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What’s Happening On Earth?

 🇨🇦 Ottawa upholds CRTC ruling on wholesale internet access to 'allow for more competition' - Ottawa says it will uphold a ruling by Canada's telecommunications regulator allowing the country's largest internet companies to provide service to customers using fibre networks built by their rivals — as long as they do so outside their core regions.

🇨🇦 Reversing the CRTC's Decision on Wholesale Internet Access: A Threat to Competition and Innovation - The Canadian government must reverse a recent CRTC decision allowing large telecoms to resell internet services on each other's networks, which undermines competition. The policy lets Canada's Big Three national incumbents access existing infrastructure built by smaller regional ISPs. If not reversed, it will lead to a less competitive market, disincentivize investment, and make Canada an international outlier.

🇨🇦 Ottawa should reverse the CRTC’s decision on wholesale internet access - The federal government faces a simple question: Should Canada support a diverse, competitive internet ecosystem, including regional internet service providers, or ISPs, that invest where incumbents decline to build? If the answer is yes, Ottawa must act before Aug. 13 to reverse a recent Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission policy.

🇨🇦 If Bell doesn’t like competing with Telus on its own broadband network, it really won’t like the alternatives - Since the spring it has been hard to avoid Bell Canada’s relentless multimedia advocacy campaign on behalf of … Bell Canada. Ostensibly the campaign is about the need to “build, connect and grow” Canada, in particular by means of fibre-optic internet networks, which Bell Canada just happens to be in the business of installing, the better to sell you its high-speed internet service.

My Take: Everyone can complain, debate, make solid arguments and take positions, but for now, the decision sticks. It does open the door wider for non incumbent providers to expand their footprint for residential - and some commercial or SMB offerings. Hopefully there’s some meaningful market tracking underway.

🇨🇦 Toronto seniors without Bell service for seven weeks following fire - According to the newspaper, on Sunday, June 8 a fire broke out at Beecroft Manor in the city’s North York region. Firefighters doused the flames in 12 minutes. Bell told the paper that its network equipment was badly damaged. Rogers Communications Inc. was able to restore access within two days. But internal miscommunication involving insurance coverage and liabilities delayed Bell from repairing the network for nearly two months. 

My Take: Isn’t this where services could have been restored or augmented (quickly) with some sort of wireless soltion?

Jio Platforms launches 10 live 5G network slices - Jio Platforms said these dedicated virtual network slices are designed for sectors such as enterprise, IoT, gaming, Jio’s fixed wireless service JioAirFiber, and mission-critical communications

My Take: No longer a lab experiment, is the message here.

It’s crunch time for BEAD as paperwork comes due in September - It seems the 90-day timeline the current administration allocated for states to resubmit their Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program proposals has folks in the industry stressed. One thing that came up a lot at the Mountain Connect show yesterday was that the new rules for BEAD program have put everyone on a very tight (and simultaneous) timeline.

My Take: And then there will be crunch time when everyone is approved at the same time, targets the same workforce at the same time and put demands on suppliers (who should be ready) at the same time.

NTIA's chief of staff responds to BEAD criticisms - Speaking at Mountain Connect in Denver, NTIA's Brooke Donilon said changes to BEAD will provide long-run benefits. However, network builders, broadband operators and fiber-focused vendors outlined frustrations about the changes.

My Take: Apparently it’s about short term pain for longer term gain.

The BEAD fight between satellite and fiber may boil down to 3 words - The interpretation of what constitutes a “priority broadband project” is key for BEAD awards. Some states may determine that satellite doesn’t qualify as a priority broadband project. But if cost is the overriding consideration, then satellite could sweep the BEAD winnings

My Take: Priority Bandwidth Project. Those are the three words. A number of arguments for, and against, satellite-based services, and an argument that requesting funding for satellite is the same as requesting funding for a fiber-drop from an existing network and the associated ineligibility.

CommScope to unload Connectivity and Cable Solutions unit to Amphenol for $10.5B - A year after selling its outdoor wireless and DAS business to Amphenol for $2.1 billion, debt-ridden CommScope has inked a deal to sell its largest unit – Connectivity and Cable Solutions – for $10.5 billion, also to Amphenol.

