In partnership with

You won’t find a better source for Market Intelligence about Telecom, Space Communications and AI, all in one place, for free, anywhere.

Join thousands of weekly readers.

If you’re enjoying this newsletter, please consider sharing it with others!

What’s Happening On Earth?

TIA to Establish Free-Space Optical Communications Standard; Attochron to Lead New Working Group - Tom Chaffee, founder and chief executive officer of Attochron, stated “Attochron couldn’t be more excited about the TIA’s formation of the FSOC Working Group after Attochron’s successful enterprise access, real-world proof of concept with Tier 1 carrier Lumen and a Fortune 200 retailer. This POC effectively demonstrated all three of the critical use cases at once and with carrier-grade performance.”

My Take: This is great news for Attochron. Note the real-world POC with Lumen. Attochron will be discussing their Free Space Optics solution as part of my Broadband Innovations Panel at the upcoming Canadian Rural and Remote Broadband Community Conference (see the banner, above) in Kelowna, BC this coming November.

Gigapower could soon have a new ISP on its open access network - Gigapower is prepping for the next step in its open access growth plan. Since AT&T and BlackRock’s joint venture kicked off in May 2023, AT&T has been Gigapower’s first – and only – tenant. But that’s about to change, Gigapower Chief Revenue Officer Jeff Seidenfaden told Fierce in an interview.

My Take: I suppose AT&T wins either way, as an investor in Gagapower, receiving NETCO revenue from any open access RSP, and as an ISP selling to consumers.

Nokia's CEO comments on Chinese vendor risk a call for EU 'rip and replace' says analyst - Speaking at a press conference before the opening of Nokia's new research campus in Oulu, Finland, last week, Hotard said that Nokia’s share in the Chinese market had fallen dramatically — and questioned why their vendors were free to operate in parts of Europe, “particularly when they do not allow us to play in their markets,” as SDxCentral reported.

My Take: Fair argument, albeit a little “sour grapes-ish”. Not an issue in North America!

Nokia bets big on AI to drive network automation & traffic growth - Nokia's mobile networks chief is betting on AI to transform network infrastructure, promising smarter, more efficient systems that can handle explosive traffic growth and embrace open, cloud-native technologies.

My Take: Yea, them and everyone else. If you aren’t talking AI-something, no one will pay attention.

A fiber optic cable spied on Greenland’s glaciers. It found an alarming problem. - By analyzing light shining through the same kind of cable that brings the internet into homes, researchers have helped explain why the island's ice — which could add 23 feet to sea levels — is in such rapid decline.

My Take: You’re going to hear a whole lot more from me on fiber sensing - call it situational awareness - from me in the coming weeks and months. Everyone I speak with about it gets excited at the market opportunities and possibilities.. outside of Greenland, of course.

2024 Broadband Pricing Index - The fifth instalment of USTelecom’s Broadband Pricing Index (BPI or Index) shows that prices for high-speed broadband internet services continue to decline—even as upload and download speeds rapidly advance.

My Take: BPI-Speed (100–940 Mbps) real prices dropped 9.4% YoY and ~60% since 2015. BPI-Gigabit (940 Mbps–1 Gbps) real prices fell 3.9% YoY and 43% since 2017. Prices dropped sharply while inflation rose 32.2% since 2015. Broadband stands out compared to rent (+46%), car insurance (+81%), and food (+33%)

Everything else is up. Broadband is down. Funny what happens with commodity economics. A gigabit connection is mostly the same whether it comes from Comcast, AT&T, or another ISP. That makes it harder to differentiate, so price competition dominates.

Is Broadband headed to the same ultimate fate as long distance minute costs?

There's a Stunning Financial Problem With AI Data Centers - However, a recent deep dive by Praetorian Capital CIO Harris Kupperman took a peek under the hood of present-day data centers — and for anyone pouring money into the space, his conclusions will be sobering.

Read the report.

