s downstream and 1Gbit/s upstream for $100 per month.

Tsinghua Unigroup, one of the biggest chip-makers, was forced into bankruptcy after accumulating debts of at least 100 billion yuan ($15.3 billion).

Tower company enters into agreement with Altice-owned Outremer Telecom to buy 203 towers and new towers over 10 years.

The streaming service is more popular than ever and its share price has soared, but its public-cloud arrangements carry enormous risk.

Netflix, which expects to add another 8.5 million subs in Q4, says it will soon measure engagement of titles on an hours-viewed basis rather than the current one based on viewership among subscriber households.

'It's been a profitable business,' said Elisa's Kimmo Pentikainen of the operator's 5G launch. In its most recent financial report, the operator reported a gain of $3.50 per month per customer from 5G.

Big Blue has made Volta a part of its takeover strategy and can already cite customers for its technology, including Dish and Telefonica.

The cybersecurity research firm said hackers were able to access subscriber information and call record details. However, the firm did not disclose the mobile network operators that were hacked.

Cato's largest funding round so far brings the SASE provider's total financing to $532 million.

The South Korean vendor, short on legacy technologies, is shouting about 4G and 5G trials with Virgin Media O2.

A pair of 4K-capable Hisense TVs powered by Comcast's streaming platform will be sold nationwide via Walmart.com and Walmart stores. Pay-TV apps from Comcast and Charter will launch on XClass TVs in the coming months.

China's Xiaomi, eyeing a burgeoning Chinese electric vehicle market, says it is joining the fray and making its own cars from the first half of 2024.

Biggest iPhone assembler Foxconn, which has long eyed making the Apple Car too, has unveiled concept electric vehicles to bolster its carmaking chops.

The supply chain crisis is certainly making a dent on smartphone shipments but the 5G outlook is unchanged.

Swedish operator sees continuing good momentum but remains on the post-pandemic recovery path in the consumer market.

After throwing resources at thousands of industry use cases in the past two years, the China 5G industry has abandoned most of them to narrow its focus.

Boingo's private LTE network in CBRS spectrum for the San Diego Padres will help move the team's payments and ticketing systems off congested public networks and onto a dedicated network.

Swedish equipment maker reports component problems and the loss of China business, but its gross margin is at record levels.

Lisa Plaggemier with the National Cybersecurity Alliance says the attack on Sinclair is another wake-up call for the industry, and another reason for media companies to treat cybersecurity like any other risk to the business.

During VMworld, VMware launched several initiatives to assist its cloud provider partners in delivering managed security services and simplified app management to end users.

Ting Internet, from Tucows, announced it will acquire fixed wireless operator Simply Bits. 'We recognize the value of fixed wireless as an additional tool in our connectivity toolkit,' explained an executive.

Starting in Europe with a partnership with Vestel, Vewd intends to take its 'Operator TV' program to other regions around the globe, CEO Aneesh Rajaram says.

Verizon stopped offering its most aggressive smartphone promotion to its existing customers, but continues to offer it to new customers. Meantime, AT&T reduced its smartphone discount from $1,000 to $800.

Free to buy American technology, the smaller of China's two equipment vendors is still on a roll.

UK operator launches its first fixed-mobile convergence offering, but PP Foresight analyst warns of low consumer appetite for buying numerous services from one provider.

Spanish competition regulator CNMC approves changes that give telco greater freedom to compete on fiber throughout the nation.

The UK-based firm is opening a new 5G lab focused on open RAN technology as it continues to battle America's biggest chipmaker.

Made famous by this year's MWC, public cloud evangelist Danielle Royston now has $1 billion at her disposal to buy and develop telecom software.

SD-WAN product revenues reached $844 million in Q2, an increase of more than 30% year-over-year. This shows, overall, that the pandemic hasn't negatively impacted the SD-WAN market, says Omdia's Dominika Koncewicz.

Kyrio's new software-powered Adaptive Route Control (ARC) system enables fixed and mobile operators to route customer traffic to the best available network on an application-by-application basis.

'Although our revenue growth and profitability in the near-term are impacted by the supply chain issues, our long-term outlook continues to strengthen,' says Adtran CEO Tom Stanton.

Telefonica finally manages to offload its El Salvadoran mobile business, after a scotched 2019 deal, but gets less than half last time's sale price.

Sivers CEO Anders Storm proclaims that 'most of the world is going to start rolling out' mmWave 5G.

