Citizens broadband radio service band use is accelerating, and Verizon is using the band in 70 metropolitan areas, RootMetrics reported Thursday, detecting no use by AT&T or T-Mobile. “CBRS spectrum will play an important role in the mobile network marketplace, boosting capacity for both 4G LTE and 5G networks in highly populated areas,” RootMetrics said. Main uses are for wireless capacity in urban markets, rural fixed broadband and private wireless networks, the report said.
Antitrust lawsuits against Facebook filed by the FTC and state attorneys general are “legally deficient” and lack allegations of harm to competition or consumers, the company said Wednesday in motions to dismiss. People use TikTok, iMessage, Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn, YouTube and other apps to connect, the company said in a statement. “Facebook competes with all of those services for people’s time and attention every day.” New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) said in a statement that “Facebook is wrong on the law and wrong on our complaint. We are confident in our case, which is why almost every state in this nation has joined our bipartisan lawsuit to end Facebook’s illegal conduct.” The FTC didn’t comment.
The FCC Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology certified Key Bridge Wireless Tuesday as a spectrum access system administrator in the citizens broadband radio service band, the sixth SAS approved in the 3.5 GHz band. “We are making history with this innovative band,” said acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.
"Figure out how to fund a long term, permanent broadband subsidy" to assist low-income consumers, because the emergency broadband benefit program is a "temporary solution," the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council asked acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, a filing said Tuesday in docket 20-445. MMTC supports allowing school districts to temporarily use E-rate funds for remote learning. It wants to ensure that "diverse suppliers have an opportunity to compete for downstream opportunities from auctions and appropriate transactions within the FCC's jurisdiction."
New America's Open Technology Institute urged better use of use-it-or-share-it rules for licensed spectrum. This promotes "more intensive use of fallow spectrum capacity, lowering barriers of entry to a diverse range of uses and users,” OTI said Monday.
Boost Mobile began selling Motorola's 4G moto g power online Friday for $99. The 6.6-inch Android smartphone has a 5,000 mAh battery and 48-megapixel triple camera system, said the carrier. Boost prepaid plans start at $10 a month.
OMB hasn’t addressed a previous GAO recommendation to broaden definitions for data centers in a cost-saving initiative, the auditor said. Based on GAO recommendations, agencies participating in OMB’s data center optimization initiative expect to close 230 such centers and save $1.1 billion over two years, GAO said. But in June 2019, OMB “narrowed the definition of a data center to exclude certain facilities it had previously identified as having potential cybersecurity risks,” the report said. The auditor recommended OMB reverse the 2019 decision “so that visibility of the risks of these facilities was retained.” GAO said an agency liaison on OMB’s ethics team emailed that OMB “had no comments.”
Top U.S. cable and telco providers gained 4.9 million net broadband subscribers last year, compared with a pro forma gain of 2.6 million in 2019, for the most additions since 2008, said Leichtman Research Group Wednesday. Cable companies ended the year with 72.8 million such subscribers (69% share); phone companies, 33 million (31%). Charter’s 2.2 million broadband adds were more than any company had since 2006; telcos had positive net annual broadband adds for the first year since 2014, said principal Bruce Leichtman, citing impact from the pandemic.
China “firmly opposes and combats” cyberattacks and cybertheft “in all forms,” said a Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson when asked Wednesday about Microsoft’s disclosures of a new “state-sponsored threat actor” based in China it named Hafnium. Microsoft said the hacking group preys on infectious disease researchers, law firms, universities, defense contractors and think tanks. China considers it “a highly sensitive political issue to pin the label of cyber attack to a certain government,” said the spokesperson. "We hope that relevant media and companies will adopt a professional and responsible attitude and underscore the importance to have enough evidence when identifying cyber-related incidents, rather than make groundless accusations.” Though Hafnium is based in China, it conducts its operations from leased virtual private servers in the U.S., blogged Tom Burt, Microsoft corporate vice president-customer security and trust. Hafnium uses “previously undiscovered vulnerabilities” to gain access to network servers by disguising itself “as someone who should have access,” said Burt Tuesday. It creates a “web shell” to control the compromised server remotely and uses that remote access “to steal data from an organization’s network,” he said. “We need more information to be shared rapidly about cyberattacks to enable all of us to better defend against them. That is why Microsoft President Brad Smith recently told the U.S. Congress that we must take steps to require reporting of cyber incidents.”
Zoom revenue grew 369% to $882 million in fiscal Q4 ended Jan. 31 “due to strong sales and marketing execution in online, direct and channel businesses as well as lower-than-expected churn,” said Chief Financial Officer Kelly Steckelberg on a quarterly webinar Monday. “Demand was widespread.” The increase in customers generated about 80% of the “incremental revenue,” up from 59% in Q4 a year earlier, she said. “We continue to add customers of all sizes and across industries that we anticipate will provide future upsell opportunities.” Zoom continued to benefit from significant growth in customers with 10 or fewer employees, she said. Customers in that segment generated 37% of revenue, nearly double that of Q4 a year earlier, she said. For the full year of fiscal 2022 ending in late January, Zoom expects revenue to be $3.76 billion to $3.78 billion, which would be 42-43% year-over-year growth, she said: “Although we remain optimistic on Zoom’s outlook, please note the impact and extent of the COVID-19 pandemic and people returning to in-person contact still remains largely unknown.” The stock closed down 9% Tuesday at $372.79.