My Take: I had my assistant, Chad Geept, read the report and give me a summary. We discussed, and here’s what he found.

State tax exemptions for data centers are out of control, fiscally reckless, and unnecessary.

• They deprive states and localities of billions in revenue.

• They primarily benefit a handful of trillion-dollar corporations (Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Meta).

• They lack transparency, caps, or accountability.

• They undermine state spending control in a way unmatched by any other subsidy program.

The authors argue that states should cancel these exemptions outright. If not, they should at least cap them, enforce disclosure, and pause programs to study impacts on budgets, electricity, land, and communities

Inside Spectrum-X: Nvidia’s Ethernet networking platform - Spectrum-X has quietly become the plumbing that allows generative AI workloads to scale, re-engineering Ethernet to eliminate bottlenecks and overcome what Huang described last year as a history of being “designed for high average throughput."

My Take: What it all means - Spectrum-X makes Ethernet viable for massive GPU clusters by cutting latency and congestion. Read the article to learn more about how it does what it does.

🇨🇦 Bell Canada Launches Bell Cyber: A Central Pillar in its Strategy to Lead in Managed AI-Powered Solutions - At today's inaugural Bell Cybersecurity Summit in Toronto, Bell officially announced the launch of Bell Cyber, a new brand complementing its growing AI-powered technology solutions business, alongside Ateko and Bell AI Fabric. Bell Cyber represents a pivotal step in Bell's strategy to lead as a North American technology services provider, delivering AI-powered, scalable and sovereign cybersecurity solutions that protect enterprises and strengthen Canada's digital future.

My Take: Marching down the “technology services” company road one foot at a time.

Carr moves to end FCC funding of Wi-Fi on school busses - Earlier this month, Carr’s office announced the circulation of a vote for a declaratory ruling, which would overturn a 2023 decision to fund Wi-Fi hot spots on school busses. Similarly, Carr’s office also said he had also circulated an order to reconsider a 2024 decision that funded the provision of Wi-Fi hotspots to students and library patrons.

My Take: If its approved, many kids won’t have reliable internet access while commuting, which could impact homework and remote learning. Ya. That’s what they’re using it for.

T-Mobile US data center exec sees fiber, power hurdles - “5G is so much faster and uses so much less overhead that I think the pressure, I would say the pressure is on fiber to catch up because we can do so much more that just adds more layers of demand on the fiber,” John Coster, manager for innovation, planning, and strategy at T-Mobile US said during a panel discussion at this week’s Yotta 2025 event. “There’s a lot of pressure on the fiber to come up with better ways of handling, because we have more data, 5G can handle so much more data. I think that's the pressure on the transport side.”

My Take: building the next generation of networks isn’t just about adding more spectrum or radios. The real hurdles are fiber connections to carry the data and power at the sites to run edge computing and AI workloads.

AT&T CEO admits to high price for EchoStar spectrum - AT&T CEO John Stankey admitted that the carrier paid a premium for EchoStar’s wireless spectrum, a haul that includes a cache of low-band licenses that do not specifically align with AT&T’s near-term deployment plans.

My Take: The low-band 600 MHz licenses aren’t as immediately useful, because AT&T doesn’t currently have network equipment that supports 600 MHz

Broadband access equipment spending up 7% in Q2 – Dell'Oro - Dell'Oro report shows global revenue for broadband access equipment increased to $4.7 billion in Q2 2025, up 7% quarter-over-quarter and 1% year-over-year. Spending on DOCSIS infrastructure declined 13% year-over-year.

My Take: Fiber and FWA charge ahead as DOCSIS lags. A forward-looking trend, or a blip? Time to cap DOCSIS and grow with Fiber?