GlobalData Principal Analyst Emir Halilovic discusses the changes in enterprise PON connectivity that have been unlocked by SD-WAN.

Parliamentary committee wants lower caps than ones proposed by the European Council and European Commission.

The supplier said the Entra EN9000, a node based on SCTE standards for the Generic Access Platform (GAP), will be available for lab tests in the first half of 2022. Expect Charter to be among the first in line.

The rise of this new class of product will put Comcast in position to deploy upstream-boosting Full Duplex DOCSIS technology to a large portion of its HFC network.

Without a permanent chair or adequate staff, and at risk of losing its Democratic majority, the FCC will fail to make meaningful progress on crucial broadband programs, a former agency official warns.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Orange opens two more digital centers in Africa; Telia TV hosts HBO Max; smart-home wars.

This week in our WiC roundup: Women get short shrift when it comes to promotions; workplace harassment is as pervasive as ever; telecom steps into the 21st century; and more.

Internet companies have done operators a massive favor by serving up the apps that consumers demand, but operators still think the app developers should pay.

Julie Kunstler discusses developments in passive optical networks and why operators are turning to PON to reduce 5G small cell transport costs, and to support their own 'green' initiatives.

Microsoft said it has built a 'well-managed, reliable, and performant' transport and routing network for its Azure cloud computing service. Now it's selling that network to 5G operators.

'Prices have increased slower than we projected,' wrote the financial analysts at Credit Suisse. Bidding so far is nowhere near the auction's reserve price.

SmartSky, Aeronet, Gogo and HAPSMobile are just some of the companies that are hoping to eke profits from stratospheric communications. But others, like Loon and Qualcomm, have moved on.

Jaimie Lenderman discusses the growth of altnets, the entrance of new vendors, the evolution of PON and why the industry is poised for 'exponential' growth.

South Korean telcos are about to enjoy a Q3 earnings spike thanks to 5G, analysts have forecast.

Australian government and Telstra reportedly on brink of deal with debt-laden Digicel Group; widely seen as political manoeuvre to stymie China's influence in the region.

UK telco launches new cybersecurity platform based on recent investment in Safe Security.

Tim Cook's company slashes iPhone 13 targets due to chip shortages, showing not even Cupertino is immune from the chip dip.

Cable op claims another '10G' milestone with Full Duplex DOCSIS (FDX) live lab trial that linked its virtual cable modem termination system to DOCSIS cable modems configured to operate in the FDX spectrum band.

Vodafone Group and Aditya Birla Group may infuse $400 million in Vodafone Idea to support the company clearing off dues and growth, it's been reported.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Rootmetrics finds EE is still ahead of the 5G pack; how 5G can help anticipate landslides; blockchain for tower management.

Omdia's Dario Talmesio talks about how fiber infrastructure is attracting more investors these days, and why they see value in something other than retail telecoms services.

The Dutch incumbent has seen a fall in maintenance costs and improvement in customer spending in areas where fiber has been deployed.

Ronan Kelly, Adtran's CTO for its EMEA & APAC regions, discusses the future of GPON as so many other PON variants are battling for the hearts, minds and wallets of network operators around the world.

While 64% of companies say they are using AIOps, ZK Research's Zeus Kerravala says many AIOps services are missing a key component - artificial intelligence.

Research Director Michael Philpott explains why fiber is a critical component to the success of 5G networks, and why every region needs access to gigabit speeds.

Huawei is drilling down further into enterprise with the formation of four new business teams to target emerging segments.

'Our investigation indicates that threat actors were able to access username/passwords from outside sources, and exploit that information to login to Visible accounts,' the company reported.

On its website, Ericsson published a graphic that it said was 'the 3GPP's 5G evolution time plan.' It shows the global standards group potentially releasing '6G Basic' in 2027.

The UK telecom incumbent says it has been talking with the government about earning the full return on its investment in Huawei products.

Howard Watson explains how BT plans to phase out Huawei equipment, and why it's banking on the benefits of a 5G converged core.

Customers are looking to combine telco and tech elements into solutions, coupled AI, edge computing and IoT, Shuter said.

Some companies are offering generous sign-up bonuses. Others are cutting store hours. Whatever the result, it's clear that workforce shortages are beginning to affect the retail sector of the wireless industry.

MixComm's CEO explains the company's approach to beamforming and mmWave, and how partnerships are key to furthering updates to those 5G technologies.

Suppliers are making rapid process with network and CPE elements that will support the Extended Spectrum DOCSIS flavor of DOCSIS 4.0, Cox's Jeff Finkelstein says.

