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In Today’s Issue

The Podcast

Podcast Episode #13 - Unlocking the North: Broadband, Barriers, and Blue Sky Thinking. Susan Church, Executive Director of Blue Sky Net

What’s really stopping rural and northern communities from getting connected?

In this episode, I speak with Susan Church, Executive Director of Blue Sky Net, for a candid conversation about the stubborn challenges and creative solutions shaping broadband in Northern Ontario.

Susan shares stories from her 25-year journey, exposing why national broadband stats are misleading, why “hexagon mapping” leaves whole communities stranded, and what really happens when big telcos hold the keys to critical infrastructure.

We chat about funding failures, data gaps, and the hidden costs of overbuilding. Hear about the innovative local providers, the unfiltered truth behind provincial and federal programs, and the real elephants in the room.

If you want the inside story on Canada’s digital divide, listen in as we pull no punches and ask the questions few others will.

Listen on your player of choice or on Spotify

What’s Happening On Earth?

🇨🇦 CRTC considers standardized labels in hearing on home internet plans - As Canada’s telecommunications regulator explores potential new rules to help consumers shop for home internet plans, some providers say a proposed “nutrition label” would be overly costly and redundant.

🇨🇦 Transparency rules should be focused on specific wireless technologies, Bell suggests - The CRTC should specifically tailor its broadband transparency efforts on certain technologies that have been shown to demonstrate more variation in internet speeds, such as satellite and fixed-wireless services, according to Bell executives.

🇨🇦 Less than 2% of customers look at U.S. broadband label: Cogeco - “When customers sign up for broadband services on our website, less than two per cent choose to view the broadband label,” Bambara said Tuesday about the company’s experience.

My Take: Ok, it’s a waste of time and resources. If the Cogeco/Breezeline’s data shows that only 2% of subscriber viewed their Broadband label is correct, wouldn’t that demonstrate that consumers don’t need or want it? And don’t use this as an excuse to educate consumers. Much better ways to do that than with a jargon-laden plan that no one understands, and few actually need.

If there an issue with pricing practices, figure that out separately, especially where bundles or introductory pricing is concerned. I have no idea what I really pay for my Internet every month. It’s part of a larger package.

All this will do is drive more non-standard speed testing and complaints to the providers and the national complaints collective. If people can’t understand that thier iphone 6 won’t ever see the 1Gbps they’ve subscribed to, how will they understand latency and jitter?

From Bell Canada’s opening statement -

“..according to the CRTC's own Transparency Report, 87% of Canadians do not report having any difficulty finding or understanding information when shopping for Internet services. Moreover, of the 13% that did, there is no consistent pattern suggesting a significant problem to be addressed by regulation.  Only 2% of Canadians referenced speeds and only 1% indicated they found it difficult to compare services, providers or prices.”

The filings from the June 12th session aren’t yet available, however I understand than the ITPA’s position is that the large providers should be mandated to provide labels, but not the smaller, independent providers who don’t have full-time regulatory people, and aren’t subject to the CRTC’s code of conduct.

How much is this while process costing us? Which label is that on?

🇨🇦 Telus creates first responder network slice for Canadian police - Network slicing allows telecom operators to create separate and isolated networks for different use cases, while the slice can be configured differently. The purpose of the slice was to provide Edmonton's Police with "reliable, continuous situational awareness needed" to ensure crowd management and public safety during the high-profile playoff games.

My Take: Slice away, Telus.

Slicing Up the Network with 5G SA: An Interview with Telit Cinterion's Stan Gray - Network slicing isn’t just a radio feature. To ensure consistent service levels and enable application-specific networking that 5G promises, it requires the entire infrastructure, including fiber transport, to be integrated into slice-aware orchestration and management.

My Take: You need end-end slicing, but do you have to call everything a slice, or can it just be QoE-enable logical infrastructure? Anyway, glad the use cases are paying off.

