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In Today’s Issue

What’s Happening On Earth?

Fiber Optic Sensing Association Forms Elite Advisory Council to Transform Critical Infrastructure Monitoring - As America's infrastructure struggles with a sobering "C" grade from civil engineers and faces unprecedented challenges from climate change, AI expansion, and aging systems, the Fiber Optic Sensing Association (FOSA) is taking decisive action. The organization today announced the formation of its new Advisory Council, bringing together recognized industry visionaries to accelerate the adoption of life-improving fiber optic sensing technologies.

My Take: FOSA formed a top-tier Advisory Council to push fiber sensing as the smarter, cheaper way to monitor aging U.S. infrastructure. Real-time data beats overbuilding.

Optical transport is on the way to a $19B comeback - Optical transport is back for real this time, with vendors starting to see an influx of cash from the cloud sector’s AI aspirations. Dell’Oro Group projects spending on data center interconnect (DCI) gear will continue to rise, boosting the market to $19 billion by 2029.

My Take: AI data centers are driving demand, especially for high-speed interconnects and pluggable optics. Vendors like Nokia and Ciena are seeing strong orders.

Broadband access network spending to top $20.1B in 2028 – Dell'Oro - Led by fiber builds and expansions, broadband providers' spending on access equipment is set to grow annually by 1.6%, per Dell'Oro's new five-year forecast. Cable access spending is also expected to peak in about three years as operators push DOCSIS 4.0 upgrades.

My Take: Fiber builds, DOCSIS 4.0 upgrades. PON and Wi-Fi 7 gear see strong growth.

Where does the bundle go from here? - Bango's Giles Tongue joins the podcast to discuss the evolution of the bundle as subscription combinations extend well beyond streaming services to include fitness services, food boxes, music, gaming, social media and AI offerings.

My Take: Bundles are shifting from simple video packages to multi-service ecosystems. Maybe they’ll start adding in food delivery services.

Frontier sets fresh fiber record as Verizon deal presses on - Frontier signed up a record 126,000 fiber subs in Q2 2025, handily beating the prior record of 103,000 added in Q1. Frontier's results, which included fiber builds to 334,000 more locations, arrive as its merger with Verizon inches toward an expected Q1 2026 close.

My Take: I guess it signal good news for long-term investments in fiber infrastructure.

Bell alleges Telus salespeople sold illegal pirated TV service to poach its customers - Rival telecoms are accusing one another of selling an “illegal pirated TV service” and “poaching” customers in a lawsuit that reveals friction in the industry after regulatory effort to increase competition.

Telus Countersues Bell for $1 Million in Fibre Internet Showdown - In a statement to iPhone in Canada, Telus called Bell’s legal action “a transparent attempt to block competition,” arguing that the lawsuit is really about the CRTC’s decision to open up access to fibre networks, not any wrongdoing by Telus.

My Take: Reminds me of the old, “I know you are, but what am I?” thing. Separate issues that likely would never have come to light had the CRTC proposed a framework that everyone got on board with.

Bell Canada reveals the reason behind outage impacting over 130K people in Ontario, Quebec - By 11 a.m. ET, Bell said service had been “fully restored” and explained the cause as an update that impacted some routers.

My Take: More router issues. You’d think people would have figured out the whole “test it on a digital twin” thing by now.

🇨🇦 eStruxture secures $1.35-billion in debt financing to build Canadian data-centre business - Canada’s largest homegrown data-centre builder has nearly doubled its borrowing capacity and scored an investment-grade credit rating for its first public debt offerings.

My Take: Massive investments continue. The numbers are mind boggling.

San Jose’s goal: Be the ‘West Coast’s premier data center hub’ - A new agreement between San Jose and PG&E is the latest in a string of moves by the California utility, aimed at supporting data centers’ power needs

My Take: $2.6B for 2GW?

FCC Considers Changing Broadband Goals - FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has proposed changes to the way the FCC sets broadband goals and tracks broadband coverage. The proposed changes are included in the Nineteenth Section 706 Notice of Enquiry, which is scheduled to come for a vote at the FCC’s August meeting.