With its new Spectrum Exchange, Federated hopes to provide spectrum licenses on-demand, just as Google scales its cloud computing services up and down based on customer demand.

Reports suggest that the 3,000 towers used by Telenet could be flogged off for up to euro 600m.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Nokia ships application containers; Arcep vindicated in French 5G spectrum rumpus; Vodafone comes up short on advertising standards.

Armed with a $300 million from an 'F' round led by Japan's SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Plume intends to target companies that can broaden the smart home software specialist's cloud, data and AI capabilities, Plume CEO Fahri Diner says.

After 5G, AI and space exploration, China has elbowed its way to the front of the pack in another key technology - quantum communications.

Nanos Research finds 76% of Canadians want the Chinese supplier banned from 5G networks; prime minister Trudeau due to make a decision within the 'coming weeks.'

Japanese cloud networking pioneer Rakuten says it's time traditional telcos took the plunge into virtualization.

As subsea cable-laying hits a frenzied pitch, a renewables-fueled link from Norway to Canada pitches the naturally cool Nordic data centers instead.

Going well beyond core speeds and feeds, the expanded use of artificial intelligence and machine learning will help cable operators stay a step ahead of anomalies and fix them before customers notice, says Cox's Kevin Hart.

India's state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is finally moving closer to bring 4G services to its subscribers.

Finnish vendor unveils 360 High Gain technology that it says overcomes the propagation challenges of mmWave to enable FWA.

Recent deployment deal with Alaska's GCI is indicative of a trend that is seeing cable operators shift more attention to remote MACPHY in their distributed access architecture (DAA) rollouts, CommScope's Tom Cloonan says.

The number-three hyperscaler is ramping up its range of telecom offerings in its public cloud slugfest with AWS and Microsoft Azure.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Hiber hooks up with Inmarsat; Forsway develops satellite-assisted 5G; AT&T taps Ericsson for 5G network expansion.

Although it currently spans just six access points, the network in Purdue Research Foundation's Convergence Center could spark a much wider deployment of 5G private wireless networking.

Network convergence 'is a significant part of our strategy,' Charter's chief mobile officer, Danny Bowman, explained. 'That's what it's all about.'

Integration is a big near-term focus, but Comcast's virtual CMTS now 'speaks' DOCSIS 4.0, and the MSO is also pushing ahead with deployments of a distributed access architecture, says Comcast's Rob Howald.

Boeing's long-stalled proposal with the FCC to get into satellite broadband appears set to move ahead - but is it too late?

Bidding in the FCC's ongoing auction of midband spectrum between 3.45GHz and 3.55GHz dropped unexpectedly during round ten. Some believe it might be a major bidder attempting to spark a mass exit from the event.

Vendor says its 'MAC Anywhere' play fits with CableLabs' new Flexible MAC Architecture (FMA), and also opens the door to potential integrations with third-party cable network hardware suppliers.

As Facebook and Alphabet up their cable-laying game, NEC bags a contract to build a half petabit per second cable between the US and Europe.

New service is based on the Eutelsat Konnect satellite, but solving the digital divide remains a challenge.

CSG says the deal will enable it to tie in third-party services that can take advantage of emerging 5G network slicing capabilities and help CSG's partners extend to markets such as connected healthcare and manufacturing.

DZS says the Plume deal paves a path to more recurring revenue and establishes a way for it to manage and orchestrate the core, access and in-home networks, and provide partners with a new option for premium whole-home services.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: EU looks into Teams complaint; more connectivity equals fewer trucks; Finland wants to watch Finnish telly.

Cable company Cox had hoped to launch mobile services via an MVNO with Verizon sometime this month. But a lawsuit filed by T-Mobile appears to have thrown that plan into chaos.

5G smartphones will account for over 50% of all handset sales in 2023. 'In comparison, it took 4G handsets five years to reach a similar level,' Strategy Analytics reported.

FCC has authorized another $163M for RDOF covering 42 providers, and vows that a 'clean up' of the process is moving ahead as dozens of winning bidders opt not to pursue buildouts in 5,000-plus census blocks.

The 2021 Leading Lights Awards winners have been announced during our online video ceremony where we linked together Light Reading's editors from all over the globe to announce the results.

'It will all come down to whether bidders will hold on as prices rise, with activity likely to begin heating up next week,' analysts at New Street Research wrote.

Indonesia's crowded cellular market looks to finally be getting the consolidation it needs.