Is this the end of the great CommScope dismantling? - CommScope is selling off Connectivity and Cable Solutions, its largest business unit. That will leave it with a 'RemainCo' of Access Networks Solutions (ANS) and Ruckus. CEO Chuck Treadway didn't close the door to future M&A.

My Take: Nothing to add here!

BEAD may be a big disappointment, but fiber demand from AI is hot, hot, hot - Perhaps it’s a sign of the times in the fiber industry, which has taken a big blow because of revisions to the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, but the Fiber Broadband Association’s latest webinar focused on the opportunities that fiber players have to connect AI data centers.

My Take: All you need to do is read the article in last week’s newsletter linked to the report from Zayo. The amount of fber being deployed to support data centre traffic is crazy.

World’s submarine comms cables under greater threat than ever - Given the evident reality of deteriorating geo-political relationships and global economic tensions, submarine comms cables are under more threat than ever before from an enlarged and increasingly aggressive coterie of state-run or state-sponsored “malign actors” and, to make matters worse, the capacities and capabilities of the West and its allies to prevent or repair either physical or cyberattacks on submarine networks are declining. 

My Take: “the lack of diversity of cable routes, their crowding together at various strategic landing points around the world and the lack of capacity in global repair facilities will magnify the incidence of deliberate damage and could result in prolonged comms outages.”

Op-ed: ISP-issued gateways can work real broadband magic - When we discuss improving the broadband experience, the focus often falls on the big-ticket items — fiber rollouts, 5G upgrades, or massive network overhauls. But there’s an unsung hero quietly transforming the in-home experience: the home gateway.

My Take: ISP provided gear offers more modern hardware, provider‑side optimization, seamless integration, and remote management, all of which enhance in‑home broadband experience and reduce churn.

🇨🇦 U.S. cell tower giant SBA to sell Canadian network for $446-million - SBA is a real estate business that owns cellphone towers in the U.S., Canada and other countries. The company’s 369 towers represented one of Canada’s largest independent wireless tower portfolios.

My Take: 369 towers held in Canada being sold to a European PE firm.

🇨🇦 TELUS announces $1.26B wireless tower infrastructure partnership with La Caisse - Terrion, headquartered in Montréal, will take ownership of about 3,000 passive macro cell tower sites that TELUS is spinning off from its network operations. The transaction values Terrion at more than $2.5 billion, positioning it as Canada’s largest dedicated wireless tower operator. TELUS will retain a 50.1 percent stake and continue to control active network components and security systems.

My Take: All about their EBITDA goal, and 3,000 towers.

🇨🇦 Rogers Expands WiFi 7 to Quebec, Boosting Connectivity - Rogers Communications has unveiled its latest venture, expanding WiFi 7 services to Quebec. This follows the initial rollout in Calgary, bringing faster and more reliable home internet to more Canadians. As part of its strategic plan, Rogers integrates this advancement with its existing 5G and hybrid fiber coax networks. In this latest iteration, customers benefit from stronger home networks, capable of addressing significant data demands.

My Take: Insofar as the number of end devices that support WiFi7 is growing (ie: in the apple world, only the iphone16 supports WiFi7 today) there are other benefits that are realized by “legacy” devices.

Google to Reduce AI Data Center Power Use During Peak Demand - In new agreements with two US utilities, Google has committed to rescheduling or pausing non-urgent AI workloads when the power grid is strained.

My Take: Video processing and model training gets put on hold when power demands are high. It’s like when people sign up for some sort of discount for letting the local power company manage when you can use your air conditioning based on grid demand. I’m not one of those people.

What’s Happening In Space?

What’s in Space This Week?

Moving the Internet to Space - Recent years have brought growing demand for enhanced inter-satellite data routing, connectivity and communications services in modern warfighting missions. Having a web of interconnected assets in space that can provide resilient, satellite-based capabilities that stretch beyond the ground segment is becoming increasingly crucial to the U.S. military.

My Take: The “outernet” is a great concept. True ponit to point. Many benefits. They just need to launch satellites and get it running.

STARLINK NETWORK UPDATE - Starlink’s speed and latency radically improved.