My Take: Some analysis from the Pots and Pans guy. Can’t have any metrics that favour fiber over satellite, now can we.

T-Mobile, Charter and Comcast join in new MVNO alliance - Charter and Comcast are eyeing bigger business customer growth for their wireless offerings. And they won’t be riding Verizon’s network to do it.

My Take: Comcast and Charter will use T-Mobile’s 5G to launch business phone plans in 2026. They’ll still use Verizon for home users. T-Mobile gets more business customers. Verizon loses ground.

U.S. fiber frenzy could soar to 139M locations by 2030 - All hands are on deck in the fiber broadband race, as operators continue craving expansion and acquisition. Assuming all goes according to plan, New Street Research projects the U.S. fiber industry to reach a collective 139 million locations passed by 2030.

My Take: Most builds won’t overlap. About 55 million of those builds are considered financially attractive. Around 86–88 million locations already have fiber or are ready for it.

How the Big 3 think about their fiber growth strategy - Second quarter results are in and a fiber frenzy is in the air among the big 3 U.S. mobile operators. Passings-wise, AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon are collectively targeting about 119 million fiber locations in the coming years, per New Street Research.

My Take: AT&T is furthest ahead in fiber, aiming for 60 million locations by 2030. Verizon is scaling steadily and could reach 40 million. T-Mobile is catching up fast through deals and partnerships, targeting up to 30 million when combining fiber and wireless.

🇨🇦 OPINION | Fixing what isn’t broken: Why the CRTC should rethink broadband labels - What started as a straightforward question—how best to measure and present broadband speeds to consumers—has spiralled into a regulatory exercise in search of a problem.

My Take: Not needed. Just perpetuates the overall problem in the market that speed natters. “The rule would cost providers real money and likely won’t improve clarity. It’s regulatory busywork that distracts from priorities like better rural access, faster speeds, and stronger networks.” If the labels focused on things like customer support wait time, ease of doing business and some “value” metric, it would make sense.

Nokia reshapes for AI ‘supercycle’ – as infrastructure, enterprise sales rise - Nokia’s Network Infrastructure unit overtook Mobile Networks in Q2, reflecting a shift toward AI-driven IP and optical demand. Enterprise sales hit records, while traditional telco sales declined. Restructuring looms.

My Take: in order to “simplify how we work, build a more cohesive culture, and begin to unlock operating leverage”. Things are rather disparate.

🇨🇦 CRTC, Privacy Commissioner asked to launch inquiries into alleged privacy breach in Niagara phone call misconnections - The CRTC and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada are looking into reports that people calling voice lines in the Niagara region of Ontario were being connected to random strangers’ phone calls instead of reaching those they intended to speak with, raising privacy concerns amongst customers and demands for inquiries from an advocacy group. 

My Take: So this is odd. Users expected privacy but got live eavesdropping on unrelated calls, exposing sensitive info and undermining trust in telecom networks. I wonder what they heard?

Europe's love of Huawei is crushing Ericsson and Nokia - The unwillingness of European governments and telcos to evict Huawei, now deemed a security threat by the European Commission, is worsening the pain felt by Ericsson and Nokia.

My Take: Aren’t Ericsson and Nokia European companies? Way to support your own!

🇨🇦 Province Says Rogers Pulled Plug on $9.7M Highway 3 Cell Expansion - In an emailed obtained by iPhone in Canada, on July 22, the B.C. Ministry of Citizens’ Services confirmed that Rogers will no longer move forward with the project, which was supposed to bring new cell towers to a 92-kilometre stretch between Hope and Keremeos.

My Take: Now that they have their fancy satellite service, who needs towers? ;)

Speedtest Connectivity Report - To show a full picture of network performance in each market, our reports are informed by millions of daily consumer-initiated tests taken on Speedtest, along with quality of experience (QoE) metrics that offer insight into the daily connected activities that matter most to end-users.