Noovle expands its partner roster with a cloud provider that might appeal more to the public sector.

After the US chipmaker rules out building a fab in the UK, the government may struggle to attract other investors.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Belgium gets Orange Money service; Dutch antitrust watchdog jumps on Apple; TDC reigns supreme for mobile experience, says study.

DT is tapping the open source Reference Design Kit as its global software platform for broadband gateways.

Chris Townson, CEO of DTC Communications, is applying for FCC money to tear ZTE equipment from his network. But he's worried costs will accelerate. 'I can't do this and operate in the red long term,' he said.

A small business owner in the Bronx who was forced to close shop for months during the early stages of the pandemic alleges that the operator did not honor its commitment to the FCC's 'Keep Americans Connected' pledge.

This week: Evan Dixon, president of global fixed broadband at Viasat, discusses the company's role in tackling the digital divide in the US and abroad, and he pushes back on arguments from the fiber industry that satellite isn't 'future proof.'

Leading operators say they want cloudier RANs, but the economic case for it remains as hazy as ever.

The UK-based, Comcast-owned company unveiled a set of streaming TVs powered by a 'global' platform that will be sold at retail at a fixed price, and be made available to Sky pay-TV subs under a monthly payment program.

Fixed wireless Internet provider Starry inked a deal with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) called FirstMark to raise around $452 million in a public offering.

Blank check company targeting TMT/ICT firms in Europe and emerging markets starts life on Nasdaq.

Pegatron and other Taiwan electronics firms have seized on what they see as openings offered by private networking and O-RAN.

Just as connectivity is becoming more critical during the pandemic, the nature and types of DDoS attacks are more dangerous than ever, according to Nokia Deepfield's Craig Labovitz.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: VodafoneZiggo tries on Red Hat; Google rivals search for answers from EU; Colt touts 400GE service.

Facebook expanded on several initiatives focused on broadband connectivity, including updates on its deployment of subsea cables, fiber-deploying robots, and its Terragraph fixed wireless platform.

The executive in charge of Dish's 5G network buildout described the operation as an adventurous startup with more than 1,000 employees. 'There's a lot of things that are different,' he said.

Hugely popular games streaming platform Twitch, owned by Amazon, sees 125GB leaked by a hacker, including the site's source code and payouts.

Samsung aims to be 5G market leader with new 8nm RF tech and unveils plan for compact 2nm and 3nm chips.

Orange Business Services ranks first in Vertical Systems Group's SD-WAN Global Leaderboard, followed by AT&T, Verizon and NTT.

Filing is another clear signal that Comcast's aspirations to expand the reach and influence of its video software and streaming platform for connected TVs extends well beyond the US.

The company that routes hundreds of billions of texts a year for 95 of the world's 100 biggest carriers now whispers it was hacked for five years.

Last week's IPO paired with recent combination with Cerberus Telecom Acquisition Corp. puts Kore Wireless in position to accelerate organic and inorganic growth, says Romil Bahl, Kore's president and CEO.

The new concept is unlikely to be a panacea for the problems that service providers face in emerging markets.

The Swiss incumbent is being forced to consider its next steps after authorities raised objections to its fiber expansion project.

Bloomberg sources say there's plenty of market interest; Spanish giant prefers to keep schtum.

After smartphone maker Huawei said it would diversify into cars, Geely is driving in the opposite direction.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Nokia targets Industry 4.0; Deutsche Telekom exploits 5G in the factory; Thales teams up with Google for cloud services.

The German operator provides a 5G update one year after launch, and says it is on track to reach 50% population coverage by end-2022.

T-Mobile's Neville Ray offered a look at the operator's 5G customer data usage during a keynote presentation at Connect (X), the annual trade show from the Wireless Infrastructure Association (WIA).

There are some mobile or temporary use cases where fixed wireless access (FWA) is best, says CEO Bob Udell, but for the majority of customers, fiber is more cost-effective for Consolidated to deploy.

First round results in the auction for 100MHz of spectrum between 3.45GHz and 3.55GHz totaled $609 million. That led some analysts to conclude that Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Dish are all participating.

Swedish vendor loses patience with iPhone maker's tactics and files a lawsuit in a US court.

Armed with a discounted yearly subscription option, WarnerMedia announced it will launch HBO Max in 27 territories to mark the 'initial phase' of its European rollout.

French incumbent with operations across Europe has no plans to replace the controversial Chinese vendor unless it is forced to by governments.