T-Mobile fiber growth is a boost to its FWA: analyst - “T-Mobile’s access to fiber will increase their ability to provide FWA,” said Mobile Experts Principal Joe Madden. Not only is fiber good for the backhaul fixed wireless requires, but T-Mobile can still deploy FWA in cases where it’d be too expensive to run fiber all the way to the home.

My Take: The plan is working. FWA is a competitive pain in the ass for many providers in the US.

AT&T hits 30M fiber locations, as broadband race heats up - AT&T has reached a key milestone in its national fiber expansion, surpassing 30 million locations passed with fiber broadband. The achievement comes ahead of schedule and signals the company’s intent to double down on a converged fiber-and-wireless growth strategy. According to CEO John Stankey, the telco is now halfway to its goal of reaching approximately 60 million fiber locations by 2030.

My Take: That’s like one carrier covering 75% of Canada. Huge, and strategic.

Orange Business launches quantum-safe networking service - Orange Quantum Defender, already commercially available in Paris over the telco’s existing fibre transport network, protects network traffic against future quantum computing-enabled cyber attacks using Toshiba’s quantum-safe networking technology, which combines hardware-based Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) with software-based Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) “to both protect sensitive data and ensure future data secrecy,” noted the operator. 

My Take: Seems full of enough TLAs and jargon to be credible - AND - they mention Quantum, so that’s important.

Red Tape Isn’t the Only Reason America Can’t Build - The solution seems glaringly obvious: simplify the steps. Cut out all the middlemen and empower the FCC to provide money directly to ISPs as efficiently and quickly as possible. Any reasonable person would reach that conclusion.

My Take: Is more public ownership required? Is that what I’m taking from this?

🇨🇦 Bell Canada, Sixty North Unity still ‘working towards’ $1B Northwestel deal - One year after announcing the sale, Bell Canada is still “working towards” completing a $1-billion deal to sell the North’s largest internet provider to a consortium of Indigenous organization

My Take: If they secure the funding, and all that..

Trump admin’s ‘Bargain’ BEAD: Approvals yanked, new rules in play - As part of issuing the new rules, the administration rescinded approval of the state broadband plans of Louisiana, Delaware and Nevada, which had been the furthest along in the approval process for the bipartisan BEAD program. While BEAD had originally been passed by Congress with a heavy preference for fiber deployments, NTIA has instituted a “technology neutral approach” and is demanding that states hold another round of bidding where all technology types can be considered—some of which will inevitably be cheaper than fiber.

What you need to know about the new BEAD rules - The deed is done. NTIA has officially rewritten the rules of the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, essentially forcing states back to square one on their plans to address the digital divide.

My Take: I’ll just assume everyone already knows about this and feels bad for the states that have a plan, but feel good for the same states who will just go after 30 year municipal bonds or PE and build what they wanted to from the start, on their own - with fiber.

The exploding world of private network startups - Over the last 12 months, smaller players have collectively increased their share by a single-digit percentage, a trend that SNS expects to continue throughout the remainder of this decade, according to Khan.

My Take: If nothing else, there’s a large list of private 5G enablers in there.

Think of Private 5G as a Part of Edge Computing - I’ve never held a view that private 5G would be an enormous opportunity for vendors, cloud providers, or operators, and I still don’t. I do believe, though, that private 5G may be extremely important to all these groups, and to unlocking additional IT and network spending and investment.

My Take: I dunno. I kind of think it has it’s industrial place for a number of applications where WiFi doesn’t fit. It’s certainly not a replacement.

🇨🇦 Telecom sector ramping up investments in tech as traditional growth areas slow - ..But as the telecoms continue to set their sights on growth and profits, some industry watchers say they will need to further diversify their investments. They point to technology services, including artificial intelligence, as an industry where telecoms can make their mark.

My Take: All this money going into AI.. What’s the exit plan?