My Take: More subjective “best” things.. Lots of data in there. Take a peek. I decided not to post any graphics with articles this week. Wanna see what happens ;)

ID Verification Service for TikTok, Uber, X Exposed Driver Licenses - As social networks and porn sites move towards a verified identity model, the actions of one cybersecurity researcher show that ID verification services themselves could get hacked too.

The Age-Checked Internet Has Arrived - Starting today, UK adults will have to prove their age to access porn online. Experts warn that a global wave of age-check laws threatens to chill speech and ultimately harm children and adults alike.

My Take: Privacy advocates warn this shift could chill speech, expose users to data breaches, and drive people toward VPNs and unregulated sites instead of safer channels. Where there’s a will, kids will find a way.

What’s Happening In Space?

What’s in Space This Week?

Chinese Researchers Suggest Lasers and Sabotage to Counter Musk’s Starlink Satellites - Starlink’s omnipresence and potential military applications have unnerved Beijing and spurred China's scientists to action.

My Take: Chinese researchers think Starlink is too powerful, so they’re floating ideas like lasers, hacks, and sabotage, because nothing says “peaceful space use” like blowing up internet satellites.

Starlink Outage Puts Attention on Resilient Communications - Starlink service was restored the same day. The company said the outage lasted about 2.5 hours. Starlink Vice President of Engineering Michael Nicolls explained on X that the outage was “due to failure of key internal software services that operate the core network.” 

My Take: The irony is that Starlink is the resilient option for many. Yea, they had an issue. So did Rogers, for a whole lot longer. What people are missing is that SpaceX found the fault, isolated the fault and recovered in what some are suggesting is a spectacularly short period of time.

The rising threat of orbital debris: What satellites can learn from the aviation industry - As you are reading this, tens of thousands of satellites are streaking overhead. They are monitoring our crops, guiding our cars, and beaming calls from the most remote corners of the globe. But, as their numbers swell, a looming threat remains overhead. If even a 1cm spec of debris collides with a spacecraft, it can make the million dollar machine inoperable.

My Take: How do the planes not crash into each other? The secret is an on-board, peer-to-peer system fitted onto nearly every commercial plane. Yea, yea.. like V2X is supposed to do with cars. Planes still have pilots, though. And no one owns and regulates all of space, so coordination would be a challenge, as well as the operating environment.

Starlink explains real risks of orbital collision - SpaceX’s Starlink mega-constellation regularly reports its anti-collision efforts for its satellites in orbit. In the six months to the end of May it says it made 144,404 collision-avoidance manoeuvres.

My Take: 144,404 collision-avoidance manoeuvres.. Seems like a lot!

Slingshot Aerospace Debuts AI Agent for Spacecraft Operations Training - Slingshot Aerospace is rolling out a new simulation tool, an AI-powered agent that can imitate satellite actions in training and simulation environments. Called “Talos” — the Thinking Agent for Logical Operations and Strategy — Slingshot said it is designed to learn and replicate tactics like space warfare maneuvers and dogfighting strategies.

My Take: Sounds like a digital twin of sorts to me

Upcoming Boeing X-37B Mission to Test Inter-Satellite Laser Communications - The U.S. Space Force plans to launch the Boeing X-37B space plane on Aug. 21 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The eighth X-37B mission is set to test “next-generation technologies including laser communications and the highest performing quantum inertial sensor ever tested in space,” the service said on Monday.

My Take: Space planes. Cool.

Satellite IoT competitive landscape: 5 notable insights - More than 100 vendors are currently active in the satellite IoT market landscape, according to IoT Analytics’ Satellite IoT Market Report 2025–2030 (published June 2025). The market is highly dynamic, leading to an increasingly fragmented market, more satellites in LEO orbit and legacy vendors adopting multi-orbit and hybrid strategies

My Take: Satellite IoT remains niche but high-value. Market is expanding fast, driven by new LEO players disrupting old giants.

First Australian-made rocket carrying Vegemite crashes shortly after takeoff - The first Australian-made space rocket crashed shortly after taking off on its maiden flight on July 30, 2025, spending 14 seconds in the air. 

