The largest cable and telco providers, with 96 percent of the market, tacked on 370,000 broadband internet subscribers in Q2, reported Leichtman Research Group Tuesday vs. about 480,000 in Q2 2018. Cable companies have 66.2 million broadband subscribers; phone companies, 33.7 million, it said. Top cable companies added about 530,000 subscribers in the quarter, while telephone companies had a net loss of about 160,000, it said. Comcast led cable companies with 27.8 million subscribers at the end of Q2, followed by Charter with 25.9 million. Among telcos, AT&T lost 39,000 broadband subscribers in the quarter to 15.7 million; Verizon lost 5,000 to 6.9 million and CenturyLink lost 56,000 to 4.7 million, it said. Frontier had the largest subscriber exodus of all broadband providers, losing 71,000, leaving 3.6 million, it said.

Staff from Amazon's Kuiper subsidiary met with FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks at Starks' request to discuss the company's pending Ka-band non-geostationary orbit constellation application (see 1907050015) and NGSOs' roles in delivering broadband in rural and hard-to-reach areas, according to an International Bureau ex parte filing Tuesday.

A new Comcast parental control feature announced Tuesday automatically pauses network connectivity in the home to all of a child’s devices once that child's daily time limit is reached. The feature, accessible from the main xFi page, lets parents set a specific amount of time their children can be online each day; separate limits can be set for weekdays and weekends, it said. Comcast cited a Common Sense Media study saying 68 percent of parents feel their teenagers spend too much time using mobile devices.

Thirty-one percent of U.S. households, mainly rural, lack a 25 Mbps download connection, reported NPD Thursday. That impedes adoption of advanced technologies dependent on high speeds, it said. “Consumers with single-digit megabits per second of download speed will struggle to benefit from activities that require these speeds, such as streaming video solutions or connecting to a remote network to telecommute,” said Eddie Hold, president, NPD-Connected Intelligence. State-level data “masks the underlying reality that in the most rural markets in America, less than 20 percent of households have a broadband connection,” Hold said. Rural consumers with access show similarities to the U.S. overall, and there's demand for connected devices, said the analyst: “Streaming media players, larger TVs, and smart home devices see significant ownership levels in rural markets when there is broadband, and at times even in areas that have slower connections.” Some 43 percent of rural households own a streaming media player vs. 45 percent nationwide, said NPD, “regardless of whether or not they have access to broadband.” Many of the households still buy DVDs due to a “less-than-satisfactory streaming connection,” but when broadband is delivered, streaming is preferred, Hold said: 5G rollout "will have a significant impact in rural America, disrupting the limited broadband carrier market and delivering broadband to many households that have not previously had access."

An NCTA representative used a panel on wireless 5G and cable's 10 Gbps plan (see 1901070048) at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners Summer Policy Summit Monday in Indianapolis to poke some fun at 5G, also saying cable could do better in marketing broadband like 1 Gbps. After a moderator introduced the panel as on 5G v. 10G, NCTA Vice President-External and State Affairs Rick Cimerman gently corrected it to 5G and 10G. The cable rep said that the two standards complement, rather than compete, with each other. "It's been 5G mania, maybe we should hear a little bit about the next iteration for us," he said: For 10G, the "G stands for something." While 5G can deliver data at 1 Gbps, it's not meant to connote 5 Gbps. "The marketing geniuses at CTIA and the wireless industry" are emphasizing 5G, while cable has "not helped people properly understand that we are now a gigabit nation," Cimerman said. CTIA research shows demand for smartphones/mobile devices and data usage is surging, noted that group's Ben Aron, director-state regulatory affairs. Answering a commissioner's question about whether 5G will boost prices, Aron noted that price consumers pay per voice minute are going down like a hockey stick numerical-graph figure. "The same could be said for data, it's cheaper today than previously," he said. "The capital expenditure has been pretty consistent" by carriers yearly in recent times, so for 5G, he continued, "folding in this network deployment isn’t really that shocking to the system."