Sales of small cells spiral upwards on indoor and neutral-host deployments - Indoor small-cell deployments will account for 60 percent of all rollouts in 2023–2024 (when the figures are confirmed), holding more-or-less steady at about 54 percent by 2030. SCF said: “Growth is being driven by a variety of enterprise use cases, from advanced automation and industrial IoT to high-capacity retail and public-sector connectivity. To meet this demand at scale, neutral host models are playing a growing role that complements traditional operator-led deployment.”

My Take: Was this unexpected? Did people think WiFi would just fit everywhere?

What’s Happening In Space?

What’s in Space This Week?

Tasmania to be first in Australia to connect to Amazon’s Project Kuiper - Tasmanians will reportedly be the first Australians to connect to Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellite constellation, following an agreement between Amazon and the National Broadband Network ( nbn® Australia). The contract, set to begin in mid-2026, will provide satellite broadband services to around 300,000 premises within NBN's existing satellite footprint via participating Retail Service Providers, according to the NBN press release.

My Take: As Carlos says, “once Amazon completes the deployment of 578 satellites (phase 1, comprising half of the planned shell at 630 km altitude with a 51.9° orbital inclination), there will be between 2 and 5 Kuiper satellites in line of sight anywhere in Tasmania at any given time”.

SpaceX strikes $17B deal to buy EchoStar’s spectrum for Starlink’s direct-to-phone service - EchoStar will sell its AWS-4 and H-block spectrum licenses in exchange for $8.5 billion in cash and $8.5 billion in SpaceX stock. SpaceX said the deal would let it develop and deploy its “Direct to Cell” constellation, which it claims can provide broadband-speed internet access to mobile phones across the world. Of the cash, $2 billion will be made as direct cash interest payments on debt held by EchoStar.

Analysis by Carlos Placido

The Future of Starlink Direct to Cell - The Direct to Cell constellation connects to the broader Starlink constellation (consisting of more than 8,000 satellites) through the Starlink laser mesh, which enables coverage anywhere in the world. Operating at 360 kilometers above the surface of the Earth, Direct to Cell satellites fly lower than any other constellation in order to optimize the link between the cell phone and satellite.

Elon Musk Says Starlink Could Replace Your Cellphone Carrier - On the All-In podcast, Musk said Starlink could eventually combine its home internet service with mobile. But he was careful to note that Starlink wouldn’t be putting AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon out of business anytime soon – those companies still own far more of the wireless spectrum that’s used to send texts, make calls and stream videos. But the billionaire grinned when it was suggested that one way to acquire more spectrum would be to purchase Verizon outright.

My Take: A very insightful interview with Elon, on many things AI, Tesla, Robot, SpaceX and Starlink related. His comments on the Echostar spectrum and what it means to SpaceX around the 12 minute mark. Say what you want about the guy, he’s quite visionary. So many opinions on why they bought the spectrum, its usability and what it means going forward.

Forging connections in space with cellular technology - The Intuitive Machines IM-2 Mission in March marked a milestone moment for cellular technology capable of withstanding the rigors of space travel, a level of connectivity that will be critical in fueling any future space economy.

My Take: “Nokia's ‘network in a box’ (NIB) was delivered to the Moon’s surface in March attached to the Intuitive Machines’ Athena lunar lander.”

Hubble Network is redefining how Bluetooth operates—by taking it to space. - The Seattle-based startup, which made history in 2024 by establishing the first direct Bluetooth connection to a satellite, is now scaling up with a powerful new alliance: Muon Space.

My Take: That’s cool - “Hubble’s vision is to create a “true Bluetooth layer around the Earth,” enabling global asset tracking without the need for specialized hardware. Devices equipped with standard Bluetooth chipsets and a simple firmware update will be able to connect directly to Hubble’s satellite-powered network.”

The Terabit Jump: Optical Satcom and the Ground Network Bottleneck - Radio frequency (RF) spectrum cannot meet the cost-per-bit efficiency required by commercial markets and the resilient connectivity demands of warfighters. Therefore, optical data links will redefine capacity and connectivity expectations, catalyzing dramatic changes in the ground segment.

