North America National Telecom Trends
North America National Telecom Trends
National Telecom trend intelligence tracks national telecom market trends, 5G rollout, fibre modernisation, wholesale network strategy, spectrum pressure, and digital infrastructure investment in North America, giving readers a fuller view of the demand shifts, capacity constraints, platform strategies, capital timing, regulatory pressure, and operating assumptions behind the market.
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120 articles
North America National Telecom Trends
Canada sets broadband plan data rules. The common format comes later.
Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2026-238 makes peak-hour speeds, latency and post-promotion prices part of the Internet offer beginning 10 March 2027. It also directs providers to publish structured offer files, while leaving a Canadian data structure and an adoption timetable for…
North America National Telecom Trends
Canada's mobile map can be challenged. Who corrects it?
The CRTC has standardized what Canadian wireless providers must say about outdoor coverage. The harder test comes later: when a resident contests a mapped road segment, can that evidence change the provider's estimate, the public map, and the decisions built on it?
North America National Telecom Trends
The CRTC kept Iristel’s Northwestel dispute anchored to the record
Canada’s telecommunications regulator has refused to reopen its finding that Northwestel had reasonable grounds to disconnect Iristel after their payment negotiations failed. The October 9 decision turns on what the parties documented before the deadline, not on a fresh ruling…
North America National Telecom Trends
Saskatchewan’s fibre award gets a faster claims lane, not a delivery waiver
Canada’s CRTC has approved earlier and more frequent reimbursement claims for Access Communications’ western Saskatchewan fibre project. The change eases a co-operative’s cash-flow burden while leaving the grant ceiling, construction obligations, holdback and proof of delivery in…
North America National Telecom Trends
Canada’s mobile map gets a challenge lane, not an automatic correction
Canada’s telecom regulator has standardized how wireless carriers report outdoor coverage and set out a public route for challenging map entries. The change makes evidence easier to compare and question; it does not upgrade service, independently measure every disputed location…
North America National Telecom Trends
FCC Authorizes Separate SpaceX D2D Constellation of 15,000 Satellites, Distinct From January’s Gen2 Approval
The FCC’s October 6, 2026 authorization establishes a separate direct-to-device satellite system rather than expanding the Gen2 Starlink broadband constellation approved in January. Although both systems have authorization ceilings of 15,000 satellites, the new D2D grant carries…
North America National Telecom
AT&T’s Fiber JV: Open Access Depends on the Anchor Tenant
AT&T plans to combine Forged Fiber 37 and Gigapower with GIP and CPP Investments. The ownership split is public; the wholesale rules that will turn “open access” into an orderable service are not. AT&T remains central to the customer relationship and was named as the planned…
North America National Telecom Trends
Zhone’s Tellabs deal adds overlap as well as reach
Zhone completed its acquisition of Tellabs Access on 1 October. The combined portfolio is broader, but both companies already sell Optical LAN; the commercial case now depends on customers, support and product choices, not portfolio labels.
North America National Telecom Trends
Three carriers agree a satellite JV; existing deals stay separate
AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon now have a joint-venture agreement and a founder-representative board. Yet the companies say their existing carrier-satellite agreements will remain in place, leaving the route from governance to one customer-facing platform open.
North America National Telecom
Lumen Cashed Out Its Fiber Growth Engine. The Harder Test Comes Next
Lumen's sale of its consumer fiber-to-the-home business to AT&T closed on February 2, 2026, converting the company's fastest-growing retail asset into cash aimed squarely at its debt stack. But the transaction that reshapes US consumer fiber ownership is only half executed: the…
North America National Telecom Trends
Spire won $33.2 million from NOAA. The other half still needs an order
The announcement contains a funded weather-data stream, a dormant surge switch and a very large shared procurement roof. Treating all three as one contract number erases the part that NOAA still controls.
North America National Telecom
Array Digital Infrastructure’s tower rent book is now the whole company
The Verizon spectrum sale closed on 1 June 2026, and TDS withdrew its take-private proposal on 1 September 2026. What is being tested now is whether a 4,456-tower rent book and a $1.58 billion C-Band-heavy licence stub can carry the company without another parent-led transaction.
North America National Telecom
Verizon Closed the Frontier Deal. Almost No Federal Service Guarantee Came With It
Frontier Communications is no longer an independent company. Verizon paid $38.50 a share in cash and closed on 20 January 2026, taking control of an incumbent whose fibre and copper plant now feeds Verizon's own capital plan. The obligations that actually bind that transfer are…
North America National Telecom
Rogers’ 8 July Outage: What the Public Record Can—and Cannot—Prove
Rogers’ 8 July 2022 outage is a useful resilience test precisely because the public record is uneven: it records a regulator’s investigation notice and Rogers’s reported explanation and response, but does not, in the preserved sources, independently establish the failure chain or…
North America National Telecom Trends
FCC lines up spectrum auctions after C-band
Upper C-band has auction rules and a deadline, while the 1.6GHz, 2.7GHz, 4.4GHz and 7GHz bands remain at different identification and study stages.
North America National Telecom Trends
FCC opens five-year rural wireless test zone in Iowa
Iowa State's ARA testbed can now run wireless experiments across Ames and surrounding farmland under a five-year FCC Innovation Zone designation.
North America National Telecom Trends
Cox and Verizon outages reach global customers
ThousandEyes saw 14-minute Cox and eight-minute Verizon Business outages affect partners and customers across multiple countries despite their brief duration.
North America National Telecom
Spectrum reaches 11m former Cox locations
Spectrum pricing and packages are now available across former Cox markets, while Charter continues integrating sales, service and operating processes after the merger.
North America National Telecom
Cricket launches 5G home internet on AT&T network
Cricket has launched fixed wireless home internet over AT&T's 5G network, extending the prepaid brand into broadband without building a separate access network.
North America National Telecom Trends
FCC gives four carriers more time for rip-and-replace
Four US carriers received deadline extensions as labour, logistics, equipment shortages and ransomware replaced funding as the main barriers to completing rip-and-replace work