HPE CEO admits to exploring ‘options’ should Juniper deal fail - Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) managed to stabilize operations during its second fiscal quarter, reversing what had been a rough Q1 that resulted in thousands of job cuts, though the vendor’s $14 billion Juniper Networks acquisition remains in legal limbo.

My Take: Silly legal limbo, if you’ve beeb following along!

🇨🇦 Rogers improves internet in B.C.’s Southern Gulf Islands with undersea cable -Rogers invested $10 million and laid eight kilometres of cable to connect the islands 

My Take: Thought this was kind of interesting as we don’t see that many subsea announcements.

Copper to colo: Ziply’s plan to repurpose its Central Offices - The facilities were previously filled with large amounts of equipment for the company’s old copper network. A lot of that was ripped out and replaced as part of the network upgrade program, leaving plenty of newly created space for the company’s colo business.

My Take: Good plan, and I don’t think they’re alone. Telus is up to something as well, if memory serves. Anyway, they have the space, may as well try to monetize and take advantage of the DC bubble. What’s the play, though? What’s the value add, or is there truly a shortage of colo space in the footprint?

What’s Happening In Space?

What’s in Space This Week?

🇨🇦 Quebec will stop subsidizing access to Elon Musk’s Starlink - The province isn’t renewing its three-year, $130-million contract with the Elon Musk-owned internet provider, which comes to an end on June 15, cybersecurity ministry spokesperson Émile Boudreau confirmed in an email to The Logic. Though access to Starlink won’t be interrupted, Quebecers in remote areas will lose access to the $40-a-month subsidy, as well as free Starlink receivers, which retail for $599.

My Take: Well, it’s about time.. and they can probably get receivers for free now anyway. I wonder what the Quebecers in those remote areas will do? What choice do they have? Seems the Province will continue to focus on fiber.

First-ever image of China's mysterious 'quasi moon' probe revealed weeks after it secretly launched into space - A new image released by China's space agency offers the first glimpse at the Tianwen 2 spacecraft, which is en route to collect samples from one of Earth's "quasi-moons". The photo shows some surprising similarities with a current NASA probe.

My Take: Why is everything from China that’s in space “mysterious”? The “photo shows some surprising similarities with a current NASA probe.” .. Yeah..

What's the Story? FCC's EchoStar investigation - This week, Light Reading's Mike Dano digs into the details of the FCC's planned investigation into EchoStar's nationwide 5G network buildout, why it seems politically motivated and the broader implications of that, and what to expect next.

EchoStar: Don’t pull the rug out from under us - EchoStar is in a fight for its life and in its latest salvo used Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr’s own words to explain why the agency should not backtrack after the company spent billions of dollars deploying a 5G network using spectrum the FCC authorized it to use.

My Take: Someone will probably write a book about this. Listen to the podcast below for more context.

🇨🇦 Vocus + Telesat announce multi-year Telesat Lightspeed terrestrial infrastructure + services contract - Vocus will construct and operate the new Landing Station in New South Wales, Australia, and provide fiber connectivity to Telesat’s point of presence (PoP), connecting Telesat’s advanced LEO Lightspeed satellite constellation to terrestrial networks, providing secure, low-latency satellite services across the region.

My Take: 👏 

Starlink Now Brings 2x Speedier Internet But Still Falls Behind FCC's Minimum Requirements - According to a new report by Ookla (via CNET), Starlink's internet speeds have improved exponentially over the past two years, with the company able to double its capabilities compared to its previous introductory phase. From 2022's 53.95 megabits per second, Starlink now offers an impressive 104.71 megabits per second median download speed, which is approximately twice as fast.

Starlink’s U.S. Performance is on the Rise, Making it a Viable Broadband Option in Some States - The LEO satellite provider is giving free gear to new customers in areas where it has excess capacity. Will it be able to handle an influx of new customers and still maintain its broadband speeds? 

My Take: Ok, so it’s not quite there yet, but it’s getting there. Some people seem to be scared of them. A link to the report is in the document.

