Colorado-based Vero Fiber said Wednesday it expects to close in the first half of 2026 on its acquisition of fiber broadband provider Telephone Electronics Corp. Vero said the deal would extend its footprint into the Southeast, since TEC serves Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee. TEC's greater access to capital would help accelerate growth and network expansion across the Southeast, Vero added. Financial details weren't disclosed.
Verizon Business announced a deal Monday with Amazon Web Services to connect AWS data centers with “long-haul, high-capacity fiber pathways.” The agreement “will enable AWS to continue to deliver and scale its secure, reliable, and high-performance cloud services for customers building and deploying advanced AI applications at scale,” Verizon said.
Greenlight Networks, a fiber-to-the-home provider in New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland, announced an agreement this week to acquire Pennsylvania-based FastBridge Fiber. The transaction is projected to close in mid-2026. The announcement follows Greenlight’s recent acquisition of Scranton, Pennsylvania-based Loop Internet and “builds on the company’s broader growth strategy,” a news release said. In April, Greenlight announced its expansion into Pennsylvania. The latest deal “not only positions us to accelerate our ability to serve more communities in Pennsylvania, but it also adds to our scale in Buffalo,” said Greenlight CEO Mark Murphy.
Other providers of incarcerated people's communications services joined Inmate Calling Solutions in filing their annual prison-calling reports at the FCC and seeking to have the data redacted for competitive reasons (see 2511030027). Among the filings posted this week in docket 23-62 were reports from Securus Technologies, Pay Tel Communications, Combined Public Communications and Smart Communications.
The FCC’s order to revise incarcerated people’s communications services (IPCS) rates on an interim basis, approved by commissioners 2-1 last week (see 2510280045), will “hike prices by as much as 83% compared to the rates announced last year,” the Prison Policy Initiative said Tuesday. “Ultimately, these higher rate caps further burden incarcerated people and their families, while lining the pockets of companies and facilities.”
HTDNet urged caution as the FCC considers what steps it should take to close a “gap” in its Stir/Shaken authentication rules (see 2507170032). In a filing posted last week in docket 17-59, the carrier described itself as a small, Virginia-based provider that offers “business-class VoIP, network and IT solutions” to other companies. As a provider "that relies on upstream carriers for network interconnection, we respectfully urge the Commission to ensure that new rules remain proportionate, technically feasible, and economically sustainable for small and mid-sized VoIP providers," it said.
Inmate Calling Solutions filed its annual prison-calling report at the FCC on Friday in docket 23-62, but all relevant data was redacted for competitive reasons, it said. “Public release of this information could significantly damage ICSolutions’ competitive position by divulging the Company’s proprietary contract and subcontractor information,” it said. “This data represents a disclosure of internal business processes or arrangements that could help a competitor understand ICSolutions’ management of its operating costs or strategic plans and thereby adversely affect its competitive advantage.”
Comments are due Nov. 26, replies Dec. 26, on the submarine cable Further NPRM that FCC commissioners adopted Aug. 7 (see 2508070037), the agency said Tuesday (docket 24-523). The NPRM proposes that submarine cable applications that meet certain security standards should be exempted from license reviews by the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the U.S. Telecommunications Services Sector. Rules in the subsea cable order that accompanied the FNPRM also take effect Nov. 26, the agency said.
Verizon and holding company Tillman Global have signed a deal that will see Tillman's Eaton Fiber build out fiber to homes and markets outside of Verizon's current Fios service. Verizon said Monday that Eaton will fund and build the network and oversee its maintenance, while Verizon will handle sales, marketing and end-user customer service. Verizon Consumer CEO Sowmyanarayan Sampath said the partnership "allows us to rapidly enter new markets, accelerate deployment speed and ensure we maintain the necessary flexibility to capture growth opportunities across the country.”
An array of faith-based organizations are lobbying the FCC's 10th floor to get it to reverse or alter course on the prison-calling draft order and Further NPRM that are before commissioners. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr circulated the draft order earlier this month (see 2510070044), proposing to change the agency's rate-cap-setting methodology and include security and surveillance costs in the rates. "Deeply held Catholic beliefs show that the lowest possible rates should be offered to families and incarcerated people," the faith groups said in a docket 23-62 filing posted Friday to recap meetings with FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty and staffers for Carr and Commissioner Anna Gomez.