Sprint's Boost Mobile’s new data-only plan has 50 GB for $50 monthly, compatible with any 4G LTE broadband device, said the carrier. It also bowed the $49 Coolpad Surf hot spot, said to support up to 10 Wi-Fi devices. Based on a Qualcomm MDM9207 processor, it has 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi connectivity.

Nokia added the Beacon 1 ($129) to its network lineup to improve the Wi-Fi experience in homes with multiple connected devices, high-bandwidth use, interference from neighbors’ Wi-Fi or Bluetooth devices or dead zones due to building materials. The device is an alternative to Wi-Fi extenders or repeaters that can degrade network performance, said the company. The entry-level Beacon 1 includes intelligent channel selection to find the best Wi-Fi channel for each device and integrates Nokia’s mesh capabilities to override dead zones. Coverage range is given as 1,500 square feet. The interface on Nokia’s mobile app gives a visual representation of a home’s Wi-Fi network, including a heat map to easily locate and manage dead zones, it said. It allows users to access device lists, troubleshoot and activate a guest network. A bridge mode function connects a beacon to an existing gateway with routing functionality, it said.

Arris plans retail availability this month of what it’s calling the industry’s “first true tri-band Wi-Fi 6 mesh systems,” it said Tuesday. Two systems will be available, both built “around the newest Wi-Fi 6 standard featuring the latest wireless and modulation technologies,” it said. Wi-Fi 6 “enables multi-Gigabit speeds across a growing range of connected devices to accelerate everything that consumers do online today,” it said. It also “unlocks a new set of future services and experiences,” including 8K video, augmented reality and advanced smart cloud services. Backers of Wi-Fi 6 claim it can be globally harmonized and deployed rapidly (see 1906270052). The mAX PLUS AX11000 as a two-router system will be available July 22 at Best Buy for $649.99. The two-router AX7800 system is available for preorder at Amazon and Walmart for $549.99. Single-router versions of both systems will be available at a lower cost. The products also will be available at Surfboard.com, the Arris online store.

Amazon's plan now before the FCC for a 3,236-satellite non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) constellation is increasing the pressure on the agency to act on its orbital debris proceeding, especially since Amazon's resources make its constellation plan less speculative than others, satellite experts told us Friday. Amazon's International Bureau application filed Thursday also could raise red flags from other satellite operators about its trying to bypass the processing round process, said satellite lawyer Steve Goodman of Butzel Long. The FCC didn't comment Friday. Amazon's Kuiper Systems would orbit between 590 and 630 kilometers, providing broadband service in the Ka band, it said, saying its goal is "broadband communications services to tens of millions of unserved and underserved consumers and businesses in the United States and around the globe." It said it has at least part of the necessary global terrestrial networking infrastructure in the form of its intercontinental fiber links and global data centers. Processing rounds aren't necessary any longer to ensure competitive entry given the NGSO fixed satellite service spectrum sharing framework, the e-tailer said, seeking a waiver of the requirement the Kuiper application trigger a processing round. The company asked for a waiver of agency geographic coverage rules since its system wouldn't cover most of Alaska. A satellite lawyer said it's inevitable Kuiper will get pushback from other constellation operators on the processing round issue.

With full eight transmit and eight receive antennas, 8 x 8 MU-MIMO provides the biggest benefit to total system throughput and capacity in Wi-Fi 6 networks vs. other features of Wi-Fi 6, said Strategy Analytics Friday. Marketing messages about Wi-Fi 6 have typically focused on benefits of orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA), important for reducing congestion, but access points with 8 x 8 MU-MIMO can simultaneously address up to four times as many 2 x 2 client devices as OFDMA alone, said analyst Christopher Taylor. Many entry-level and mainstream Wi-Fi 6 access points use only two or four antennas, but more than two-thirds of access points SA identified in the premium tier use the full eight, he said, highlighting Quantenna, Qualcomm, Marvell and Celeno as suppliers of Wi-Fi 6 chipsets capable of 8 x 8 MU-MIMO. “The benefits of MU-MIMO have been proven in the cellular world with LTE,” and smartphone and laptop PC OEMs have shown strong support for Wi-Fi 6 with MU-MIMO, said analyst Stephen Entwistle.