Last week, SpaceX reported a median U.S. peak-hour hashtag#Starlink download speed of ~200 Mbps and a median latency of ~25 ms; a significant leap forward in satellite internet performance. - While the speed gains are impressive, the sharp reduction in latency, particularly in 2024 is arguably even more noteworthy: SpaceX has cut end-to-end latency in half over just two years.

My Take: A SpaceX article and some notes from Carlos Placido. Increased speeds. Lower latency. The trend continues.

Starlink Beam Switching - As a Starlink terminal communicates with satellites overhead, it continuously builds a real-time obstruction map, allowing Starlink to dynamically understand its environment. With this information, it can proactively select the best and most stable connection.

My Take: So apparently, this is the software update that was in progress when they had the outage a few weeks back. I can’t find the reference, so maybe I’m just making it up, but I’m not.

Low-earth orbit service providers flying high - Low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite, high-speed broadband comms services are well on their way to being mainstream with LEO constellations becoming not only a broadband technology of choice for enterprises but also gaining traction with ordinary consumers as they too begin to appreciate the benefits that satellite-based domestic connectivity can confer. 

My Take: Watch the IoT application space here. Significant growth opportunity.

LEO Speed: When Milliseconds are Worth $Millions - Planned LEO and VLEO (Very Low Earth Orbit) satellite constellations cannot provision data rates as high as fiber cables when connecting major cities. Yet, speed is also about link delay and a subset of these high-throughput satcom initiatives will be able to offer lower latency than fiber across long distances, a situation that could foster wider interest in satellite constellations by financial players.

My Take: A little older, but another great piece on lower latency services across satellite.

On July 30, 2025, China successfully launched a new group of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites from its commercial spaceport in Hainan Province - These satellites are part of the Guowang megaconstellation, a state-backed initiative competing with SpaceX’s Starlink. With 39 satellites now in orbit, China plans to scale up to 400 by 2027 and 1,200 by 2029, expanding broadband access and strategic communications capabilities.

My Take: How many constellations does China have now?

A transport protocol’s view of Starlink - In this article, I’ll look at how TCP, the workhorse transport protocol of the Internet, interacts with the characteristics of the Starlink service.

My Take: Wow. Quite the article. Doesn’t mention doppler shifts once. I even have to deal with that on a stupid little handheld radio.

SpaceX Tests Starlink Community – Shared Internet at a Lower Price - SpaceX is exploring a new way to bring high-speed satellite internet to underserved and low-income communities. Dubbed “Starlink Community,” the upcoming offering aims to significantly reduce the cost of internet access by enabling multiple households to share a single Starlink terminal.

My Take: Because sharing is caring, and maybe people are doing it anyway and they just wanted to find a better way to monetize it? Seriously, though, why not? $60 is better than $120, even if the service is being shared.

Starlink interference threatens radio astronomy’s golden age - A sweeping new study reveals unintended satellite emissions are swamping protected frequencies, just as astronomers prepare to unlock the secrets of the early universe

My Take: Just as they were about to unlock all those secrets, you say. Seems kinda fishy to me. A regulatory blindspot, it seems.

The Stratosphere Will Be Telecom’s Next Frontier - Starting next year, Tokyo’s SoftBank Corp. will be beaming a prototype 4G and 5G phone and broadband service from the stratosphere to Japanese end users. Floating 20 kilometers above the Earth, the company’s airship-based mast will be using energy-regeneration tech and newly allocated spectrum. And the tech could ultimately pose a real, competitive threat to satellite-based platforms like Starlink.

My Take: “HAPS”. Watch and see how it goes. I used to think it was a crazy idea, but it seeme to be making headway with real associated innovation!

Duffy to announce nuclear reactor on the moon - Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy will announce expedited plans this week to build a nuclear reactor on the moon, the first major action by the former Fox News host as the interim NASA administrator.

My Take: And then there will be a nuclear accident, the moon will shift out of Earth’s orbit, and it’ll be like Space 1999 all over again! (I used to think those Eagles were cool looking. Now they just remind me of bugs)

Is there a launch today? Upcoming NASA, SpaceX, ULA rocket launch schedule at Cape Canaveral - During the first seven months of the year, 64 orbital rockets took flight from Florida's Space Coast. This unpreceded pace will zoom beyond 2024's freshly established annual record of 93 launches — should the cadence continue through year's end.