My Take: I think I’ve said it before - space to ground isn’t the issue. The other way around is fraught with all sorts of challenges, as I understand it. From space to ground, the laser starts in a nice, clean environment. The other way around has to deal with Earth’s thick, turbulent, cloudy, dusty lower atmosphere. Distortion, scattering, and absorption happen right away, before the beam even has a chance to get clean. Clouds and weather can block it entirely.

FCC Clears SpaceX to Boost Power on Starlink Dishes - The change involves the Equivalent Isotropic Radiated Power (EIRP), or how much signal the Starlink hardware effectively sends in a given direction. SpaceX requested the increase for two models, the “UT3-V1” and “UT3-V2,” which likely refer to the current Starlink standard dish and portable Mini dish products. 

My Take: faster and more reliable speeds, particularly in marginal signal areas?

Starlink has a huge lead but won't monopolize the global LEO market – study - Starlink is ahead with its constellation of about 8,000 LEO satellites, but it won't take over the world, a new study says. And it's still not clear if LEO satellite is a good business.

My Take: Well, unless Elon runs out of money… and then there’s the regulators. They have to play fair as well. SpaceX does have a massive head start.

Starlink Halves the Cost of Its Dish for New Sign-Ups - Right now, the Starlink standard kit is marked down to $175, which is a 50% cut from its usual $349 price. Unlike past promotions that were limited to certain areas, this discount is available nationwide, giving anyone who's been curious about Starlink a chance to try it at a lower cost.

Starlink Rolls Out Roam Plan Discounts in Europe, Is the US Next? - After offering a rare discount on the Starlink residential plan, SpaceX is now promoting a similar deal for the Roam tier, which is designed for users on the go, including those traveling in RVs.

Is the $10 'unlimited' Starlink Global Mobile plan coming soon? - Elon Musk has apparently hinted (or at least said, 'that's one of the options') on a podcast recently in respect to the possibility of Starlink launching a global mobile operator.

My Take: The more in market, the better. Still, no contracts? How does that help? Still looking for a deal on Starlink Mini.

What are China’s Orbital Launch Capabilities in 2025? - In 2025, China’s space program operates as a global heavyweight, defined by an accelerating launch cadence, expanding on-orbit infrastructure, and ambitious deep-space exploration goals. The nation’s capacity to access and utilize space is no longer a monolithic, state-run enterprise. It has evolved into a complex, state-guided hybrid ecosystem where the established power of state-owned enterprises exists alongside a vibrant and rapidly maturing commercial sector

My Take: State sponsored Scale + Agility = domination of mega-constellations, crewed spaceflight, and deep space missions.

'Incredibly exciting': NASA claims it's found the 'clearest sign' yet of past life on Mars - NASA scientists have found more intriguing details on speckled Martian rocks spotted by the Perseverance rover. But bringing samples back to Earth will be key.

My Take: We all know what happens when you bring samples of something from Mars back to Earth.

🇨🇦 Ontario’s MDA Space Plunges 25% After Losing Deal to SpaceX - Canadian satellite firm MDA Space says its contract with EchoStar Corporation has been cancelled after the U.S. company agreed to sell wireless spectrum to Elon Musk’s SpaceX for $17 billion US, mainly to power the future of Starlink and satellite 5G service. So that new Starlink play from today had implications for a Canadian company.

My Take: I’ll bet this was all architected to get back at Doug Ford for cancelling the ONSAT program and the contract with Starlink. MDA is paying the price (and so it my space portfolio ☹️ )

Addressing Connectivity Challenges Facing Modern CTOs & CIOs - New generation low earth orbit (LEO) satellite communication networks can enable a different delivery model that overcomes digital desert coverage barriers for distributed enterprises.

My Take: LEO should not be the option of last resort. That’s all you need to know.

