Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Doug Jones, D-Ala., introduced the American Broadband Buildout Act (S-2018) Thursday in a bid to direct the FCC to provide up to $5 billion in matching grants to help states improve their broadband infrastructure. The bill requires the grants to be matched with funding from public-private partnerships between the ISP and the state in which the infrastructure project will be built. Qualifying projects would need to be in unserved areas and be designed to be "future proof" so they're able to accommodate higher broadband speeds in coming years. The bill would require the FCC to prioritize the funding of projects in states that have traditionally lagged behind the national average in percentage of broadband subscribers. It requires the commission to "determine whether the area is served or unserved using accurate and granular information regarding the availability of broadband internet access service at the sub-census block level." The FCC's broadband data collection practices have been criticized by lawmakers (see 1905150061). NCTA lauded the bill as "specifically targeted at extending high-speed broadband networks to those communities that are not yet connected. In particular, we appreciate the legislation’s emphasis on directing funds to areas that need them the most, as well as a requirement for the FCC to immediately improve its fixed broadband maps at a sub-census block level."

Google filed a report card on lab certification testing done on its citizens broadband radio service spectrum access system by the Commerce Department’s Institute for Telecommunications Sciences. The filing posted Thursday in FCC docket 15-319 asked that all the data be treated as confidential. It "constitutes highly sensitive commercial information that falls within Exemption 4 of the Freedom of Information Act," Google said: "Certain portions of the confidential information also implicate operational security concerns for the U.S. Navy."

EnGenius Technologies announced the ESR580 tri-band mesh 802.11ac Wave 2 wireless router, said to provide a stable internet connection to remote parts of a home. The router has a dedicated band for the network backbone connection, ensuring smart devices maximize the internet connection, while enabling uninterrupted 4K video streaming and bandwidth-demanding online gaming, said the company Thursday. Cloud access is included, it said. When consumers connect an external hard drive, they can access stored documents, photos, music and video files from anywhere, said the company. It’s bundled in a two-pack for $249.

Demand for non-geostationary orbit high-throughput broadband satellite service and capacity -- like that planned by SpaceX, Amazon, OneWeb and Telesat -- is growing but likely won't catch up to geostationary until 2028, Northern Sky Research said Wednesday.

The FCC and its partner SamKnows seek ISP feedback by May 24 on a website relaunch for the agency’s Measuring Broadband America program. MBA monitors speeds on various tiers of consumer broadband packages sold by ISPs across the country. Providers are charged with contacting their subscribers starting June 5 to find volunteers to use a measuring device called a Whitebox that connects to an internet modem and measures broadband performance. If the partners don't see enough sign-ups across tiers and package speeds, they will look to adjust their consumer targeting strategy, said Stacie Djordjevic, government project manager-North America at SamKnows, on a call Thursday with the FCC and program client ISPs.

While pay-TV subscriber numbers slide, broadband subscriptions continue rising, with 945,000 net additions in Q1 vs. 815,000 in the year-ago quarter, Leichtman Research Group reported Wednesday. The top broadband cable and telco providers, representing 95 percent of the market, accounted for 98.7 million subscribers, led by cable with 65.3 million. Cable added 925,000 subs; telcos added 20,000, with Q1 the first for net broadband additions since Q1 2016. AT&T reported 36,000 net adds to 15.7 million and Verizon 12,000 net adds to 6.97 million. On the cable side, Charter had the most net adds in the quarter, 428,000, to bring its total base to 25.7 million, while Comcast, with 375,000 net adds, ended Q1 with a 27.6 million subscriber base. The past year saw about 2.6 million net broadband adds, vs. about 2 million in the prior year, said Principal Bruce Leichtman.

To compete with geostationary orbit (GEO) operation prices on consumer broadband, low earth orbit (LEO) satellite operators are likely to focus heavily on service models, often partnering with local telcos and application-based service providers, Northern Sky Research's Gagan Agrawal blogged Wednesday. The analyst said LEOs have a better chance of success with applications that require latency and bandwidth density. NSR said edge caching, over-the-top video via satellite and maritime passenger applications could be big beneficiaries of LEO supply, though not at consumer broadband price points. The researcher said a challenge for LEOs is that GEOs and medium earth orbit satellites already serve such core target applications as broadband, backhaul, maritime and aeronautics and that all the capacity LEOs promise to bring to market could result in an even bigger price war than already expected.

Very small aperture terminal-enabled maritime vessels are expected to grow from 20,000-plus today to more than 75,000 by 2028, with the maritime connectivity market expected to generate close to $42 billion in cumulative revenue during that span, Northern Sky Research said Wednesday. That connectivity market "has never looked more promising," due in large part to falling satellite capacity pricing as well as lower equipment costs, NSR said. It said high-throughput geostationary and non-geostationary orbit satellites are "the growth story."

Microsoft representatives stressed the importance of broadband in the TV white spaces, meeting with FCC Office of Native Affairs and Policy staff, said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 14-165. The company held a series of recent meetings on the topic at the FCC, including with an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai (see 1904250039) and staff from the Office of Engineering and Technology (see 1904190027).

The effect satellite-based providers like Amazon, OneWeb and SpaceX will have on the U.S. broadband marketplace will depend on those services' speeds and pricing, CCG President Doug Dawson blogged Friday. Pockets of rural America are starting to get "decent speeds" due to wireless ISPs, and low-orbit broadband connections are years away, he said.