My Take: Look at all those launches! It used to be that one had to plan to see a launch. Now, it seems, all you have to do is look out the window.

Telesat not distracted by Starlink, Kuiper as Lightspeed launch nears - Goldberg noted that while Kuiper is focused on the same market segments as Telesat, it is also aiming at consumer broadband, which is not a priority for the Canadian satellite company. 

My Take: They won’t compete. Amazon will have their hands full with converting Starlink customers to worry about commercial out of the gate.

Australia picks Amazon over Starlink and OpenAI’s Norway data centre - Australia’s state-owned broadband network NBN Co has chosen Amazon’s untested Project Kuiper over Elon Musk’s established Starlink service to connect 300,000 remote homes and businesses who can’t access its terrestrial network.

My Take: Crikey!

Direct To Device

🇨🇦 EchoStar orders initial MDA satellites for $5 billion LEO constellation - EchoStar Corporation (NASDAQ: SATS), a global communications and connectivity provider, has selected MDA Space Ltd. (TSX: MDA), a trusted mission partner to the rapidly expanding global space industry, as the prime contractor for EchoStar’s new non-terrestrial network (NTN) low Earth orbit (LEO) direct-to-device (D2D) satellite constellation. With this contract, MDA Space is on track to begin volume manufacturing of the world’s first 3GPP 5G compliant non-terrestrial network using LEO satellites.

My Take: I’m just glad I bought shares in MDA when I did. Nice to see more Canadian involvement in the space sector.

AST SpaceMobile Announces Agreement to Acquire Global S-Band Spectrum Priority Rights Held under the International Telecommunication Union - Our revolutionary satellites and proprietary ASICs were designed with S-Band capabilities in mind. With these new spectrum priority rights, we will be in a position to bring services in S-Band to targeted markets around the world,”

My Take: S-band is 2.4Ghz-ish, so really good with penetration, coverage and propagation. It’s also compatible with existing MSS spectrum, so that helps..

SES CEO: D2D is a ‘huge opportunity’ now - SES closed its acquisition of Intelsat last month, bringing together two major geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) satellite operators. SES CEO Adel Al-Saleh told Fierce that the D2D market is very much in the combined company’s sights. Beyond that, SES is working with the FCC to clear the upper C-band for auction

My Take: I think it’s all going to get very confusing.

EchoStar's 'going concerns' warning returns as it sparks $5B direct-to-device LEO project - Facing an ongoing cash crunch, EchoStar has again warned there is 'substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern.' Meanwhile, the company is pursuing a $5 billion LEO-powered direct-to-device network.

My Take: This while Echostar thing has been quite the process. Maybe MDA should get a big deposit up front.

Enabling AI

Figure AI shocks the internet by showing its humanoid robot doing laundry like a pro - In footage shared by CEO Brett Adcock on X, the robot is seen efficiently grabbing garments from a basket and loading them into a washing machine – marking a notable achievement in embodied household robotics.

My Take: Still waiting for the cat litter robot.

How can telcos monetise AI in consumer services? - As people’s interest in AI keeps mounting, telcos have been quick to hop on the trend train by creating consumer AI tools. In our latest research, we explore the areas leading telcos are focusing on and how feasible the consumer AI opportunities are.

My Take: Digital asisstants.. Is that the best they can come up with?

Genie 3: A new frontier for world models - Given a text prompt, Genie 3 can generate dynamic worlds that you can navigate in real time at 24 frames per second, retaining consistency for a few minutes at a resolution of 720p.

My Take: This is very cool. It even remembers realtime details. Watch the video. I wonder how may trees they killed making the video?

Introducing gpt-oss - We’re releasing gpt-oss-120b and gpt-oss-20b—two state-of-the-art open-weight language models that deliver strong real-world performance at low cost. Available under the flexible Apache 2.0 license, these models outperform similarly sized open models on reasoning tasks, demonstrate strong tool use capabilities, and are optimized for efficient deployment on consumer hardware.

My Take: What he said.

Claude Opus 4.1 - Today we're releasing Claude Opus 4.1, an upgrade to Claude Opus 4 on agentic tasks, real-world coding, and reasoning. We plan to release substantially larger improvements to our models in the coming weeks.

My Take: I need to spend more time with things Anthropic.. Haven’t used their models much, so I have few comments of value..