Colliding black holes 'ringing' across space and time prove Hawking, Einstein theories right - Scientists from the U.S. National Science Foundation's Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detected a gravitational wave, a ripple in space-time that is caused by extremely energetic processes, such as the merger of two black holes or two dense neutron stars colliding.

My Take: My brain has trouble with this.

Direct To Device

Rogers Satellite Expands to More Areas Across Canada - Rogers today announced the expansion of Rogers Satellite. With the satellite-to-mobile texting service, Rogers now provides three times more coverage than any other Canadian wireless service provider.

My Take: Yea, well, I haven’t been anywhere where its supposed to work, so I have no comment on this. I’m sure everyone knows by now that this is Starlink’s satellite network that’s being used. Elbows up, and all that.

EchoStar’s Spectrum Sale Could Give SpaceX More D2D Leverage - Analysts note the sale gives SpaceX access to its own spectrum, rather than sharing terrestrial spectrum for D2D services, and could make it even harder for others to compete against SpaceX in this market.

My Take: Leftover article from the discussion above.

Enabling AI

Op-ed: Non-AI product lines telcos can sell now - Consulting firm Oliver Wyman says more than 90% of telcos are piloting or deploying AI. So yes, AI might be the next big thing—in time. But there's plenty of other near-term opportunity for telcos to cash in on.

My Take: How about CSaaS - Customer Service as a Service?

Introducing Alterego: the world’s first near-telepathic wearable that enables silent communication at the speed of thought - Alterego passively detects the downstream subtle signals your brain sends to your speech system, before words are spoken aloud.

Interact at the speed of thought (← Video)

My Take: Go watch the video. You decide. How can you possibly validate this? Wouldn’t that be great, though, to have something detect what you’re going to say before it comes out of your mouth? 🤦

AI and our energy future - It’s well documented that AI is a power-hungry technology. But there has been far less reporting on the extent of that hunger, how much its appetite is set to grow in the coming years, where that power will come from, and who will pay for it. For the past six months, MIT Technology Review’s team of reporters and editors have worked to answer those questions. The result is an unprecedented look at the state of AI’s energy and resource usage, where it is now, where it is headed in the years to come, and why we have to get it right. 

My Take: I think we all know that one day when Jonny plugs in his Tesla he’s going to take down some massive Data Center.

Why Language Models Hallucinate - Like students facing hard exam questions, large language models sometimes guess when uncertain, producing plausible yet incorrect statements instead of admitting uncertainty. Such “hallucinations” persist even in state-of-the-art systems and undermine trust. We argue that language models hallucinate because the training and evaluation procedures reward guessing over acknowledging uncertainty, and we analyze the statistical causes of hallucinations in the modern training pipeline. Hallucinations need not be mysterious—they originate simply as errors in binary classification.

My Take: Ah, errors in binary classifications. The paper says hallucinations happen because language models are trained and evaluated in ways that reward guessing when uncertain instead of admitting lack of knowledge. Statistically, the training objectives plus benchmark grading that penalizes “I don’t know” force the model to produce plausible-sounding falsehoods. Why don’t they just call them “Jason’s” instead of Hallucinations? I crack myself up sometimes.

OpenAI is building an AI jobs platform that could challenge Microsoft’s LinkedIn - OpenAI has announced it is developing an AI-centered jobs platform as part of broader efforts to expand AI literacy, and as the company grows its consumer and business-facing AI applications. The ChatGPT maker’s “OpenAI Jobs Platform” will utilize AI to help connect qualified job candidates to companies, which could put it in competition with Microsoft’s LinkedIn. 

My Take: So, follow me here for a minute. AI is going to launch a job platform so that AI can take jobs from people who would otherwise be hired on LinkedIn. Did I get that right? 😁

Seedream 4.0 Officially Released - As a new-generation image creation model, Seedream 4.0 integrates image generation and image editing capabilities into a single, unified architecture. This allows it to flexibly handle complex multimodal tasks, including knowledge-based generation, complex reasoning, and reference consistency.