My Take: It was the Vegemite’s fault. Even it knew it had to blow its self up.

Starlink Is Set to Receive Billions in Federal Subsidies but Analysis Says It Can’t Handle the Traffic - As Starlink is poised to cash in on BEAD contracts, a new analysis casts doubt on its ability to connect rural America.

My Take: “You can’t handle the traffic”… Anyway, this is why the Gen3 satellites become very important. Researchers found that Starlink’s satellites can handle just 6.66 households per square mile before service starts to dip below minimum broadband speeds set by the Federal Communication Commission. 6.66 by design? Hmm..

🇨🇦 Ontario officially cancels $100M Starlink contract, won't say cost to taxpayers - Province working on alternative solution for internet in remote locations, infrastructure minister says

My Take: So this time it’s official, officially official. I have to think the penalty was multiple tens of millions.

🇨🇦 Team Led By MDA Space Selected For Canada’s Lunar Utility Vehicle Study - The MDA Space-led team will bring together best-in-class Canadian expertise, powered by the critical contributions of the Centre de Technologies Avancées BRP – Université de Sherbrooke (CTA) and the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS). The collaboration combines MDA Space’s proven track record in mission-critical space systems, CTA’s decades of experience in rugged off-road vehicle development, and UTIAS’s leadership in advanced autonomy algorithms.

My Take: More Canadian innovation is good Canadian innovation.

Report: LEO satellite now competes fiercely for BEAD funds - A recent post on Pots and Pans by CCG Consulting President Doug Dawson gives some key insights into BEAD 2.0.

My Take: Yes, yes it does.

🇨🇦 Groundbreaking news - literally! NordSpace’s Atlantic Spaceport Complex (ASX) in beautiful Newfoundland and Labrador is roaring to life - As we prepare for the historic first launch of a Canadian commercial rocket from a Canadian commercial spaceport in the coming weeks, we recently broke ground with construction officially starting at SLC-02 (Space Launch Complex 02)

My Take: Waiting to watch a launch in Canada! ;)

The global satellite market is forecast to become seven times bigger - Our analysts’ base-case forecast is for the satellite market to grow to $108 billion by 2035, up from the current $15 billion. In the most optimistic scenario, the market could grow to be worth as much as $457 billion in that same period. Roughly 53,000 of the estimated 70,000 launches over the next half-decade are likely to be from China, writes Allen Chang, head of the Greater China Technology Research team. 

My Take:  LEO subscription fees may decline to around $16 per month by 2035

Direct To Device

Globe Telecom completes direct-to-device voice call - Globe Telecom seeks to speed up addressing coverage gaps in far-flung areas after it completed a trial of direct-to-device satellite voice calls.

My Take: Becoming run of the mill..

Enabling AI

🇨🇦 Province invests in Innovation Catalyst Grant - The Alberta government says it is setting the province up for success, and investing in the next generation of innovators through the Innovation Catalyst Grant.

My Take: It’s meant to turn research into startups, boost job creation, and attract follow‑on funding

Using ChatGPT As Therapist? Sam Altman Says Chats Are Not Private - If you've trusted ChatGPT with your deepest secrets, Sam Altman has bad news. The OpenAI CEO revealed that your AI therapy chats can legally be subpoenaed, leaving millions dangerously vulnerable.

My Take: Uh, oh! I don’t use LLMs for therapy. Too many forests would die.

🇨🇦 Bell Canada and Cohere forge strategic partnership to deliver sovereign AI-powered solutions for government and business - Bell Canada and security-first enterprise AI company Cohere today announced a strategic partnership to provide full-stack sovereign AI solutions for government and enterprise customers across Canada, and to deploy proprietary, secure AI solutions within Bell. 

My Take: Sovereign is good, especially these days.

OpenAI launches Study Mode in ChatGPT - OpenAI announced Tuesday the launch of Study Mode, a new feature within ChatGPT that aims to help students develop their own critical thinking skills, rather than simply obtain answers to questions. With Study Mode enabled, ChatGPT will ask users questions to test their understanding and, in some cases, refuse to offer direct answers unless students engage with the material.