Nuclear Experts Say Mixing AI and Nuclear Weapons Is Inevitable - Human judgement remains central to the launch of nuclear weapons. But experts say it’s a matter of when, not if, artificial intelligence will get baked into the world’s most dangerous systems.

My Take: One good hallucination, and that’s it. Like War Games, except real, and no 9600 baud dial up modems. This is pretty scary, actually. Where’s Nancy Reagan when we need her?

This and That!

Google says hackers stole its customers’ data by breaching its Salesforce database - Google has confirmed that some customers’ information has been stolen in a recent breach of one of its databases.

My Take: Great. Now my pictures will be all over the Internet… Oh, wait. They already are.

Cisco User Data Stolen in Vishing Attack - The networking giant said this week that an employee suffered a voice phishing attack that resulted in the compromise of select user data, including email addresses and phone numbers.

My Take: I’ll bet he vished he hadn’t answered the phone.

Gen Z's career cliff is worse for men — thanks to one corner of the job market - Gen Z women excel in healthcare, a growing sector, while men lag in tech and business.

My Take: Oh, wait. What happened to everyone wanting to be a professional poker player or e-gamer? Not working out?

Airlines are using AI to set ticket prices. Here’s how you can avoid price manipulation when booking flights - If you’ve ever ticked “agree” on a terms-of-service notice without reading it, mindlessly clicked “accept” when asked if you’d like to enable browser cookies or simply logged into your loyalty program, those decisions may soon mean paying hundreds of dollars more for flight tickets.

My Take: Here’s the solution. Use a VPN and a browser that blocks everything, like DuckDuckGo.

Denmark zoo asks for people to donate their pets to feed its predators - A Denmark zoo is asking the public to donate their pets -- particularly chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs -- so that they can feed them to the zoo’s predators.

My Take: Do they issue a tax receipt?

Infographic Of The Week

My Take: As the electricity consumption of AI rises, by 2028, a projected 12% of U.S. electricity demand could be driven from data centers. Beyond America, countries are pouring billions into AI sovereignty efforts which require data center facilities running 24/7 to power them.

Podcast Recommendation

Decades before multi-gigabit speeds, ultra-low latency and the virtual cable modem termination system became the norm, and years before DOCSIS became an acronym that only an engineer could love, Dr. Rouzbeh Yassini-Fard and his small team of visionaries and developers began to architect what would eventually become cable's cornerstone, multi-billion dollar broadband business – one that eventually would surpass the size of the industry's original pay-TV business.

Yassini's story – and the story about the birth of cable broadband – have been told in bits and pieces over the years, starting with his leadership of LANcity, a startup that built the first cable modem and was sold to Bay Networks in 1996 for $56 million. Elements of Yassini's fascinating industry history can be found in CED Magazine's "Man of the Year" profile of Yassini in 1999, an oral history recorded for the Syndeo Institute at The Cable Center, stories related to his induction into The Cable TV Pioneers in 2012 and to the Cable Hall of Fame in 2024 (this video also presents a brief synopsis). Last fall, a group of companies and individuals, including Yassini, were honored with a technical Emmy for the critical role they played in the development of DOCSIS.

Listen Here!

Movie/Streaming Recommendation

IMDb: 6.2/10

JMDb: 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿/10 (Entertaining and predictable, and no need for a 3rd!)

“Happy Gilmore 2” delivers exactly what fans of the original might expect, a riot of nostalgia, outrageous golf antics, and Adam Sandler’s signature silly humour.

The movie finds Happy grappling with family issues and sobriety, returning to golf to support his daughter’s dreams. While the plot is thin and the film leans heavily on callbacks and celebrity cameos, there’s genuine heart beneath the chaos. Sandler seems comfortable slipping back into the role, and the chemistry with the returning cast - plus some fun new faces - keeps things lively.

There are moments that drag and jokes that miss, and the third act veers from silly to outright surreal, but it’s hard not to smile watching Sandler’s unfiltered enthusiasm.

“Happy Gilmore 2” isn’t as sharply funny or fresh as the original, but it’s a goofy, warm-hearted trip down memory lane that delivers enough laughs and sentiment to satisfy longtime fans

A Word From Our Partner

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