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Doug Dawson

@dougdawsonccg

Broadband consultant and author of daily blog PotsandPansbyCCG. Hanging in Asheville and loving life. Lifelong deadhead.

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Posts 29.12.2024
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Latest posts by Doug Dawson @dougdawsonccg

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The FCC 2024 Broadband Report The FCC recently released its Internet Access Services report for December 31, 2024. The report is generated to provide a mandated update to Congress annually on the state of broadband. The data fo…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/02/18/t...

18.02.2026 12:54 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Revamped Opportunity Zone Financing Opportunity Zones were created by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and provided an opportunity for equity investors to defer and reduce capital gains taxes when they reinvested profits from an existi…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/02/17/r...

17.02.2026 13:49 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Starlink Adds Tiered Pricing Starlink is in the industry news so often that it feels like I ought to have a recurring blog just for Starlink updates. The company recently made an interesting announcement that should make waves…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/02/16/s...

16.02.2026 15:55 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Financial Limitations on Growth I’ve worked with rural counties across the country, and one of most common recurring themes is a hope from elected officials that local ISPs will step up and build fiber and solve the broadband gap…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/02/13/f...

13.02.2026 12:41 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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A Three Nines World? FierceNetwork recently published a thought-provoking article by Steve Saunders that asks, “is four nines the new five nines?”  That’s a question that only network engineers will understand, but it …

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/02/12/a...

12.02.2026 12:42 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Mergers, Monopoly Prices, and Accountability - Episode 676 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast | Community Broadband Bits | Episode 676 Chris Mitchell, Doug Dawson, and Sean Gonsalves break down the latest telecom mergers, Starlink’s push to reshape BEAD rules, and new research showing how lack of competition drives higher prices for ...

On our latest podcast, @sportshotchris.bsky.social is joined by @dougdawsonccg.bsky.social & @seangon.bsky.social to dive into the wave of major telecom mergers, what growing market power means for consumers, and dig into new research fr Chattanooga on the economic benefits of municipal fiber

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11.02.2026 22:15 👍 0 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
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Winning the 6G Race In December, the White House issued a short Presidential Memorandum titled “Winning the 6G Race”. The document states that 6G technology will be “foundational to the national security, foreign poli…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/02/11/w...

11.02.2026 14:12 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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The Challenge of Adding Fiber to Poles On February 5, the FCC issued a Memorandum and Order related to a pole attachment dispute between Comcast and Appalachian Power Company (APCO). The Order was issued under the authority of section 2…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/02/09/t...

09.02.2026 14:51 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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The Telecom Act Turns 30 February 8 is the thirtieth anniversary of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The legislation brought sweeping changes to the industry and was the impetus for me to start my consulting company in …

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/02/06/t...

06.02.2026 14:12 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Who Uses the Internet? Pew Research Center released the results of a major survey that asked how Americans use the Internet, about smartphone ownership, and about the digital divide. There were over 5,000 completed surve…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/02/05/w...

05.02.2026 12:46 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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BEAD Non-deployment Complications The NTIA should be getting close to approving all of the state BEAD initial grant proposals. Once that has been done, one of the last big steps will be for NTIA to announce how States can receive a…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/02/04/b...

04.02.2026 14:35 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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AI Needs Quality Upload Speeds The pandemic exposed a huge weakness in cable company networks when it became clear that their networks did not have enough upload capacity to support people working and schooling from home. That p…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/02/03/a...

03.02.2026 14:57 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Starlink Flexing Its Market Power In a short period of time, Starlink has taken three actions that demonstrates the company’s growing market power. The companies market power will be strengthened with the impending merger between S…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/02/02/s...

02.02.2026 15:28 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Broadband Shorts January 2026 This blog covers topics that I found interesting but which don’t warrant an entire blog. Indoor CBRS. Federated Wireless announced a new product and a system that allows cellular carriers to use CB…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/01/30/b...