My Take: Supposed to be superior to Google Deepmind’s “nano banana”, from the creators of TikTok.

OpenAI set to start mass production of its own AI chips with Broadcom -
OpenAI is set to produce its own artificial intelligence chip for the first time next year, as the ChatGPT maker attempts to address insatiable demand for computing power and reduce its reliance on chip giant Nvidia.

My Take: Vertical integration seems to work for others.

Chinese researchers unveil world’s first brain-inspired spiking large model built on domestic GPUs: report - Chinese researchers have, for the first time, completed the full-process training and inference of a native brain-inspired spiking large model, SpikingBrain-1.0, on a domestically developed GPU computing platform, the Science and Technology Daily reported on Monday.

My Take: Let me explain what Brain Spiking is. Brain spiking large models work more like the human brain - neurons only fire when needed - making them far more efficient, faster on long text, and less dependent on NVIDIA hardware. Normal AI models (like GPT) work by having all the “neurons” firing all the time, even if most of them aren’t needed. That wastes a ton of compute and energy. On demand, and all that.

This and That!

Microsoft's new light-based computer is inspired by 80-year-old technology — it could make AI 100 times more efficient - A computer that uses light rather than digital switches for calculations could help reduce the energy demands of artificial intelligence (AI), according to a new study. The scientists who invented the computer describe it as a new computing paradigm.

My Take: “Unlike regular digital computers, which flip billions of tiny switches to perform calculations, the new system uses light and voltage of different intensities to add and multiply numbers in a feedback loop.” .. and it probably looks cool in dark room, too!

US high school students lose ground in math and reading, continuing yearslong decline - A decade-long slide in high schoolers’ reading and math performance persisted during the COVID-19 pandemic, with 12th graders’ scores dropping to their lowest level in more than 20 years, according to results released Tuesday from an exam known as the nation’s report card.

My Take: Maybe ease up on the video games, cellphones and LLMs.

🇨🇦 Canada’s big banks, telecoms and tech firms are joining forces to fight scams - The initiative aims to thwart and shut down the types of scammers almost anyone with a phone or computer has come across—those who, say, spoof phone numbers to trick victims into handing over their banking information, in some cases posing as the government or the bank, itself; or those who pose on social media as relatives or neighbours to encourage people to e-transfer them cash. 

My Take: This actually makes sense. No more apple iTunes cards for Revenue Canada. And you’d thing by now we’d have some voice verification in place, AI and all..

How Data Centers Are Revitalizing The Skilled Trades Economy In The U.S.—And Why It Needs To Happen Fast - Data centers are the backbone of the digital economy, powering AI and other high-performance computing. But our industry can’t grow without the tradespeople and technicians who build those facilities and operate them. Right now, there’s a critical shortage.

My Take: Electricians, plumbers, HVAC, Fiber Splicers, etc. With over 4,700 planned DC projects in the US (that’s a crazy number on its own) the demand is there, and so is the shortage, it seems.

Meet the Chinese supercar that just smashed the EV speed record - The Chinese electric vehicle brand BYD has built the world's fastest fully electric supercar — smashing previous records by hitting top speeds of 293.54 mph (472.41 km/h).

My Take: China seems to be well ahead of everyone these days.. except with human rights. They still have issues there.

Apple iPhone 17 Series Goes eSIM-Only in Canada—What It Means for You - For the first time, the physical SIM tray has been eliminated in Canada for a new iPhone series, as this year’s models only support eSIM.

My Take: What’s the big deal? eSIMs work well and the new iPhones support 8 of them, or some such. Nor sure why I would need that many, but I’m sure there’s a great reason.

Bell’s 250GB Global Roaming Plan Expands Nationwide After Quebec Launch - The 250GB global roaming plan launched in Quebec only to take on Videotron and cost $70 per month, with roaming available for talk, text and data across 78 countries and territories. But as of September 9 (iPhone 17 launch day), Bell has now made this plan available outside of Quebec for the first time.