Frontier plans to offer $1 billion in notes to help finance its ambitious fiber build just days after Ziply Fiber announced it raised $350 million in debt funding to do the same.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: the benefits of IP network automation; IPO news from Africa; Proximus gets into digital banking.

The Indian government is exploring ways, like out-of-court settlements, to bring down the number of legal cases it is embroiled in with service providers.

The social media giant suffers a blackout that lasts several hours and causes disruption for its customers worldwide.

Light Reading will run three one-hour digital forums on key tech topics as part of SCTE Cable-Tec Expo next week, including cable and 5G, DAA, network virtualization and more.

The seven-hour outage also took down WhatsApp and Instagram, thanks to a botched update in the Border Gateway Protocol.

AT&T and T-Mobile are requiring that employees who return to offices are fully vaccinated. T-Mobile is working to get most employees back into the office by the end of this month.

Casa, a vendor that has seen its revenue mix shift sharply to wireless, is supplying packet core technology to help underpin Mediacom's relatively new 'Bolt' fixed wireless broadband service.

Frost & Sullivan finds knock-on benefits for suppliers of drive-testing equipment as rollout of 5G NR gathers pace.

The funding of a rival fiber network to Openreach is unlikely to make sense for the UK pay-TV provider, according to Jefferies.

Qualcomm said it will team with SSW Partners to acquire Veoneer for $4.5 billion. The move is part of Qualcomm's long-term efforts to expand beyond cellphones and into the automotive industry.

We are delighted to welcome another special guest this week - public cloud evangelist Danielle Royston. She had heard us slagging off the public cloud in previous pods and was keen to offer a more benign perspective. That chat took up nearly all of the pod but we did eventually get around to quickly covering the latest developments concerning China vs the US and Internet companies getting into consumer devices.

US Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger calls for a report on the national security implications of open RAN after its China connections are exposed.

China Mobile has awarded the entirety of its latest network tender to Huawei and ZTE - an unusual step even in China.

AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile are all making moves toward the standalone version of 5G. However, analysts warn that a full-blown, nationwide deployment of the technology may be years away.

Philippines-based operator launches 5G SA in Makati City.

Shareholders in call center software company Five9 voted down what would have been Zoom's biggest purchase ever, as videoconferencing company eyes its post-pandemic future.

Things are hotting up in the Indian space race.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: UK altnets unhappy about BT's FTTP wholesale price cuts; friend of the Conservatives caught up in Telia bribery scandal; Zain Saudi Arabia gets BSS from Netcracker.

New carriage agreement avoids a blackout of NBCU channels, but reportedly does not require YouTube TV to bundle in the Peacock premium streaming service.

On the heels of MEF's recent update to its LSO Sonata APIs, Light Reading caught up with Colt's Fahim Sabir to hear more on what Sonata's facelift means for MEF's service provider members.

'Rakuten Symphony Inc., a newly established corporation, will consider accepting capital, etc. in addition to business partnerships with strategic partners,' the company wrote in a release.

Ingenu's inked a $240 million deal to launch dozens of LEO satellites for its IoT network, while Kore went public with a 'buy' rating from one financial analyst firm.

Comcast's NBCUniversal unit and Google's YouTube TV agreed to keep negotiating a new carriage deal past the contract deadline Thursday night but didn't say how long the extension would last.

Sale proceeds of 70% stake in Australia Tower Network to be spent on 5G and data centers.

South Korean ISP SK Broadband has counter-sued Netflix for part of the delivery cost of video streaming content, including blockbuster Squid Game.

French operator buys out Groupama and injects another euro 230 million into its loss-making bank unit.

Talk about a new class of amplifier that could give FDX a wider window of opportunity as operators explore options for DOCSIS 4.0 continues to circulate. But vendors have yet to pinpoint their product development plans.

Partly due to rules on EU data sovereignty, Spanish giant will shift 'mission-critical' OSS/BSS apps from Oracle database systems onto private data centers.

India's second-largest service provider, Airtel, has decided to increase its data center business infrastructure.

This week in our WiC roundup: Gender parity in social media; the top companies for women in tech; 'greentech' and investment in female founders; and more.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Deutsche Telekom unveils 'sustainable' 5G phone; Arcep's new boss; the EU's got its math wrong, says Google.

Asian chip firms grapple with power cuts across China and US data requests, in another eventful week for the Asian chip sector.

France-based group completes deal to buy 54% of Telekom Romania Communications from DT-controlled OTE.