My Take: I like it, but wonder how many will use it?

Tesla signs $16.5B deal with Samsung to make AI chips - “Samsung’s giant new Texas fab will be dedicated to making Tesla’s next-generation AI6 chip,” Elon Musk posted on X late Sunday evening. “The strategic importance of this is hard to overstate.”

My Take: Tesla needs massive AI chip production to power its autonomous tech, and Samsung desperately needs a win, so they struck a huge deal that solves both problems.

AI referrals to top websites were up 357% year-over-year in June, reaching 1.13B - AI referrals to websites still have a way to go to catch up to the traffic that Google Search provides, but they’re growing quickly. According to new data from market intelligence provider Similarweb, AI platforms in June generated over 1.13 billion referrals to the top 1,000 websites globally, a figure that’s up 357% since June 2024.

My Take: The article reports that in June 2025, AI platforms like ChatGPT drove 1.13 billion referrals to the top 1,000 websites, a staggering 357% increase from June 2024, though Google Search still dominates with about 191 billion referrals

Why Apple is ripe for an AI acquisition to improve Siri - With tech vendors clamoring to prove themselves as the next possible winner in the AI race, Apple's underwhelming response in generative AI technology has produced varying estimates about how behind the iPhone maker is.

My Take: Siri is still behind, and Apple might need to buy an AI startup, because apparently spending billions on R&D wasn’t enough to make it useful.

ChatGPT Agent vs networking agents: Why specialized AI tools are set to win - Unlike the traditional iteration of ChatGPT, which only uses the information provided to the chatbot, limited search functionality, and the sum of the underlying model’s knowledge pool, ChatGPT agent has wider access to more tools and functionalities that could potentially expose unwanted access to sensitive business data.

My Take: General AI like ChatGPT isn’t best for network operations. Specialized AI tools from network vendors are safer, more accurate, and better for the job.

How AI Agents Reason, Act, and Automate at Scale - To truly operate autonomously in complex environments, agents need not only connectivity but also intelligence. They must be able to reason through conditions, make decisions based on context, and take action that aligns with operational goals. 

My Take: The article explains how AI agents think through problems, pick the right tools, take action, and check results so they can manage networks on their own, at scale.

The Case for Intelligent Automation in Network Operations - In the last decade or so, network infrastructure has undergone a massive transformation. With the rise of hybrid cloud, distributed applications, and software-defined everything, managing networks has become exponentially more complex. What used to be a stable, predictable environment is now a constantly evolving system of interconnected services, protocols, and devices, each with its own telemetry, APIs, and failure models. For network operations (NetOps) teams, this complexity is a daily obstacle to productivity and performance, one that increasingly calls for intelligent automation to keep pace.

My Take: The article argues that AI-driven automation is now essential for managing complex networks, replacing static scripts with intelligent agents that act on real-time context.

PwC warns against AI threat complacency in telecoms - A report from PwC revealed that AI poses trust and security (T&S) issues to telecom security, particularly in light of the rise of IoT and 5G.

My Take: I hope it wasn’t an expensive report.

This and That!

Google took a month to shut down Catwatchful, a phone spyware operation hosted on its servers - Google has suspended the account of phone surveillance operator Catwatchful, which was using the tech giant’s servers to host and operate the monitoring software.

My Take: Apparently Google failed to act quickly on a known, active spyware threat hosted on its own infrastructure, exposing tens of thousands of people to prolonged data theft despite early warning.

Software-Driven Network Outages, Human Error, and Management - The recent Starlink service outage has raised yet again the issue of software failures in network outages. While over 80% of enterprises and slightly under two-thirds of operators say the largest source of outage-minutes in their networks is human error, most of these will admit that there’s an underlying question of whether software should have prevented or at least mitigated it. In any case, most of those who don’t cite human error cite software/firmware problems as their prime outage source.

My Take: Great article by Tom inspired by the recent Starlink outage. End of the day people are the greatest risk, not technology.