30.01.2026 13:21 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Who Lives in Rural America? We’ve spent a lot of time and money in recent years to get better broadband for rural America. I thought it would be of interest to look at who lives in rural America. The statistics in this blog c…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/01/29/w...

29.01.2026 19:56 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Low Latency AI Networks A partnership has been announced that has the goal of creating a low-latency private Internet for AI traffic. The three partners involved are Moonshot Energy, a manufacturer of electrical and modul…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/01/28/l...

28.01.2026 16:11 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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The Value of Broadband to a Community Bento J Lobo, PH.D, of the University of Chattanooga, authored a report, From Gig City to Quantum City: The Value of Fiber Optic Infrastructure in Hamilton County, TN 2011-2035, that quantifies the…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/01/27/t...

27.01.2026 13:32 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Supreme Court Examines FCC’s Ability to Fine The Supreme Court has accepted a case that will determine the FCC’s ability to levy fines against the companies it regulates. The lower court cases that brought the issue to the Supreme Court come …

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/01/26/s...

26.01.2026 12:49 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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2026 Urban Rate Study One of the more curious undertakings done by the FCC every year is the Urban Rate Study. This is an exercise undertaken every year to determine the highest monthly broadband rates that can be charg…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/01/23/2...

23.01.2026 13:51 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Cell Tower Regulation Changes? Cellular carriers seem to be on a winning streak with federal regulators. In the Big Beautiful Bill last year, cellular carriers were able to insert language in the bill that mandates the FCC to au…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/01/22/c...

22.01.2026 14:11 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Competing with Satellite Cellular A recent article in Fierce Network quotes AT&T’s CEO John Stankey as saying that he’s not too worried about competition from satellite cellular providers. He said the new technology is be…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/01/21/c...

21.01.2026 14:52 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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BEAD Rule Changes for Permitting NTIA issued new General Terms and Conditions dated November 2025 that include dozens of changes to the BEAD rules for recipients, but also changes that impact state Broadband Offices that have wide…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/01/20/b...

20.01.2026 12:50 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Rats Attack Fibre! County Broadband in Norfolk, England, recently lost service to 442 customers over a weekend when rats chewed through fiber and caused an outage during a snowstorm. The ISP battled bad weather condi…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/01/19/r...

19.01.2026 13:59 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Technology Shorts January 2026 Sensors That Beat Lidar and Radar The Boston startup Tarador has developed a sensor that co-founder Matt Carey says beats the performance of radar and lidar. The sensors are solid-state, meaning no…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/01/16/t...

16.01.2026 13:06 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Ookla’s WISP Report Card Ookla published a WISP Report Card in November that looks at the speed performance of eight large WISPs – Etheric Networks, GeoLinks, NextLink, Resound Networks, Rise Broadband, Starry, Unwired Bro…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/01/15/o...

15.01.2026 17:07 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Starlink Update Starlink did something new and recently issued an update discussing the recent history and the outlook for the company. Perhaps the company will update this kind of report periodically. Coverage an…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/01/14/s...

14.01.2026 15:36 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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State Broadband Regulation The industry spends a lot of time focusing on potential federal broadband regulation, and bills introduced in Congress get a lot of press. It’s easy to forget that a lot of broadband legislation ha…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/01/13/s...

13.01.2026 14:54 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Is There a Fiber Crunch? There have been a number of articles in the industry press predicting a major shortage of fiber in 2026. Fiber manufacturers have already been working at full capacity due to the large amounts of f…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/01/12/i...

12.01.2026 14:39 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Charter to Offer Wireless Backup Charter plans to leverage one of its competitive advantages and offer wireless backup to residential broadband customers. This service would mean an automatic rollover to cellular data any time Cha…

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/01/09/c...

09.01.2026 16:14 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Falling FWA Speeds Ookla recently published a report looking at broadband speeds being delivered with FWA cellular broadband offered by AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. The report includes the chart shown below that …

potsandpansbyccg.com/2026/01/08/f...

08.01.2026 14:48 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0