United Airlines Shuts Down Starlink WiFi Service on Its Planes After the Antennae Caused Problems With Its Jets' Equipment - SpaceX's satellite-based internet provider — that's interfering with radio communications on some United Airlines regional jets, according to The Wall Street Journal, leading the airline to shut down the WiFi service aboard its Embraer E175 jets.

My Take: “We’re sure it’ll be just fine”. Don’t they test these things? Who needs radios when they can just use Facetime voice over Starlink? Anyone think of that?

Star Catcher and Starcloud Announce Partnership to Utilize Power Beaming to Enhance Capabilities - Via this partnership, Star Catcher will deliver dedicated solar energy to the forthcoming Starcloud constellation via the company’s advanced orbital power grid — the Star Catcher Network. 

My Take: a star-studded announcement. So this is for extra power when they need it, I think? My understanding is that StarCloud would live in a sun-synchronous orbit. Next stop, beaming power down to earth. Imagine all the ants you could kill! 🐜

Chinese spacecraft prepare for orbital refueling test as US surveillance sats lurk nearby - Two Chinese Shijian satellites appear to be maneuvering towards a rendezvous and docking in geostationary orbit, with U.S. surveillance spacecraft also in the vicinity.

My Take: I just think it’s cool that the US has space surveillance satellites poking around!

ESA, Telesat and RAL Space successfully demonstrate Q-Band satellite link over low Earth orbit - ESA, Telesat and the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s (STFC) RAL Space have reported a groundbreaking milestone in telecommunications technology, successfully establishing a Q-Band (38-39 GHz) link over LEO, between the RAL Space Chilbolton Observatory and the Telesat LEO 3 demonstration satellite.

My Take: Spectrum is a hot topic. Having access to more, and different spectrum as terrestrial and non-terrestrial converge is critica.

Direct To Device

We have completed development of the electronic board with our new AST5000 ASIC chip – the cornerstone of our next-generation BlueBird satellites! - After five years of rigorous engineering and production, representing an equivalent of 150+ human years of intensive work, this proprietary technology has 10x data capacity from our Block 1 satellites, meaning 10,000 MHz of processing bandwidth and peak speeds of 120 Mbps

My Take: Innovation marches forward. All this stuff will work - one day.

Enabling AI

Cutting-edge AI models from OpenAI and DeepSeek undergo 'complete collapse' when problems get too difficult, study reveals - A new study by Apple has ignited controversy in the AI field by showing how reasoning models undergo 'complete accuracy collapse' when overloaded with complex problems.

My Take: When the going gets tough, AI get’s going.. or something.. Interesting findings. Still some work to on reasoning, so it seems.

🇨🇦 Ottawa will spend big to back Canadian AI, Solomon says - The federal government will move from “over-indexing on warnings and regulation” to using Canadian-made AI in its own operations and encouraging businesses to adopt the technology, new AI Minister Evan Solomon has said.

My Take: I hope we don’t spend billions to end up with Canada Revenue Agency chatbots.

HPE turns to AI agents in job-cutting mission as costs spike - Agentic AI and a pruning of management roles are helping HPE save money amid macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty.

My Take: People don’t need donuts and coffee..

News

From infrastructure to products — the new AI battleground - The shift is subtle but we’re seeing it play out now: training foundation models is important, and it pushes the industry forward, but that progress must be paired with a sharp focus on user-facing utility. End-user impact means a narrowing lens from general capabilities to specialized products. 

My Take: Is it about end-user impact?

Operators to spend more than $17B on AI security - Telecom operators worldwide are expected to invest more than $17 billion in AI-based network security by 2029, according to a new study from Juniper Research. The research noted that this spending surge reflects the industry’s growing focus on enterprise clients in sectors like transportation, healthcare and energy, where network protection is seen as essential.

My Take: Well, yea, I guess when you start building agentic AI processes and use MCP to extend into other applications, something needs to keep watch over the expected bad actors.