My Take: Cell phone plans are getting to be like toilet paper math. You can roam anywhere, but only 10G per whatever-time-frame, on a Tuesday, downhill, with the wind behind your back. I se this thing called “Roamless”. Easy. Inexpensive, although $70/month is pretty cheap, and no one needs 250GB on their mobile plan. Says me.

Most adults across 24 countries are online at least several times a day - A median of 28% of adults across 24 countries say they are online almost constantly. An additional 40% say they use the internet several times a day, while 9% do not use it at all, according to a Pew Research Center survey from this spring.

My Take: Those 9% are liars. And only really 76% of people believe statistics, so it’s all suspecy as far as I’m concerned. And how do they define “online?”.

Apple’s new live translation feature for AirPods won’t be available in the EU at launch - One of the headlining features of Apple’s new AirPods Pro 3 was the ability to translate incoming audio in real time, but it seems the feature won’t work in the European Union at launch.

My Take: Must be all those funny accents 🙄

Scientists invented 'sperm bots' that they piloted through a fake cervix and uterus - Newly unveiled sperm microbots have the potential to improve reproductive health with magnetic controls and real-time X-ray tracking, according to a study.

My Take: Is this how you make robots? Magnetically controlled sperm microbots? Is this how Elon created Optimus?

Infographic Of The Week

My Take: Over the past decade, India’s oil consumption has grown at one of the fastest rates globally, increasing 3.8% on average, per year.

Podcast Recommendation

Adaora Okeleke, Principal Analyst and expert in AI and data management at Analysys Mason, speaks to Dave Duggal, Founder and CEO of EnterpriseWeb, to explore how agentic AI can help telecoms operators realise their ambitions for autonomous operations. Drawing on insights from Analysys Mason’s reports Understanding AI agents in the telecoms industry and Addressing the challenge of AI agent interoperability, they discuss how operators can apply agentic AI and the concept of ‘ontology’ to achieve their autonomous operations objectives. 

They discuss:

• operators’ objectives and vision for adopting agentic AI

• the current state of adoption and the challenges operators face in deploying agentic AI today

• practical steps to overcome these challenges and progress towards autonomous operations.

This discussion offers clear, actionable perspectives for decision makers seeking to understand the potential of agentic AI and how to apply it effectively to automate telecoms operations. 

Listen Here!

Movie/Streaming Recommendation

IMDb: 4.8/10

JMDb: 🍿🍿🍿🍿/10 (slightly disposable, indeed)

Ice Road: Vengeance delivers classic Liam Neeson action in a sequel that trades the icy highways for Himalayan peril, following Mike McCann’s quest to honour his late brother on Mount Everest.

The film excels with brisk pacing, stunning backdrops, and solid performances, especially from Neeson and Fan Bingbing, whose partnership drives the story’s emotional and action beats.

Jonathan Hensleigh’s direction balances dramatic moments and adrenaline-fueled sequences well, though some fight scenes and visual effects lack polish. The narrative’s unique twist, shifting from trucking to mercenary mayhem in Nepal, brings fresh ethical stakes, but leaves fans of the original’s ice-road tension wanting more.

Despite formulaic villains and a thin script, Vengeance is an entertaining, if slightly disposable, action vehicle marked by Neeson’s resilient heroics, sure to please his fans and casual genre viewers alike.

Never saw the first one. Maybe it’s better.

A Word From Our Partner

Until Next Time

Comments here are my own and do not represent the opinions, views or thoughts of any person, company or organization that I may be associated with.

Feedback, comments and ideas are welcomed. Message me on LinkedIn or contact me at j[email protected]

Want to support this newsletter? Feel free to buy us a coffee to show your support!

This site may contain links to affiliate websites, and we receive an affiliate commission for purchases made by you on the affiliate website using such links.