China to offer $500 per child in move to boost birth rate - More than 20 provincial-level administrations in China now offer childcare subsidies. But analysts are skeptical that they will be able to reverse the declining population or spur spending.

My Take: With 1.4 billion people, maybe they should sit tight for a little while?

No Patch for Flaw Exposing Hundreds of LG Cameras to Remote Hacking - The cybersecurity agency CISA revealed on Thursday that LG Innotek LNV5110R cameras are affected by an authentication bypass vulnerability that can allow an attacker to gain administrative access to the device.

My Take: I guess Life isn’t so Good if you have one of these cameras.

Jack Dorsey’s Bluetooth messaging app Bitchat now on App Store - Bitchat, a messaging app created by Twitter and Block founder Jack Dorsey, is available to download from the iOS App Store. Dorsey says he coded the basis of the app over the course of a weekend in early July.

My Take: I may be missing the point..

NIST Ion Clock Sets New Record for Most Accurate Clock in the World - There’s a new record holder for the most accurate clock in the world. Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have improved their atomic clock based on a trapped aluminum ion. Part of the latest wave of optical atomic clocks, it can perform timekeeping with 19 decimal places of accuracy.  

My Take: Can’t wait to see the new Omega olympic stopwatches!

Skechers is making kids’ shoes with a hidden AirTag compartment - Inside the heel of the shoe, a small insert can be lifted to reveal the compartment. Then, parents can track the location of their child — or, at least their child’s shoes. These shoes don’t come with an AirTag, and they don’t appear to be an actual collaboration with Apple, but rather, a third-party product that Skechers has developed on its own.

My Take: Is this to find lost shoes, lost kids or lost kid’s shoes?

Do photons wear out? An astrophysicist explains light’s ability to travel vast cosmic distances without losing energy - The light from the Pinwheel traveled for 25 million years across the universe – about 150 quintillion miles – to get to my telescope. My wife wondered: “Doesn’t light get tired during such a long journey?”

My Take: So then there should be a lot of photon torpedoes floating around in space, then?

Production firmware ready in minutes. - A rigorous AI agent that writes, tests, and debugs firmware directly on the hardware it was designed for.

My Take: Looks like a pretty unique solution, if it actually does what it’s supposed to do.. BootLoop ingests any engineering document - component datasheets, board & system schematics, existing code, libraries, frameworks, and so much more. Who needs engineers anymore?

Goodbye, Melted Ice! This Is the Best Way to Pack a Cooler - Here's exactly how to pack, maintain and clean your cooler—according to catering pros who've seen it all (including meat-juice frosting)

My Take: A critical skill that everyone should learn, of course.

Infographic Of The Week

My Take: There are 34 American companies in the Top 50. As long as the Gen AI train keeps running down the track, NVIDIA may remain in the top spot.

Podcast Recommendation

Nudge is the UK's #1 marketing podcast, breaking down the hidden psychology behind what we do and why we do it. No BS, just smart, science-backed insights that work.

I stumbled across it while listening to an episode of The Hustle.

Listen Here!

Movie/Streaming Recommendation

IMDb: 8/10

JMDb: 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿/10 (Sneakily good)

"Sneaky Pete" is an engaging crime drama that stands out for its clever premise and strong ensemble cast. The show follows Marius, a con man played brilliantly by Giovanni Ribisi, who assumes his cellmate’s identity to escape his own dangerous past.

The series excels in delivering intricate schemes and surprising plot twists, keeping viewers invested throughout its three-season run. Critics have praised its tight writing, suspenseful storytelling, and dynamic characters, particularly highlighting Bryan Cranston’s performance as a chilling villain.

While some later episodes introduce convoluted plot lines and the series was abruptly cancelled, the overall experience remains gripping and highly binge-worthy.

Blending elements of crime, family drama, and dark humor, "Sneaky Pete" is a smart and entertaining option for fans of shows like "Better Call Saul" and "Ozark," offering both compelling cons and nuanced emotional depth

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