The Gentle Singularity - We are past the event horizon; the takeoff has started. Humanity is close to building digital superintelligence, and at least so far it’s much less weird than it seems like it should be.

My Take: Ugh. That’s when it becomes unstoppable and we all end up being robot servants. Is this a case of “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”, or do we head down this path to prove a point, and then pay for it later?

Apple Intelligence gets even more powerful with new capabilities across Apple devices - Developers can now access the Apple Intelligence on-device foundation model to power private, intelligent experiences within their apps

My Take: Genmoji? Live Translation. That would be great. No more speaking foreign languages in front of me because you think I don’t understand!

ChatGPT outage: OpenAI reports 'elevated error rates' for several hours - The artificial intelligence chatbot gave some users a "Too many concurrent requests" message, or would not answer questions.

My Take: Maybe I’ll try that at home. “Sorry, too many concurrent requests”

This and That!

FBI Issues Play Ransomware Security Advisory & Mitigation Steps to Take Now - The FBI, CISA, and the Australian Cyber Security Center have issued an advisory about the Play ransomware group also known as Playcrypt, which has impacted businesses and critical infrastructure in North America, South America, and Europe.

My Take: Seems to be a bit of a problem.

Amazon stock price target maintained by Truist on Project Kuiper potential - Truist projects that Project Kuiper could generate annual revenue of approximately $6 billion by 2030, based on early technological successes and global demand for broadband connectivity. This would add to Amazon’s already impressive revenue stream of $650.31 billion.

My Take: $650 Billion.. That’s what I took from this. That’s a lot of Prime subscriptions

Hammerhead shark falls from sky in South Carolina, interrupting disc golf game - An osprey flying over Myrtle Beach dropped the small shark from a tree after being harassed by crows.

My Take: It’s like real-life Sharknado

SmartLess Mobile: Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Sean Hayes Get Into the Telecom Business - SmartLess hosts and creators Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Sean Hayes are launching a new mobile phone brand called SmartLess Mobile Tuesday, betting that their success in reaching people through their phones can lead to a piece of the mobile business.

My Take: Great Podcast. How much did Ryan Reynolds sell his mobile company for? $1B? I guess actors need a side hustle.

HP reveals first Google Beam 3D video conferencing setup, priced at $25,000 - Project Starline was reborn as Google Beam, a 3D video conferencing system that makes it look like you're in the same room with the other party. Google said HP would reveal the first Beam setup, and now it has. The HP Dimension is coming this year, and the price tag is a predictably hefty $24,999.

My Take: And for $24,999, it still won’t solve the “you’re on mute” problem.

Infographic Of The Week

My Take: Ok, maybe Anthropology makes sense, but some of the others??

Podcast Recommendation

This week, Light Reading's Mike Dano digs into the details of the FCC's planned investigation into EchoStar's nationwide 5G network buildout, why it seems politically motivated and the broader implications of that, and what to expect next.

Listen Here!

Movie/Streaming Recommendation

IMDb: 7.6/10

JMDb: 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 /10 (Everyone can relate… can’t they?)

Falling Down (1993), directed by Joel Schumacher, is a provocative, darkly comic thriller that follows William Foster (Michael Douglas), an ordinary man who snaps after a series of urban frustrations and embarks on a violent odyssey across Los Angeles to reach his estranged daughter’s birthday party.

The film deftly blends gallows humor with biting social commentary, exploring themes of economic pressure, alienation, and the unraveling American Dream.

Douglas delivers a riveting performance as a man pushed to the edge, his descent both pitiable and unsettling. Robert Duvall excels as the retiring cop determined to stop him, offering a grounded counterpoint to Foster’s chaos.

The movie’s strength lies in its refusal to glorify its protagonist. Foster is as much villain as victim, a flawed everyman whose actions force audiences to confront uncomfortable truths about society and themselves628.

Visually striking and thematically layered, Falling Down remains a bold, unsettling reflection on modern life.

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