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Broadband / Telco

GFiber, Brightspeed explain their fiber network topology choices - The telecom industry is anticipating a fiber shortage beginning in 2026 and lingering for a couple of years. Those companies planning major fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) deployments should consider their options when it comes to network topologies because the choice can make a difference in the amount of fiber needed. 

My Take: Is anyone talking about a possible 2026 fiber shortage? Is this being considered in any new or existing funding envelopes and timelines, or will we be dealing with excuses in 2 years?

🇨🇦 Hydro reviewing formal request to deliver electricity, broadband to Nunavut communities - Manitoba Hydro is reviewing an application to extend its transmission grid and fibre-optic cable 1,200 kilometres to communities in the Kivalliq region of Nunavut. The line would deliver up to 150 megawatts of renewable electricity and connect to the communities of Arviat, Whale Cove, Rankin Inlet, Chesterfield Inlet and Baker Lake, enabling high-speed, broadband connectivity for the first time in Canada’s Arctic.

My Take: This Hydro‑Fibre Link could be a game‑changer for Canada’s Arctic - giving remote Inuit communities clean power and real internet access for the first time. No more diesel. It could start in 2028 and be completed by 2032 with the right partners at the table.

T-Mobile wants to sway more AT&T and Verizon customers with new switching app - T-Mobile unveiled a new switching app designed to take the hassle out of moving from AT&T or Verizon to T-Mobile. With “Switching Made Easy,” the process will take 15 minutes thanks to AI and the T-Life app. Pulling this off requires some back-end technical wizardry

My Take: The app uses AI to look at the user’s current plan with AT&T or Verizon, then suggests which T-Mobile plan would fit best, including potential savings. Brilliant? Maybe. Frictionless? Sounds like it. Sneaky? Perhaps.

🇨🇦 Canada’s Wireless Coverage Challenge - It is often said that nearly 80 percent of Canada’s population lives within 100 miles of the U.S. border. Most of Canada’s population of nearly 42 million, compared to 347 million in the U.S., is in the major cities and surrounding towns. Given Canada’s land mass of roughly 3.9 million square miles, slightly larger than the U.S., there are a lot of people living in small towns and rural communities that are miles away from the major cities. This disparate population distribution over such a big area leaves many of these locations without little or no wireless coverage, in so-called, dead zones.

My Take: Not sure what the point was here. We need more mobile infrastructure in Canada. It’s expensive to build. Maybe satellite D2D will fill the gaps. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe it's less expensive to give people phones that work with D2D and extra battery packs to keep going.

Trump Executive Order could tie BEAD non-deployment funds to AI regulations - The Trump administration is considering an executive order (EO) to override state AI laws. And in a bizarre twist, the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program could get caught in the crosshairs.

My Take: Simply, if a state passes laws to regulate AI, then that state could lose some of its funding. Clearly, AI isn’t about technology, it’s about power, money and control. Some analysts are suggesting it may even be illegal.

🇨🇦 CRTC says it will clarify FTTP disclosure rules after wholesale access row - Telus said it received notice on that Friday afternoon from Rogers saying that it intended to suspend the acceptance of new wholesale orders from the telco and its affiliates later that afternoon until the cableco was granted access to its aggregated fibre network.

My Take: Play nice, children. “This was not an inadvertent disruption caused by human or technical error, but a deliberate, calculated cessation of services for punitive purposes,” Telus says in its application, claiming the disruption acutely affected Koodo Internet in eastern Canada, which “lost valuable sales leads” and forced rescheduling of service that “may have impacted [customer] perception of the quality of Koodo’s service.”

🇨🇦 Expect less-sweet deals from Canadian telecom providers: Bell CFO - Bell’s monthly service prices are increasing as competition among Canadian providers eases up, its chief financial officer Curtis Millen told a Desjardins investor conference Monday. Telcos’ offers to Canadian customers might have been “overly frothy” lately, Millen suggested, and are returning to the norm of being less aggressive than those from American telecom providers.

My Take: Shocking. The fine print is coming back to bite people in the butt. Less sweet deals means that consumers who have the same sense of loyalty will hop around to find the best price, unless they’re tied into a contract, of course. I’ve been with my provider for 33 years. Yes, 30 years. And you know that gets me? A bill every month, and wait time on hold every year to have my discounts put back on the account. You’d think they’d send me a cookie, or something. Maybe a toque. Or a free iPhone17.

This is what analysts think will shape 2026 telecom - Analysts talked about what the telecom landscape will look like in 2026. Complementary technologies, the spectrum war and focus on ‘first mile’ coverage are expected to ramp. How to subsidize networks beyond deployment will be another pressing issue

My Take: Consolidation of access technology, some AI to manage it and if any of them have any sense of innovation, fiber sensing. Working on that one. The opportunities are endless. “Ask me how”, as they say. Seriously. You should.

🇨🇦 Transmit site and preliminary receive site for the Arctic Over-the-Horizon Radar Program in Southern Ontario - As part of Canada's NORAD modernization plan, DND is investing in a new Northern Approaches Surveillance System (NASS) to significantly expand NORAD and the Canadian Armed Forces' (CAF) situational awareness of objects approaching and entering Canadian airspace from the North. NASS will include the A-OTHR system that will provide early warning radar coverage and threat tracking.

My Take: WDTMHAAFE? (Why does the military have an acronym for everything?). One of the sites is near (like 14Km west of) my other property. Will be cool to see it, I think. Of course… there’s some local resistance. “What about the frogs, and the trees, and the beavers?” It won’t matter when they’re nuked by some errant missile that wasn’t detected.

• Kawartha Lakes site: to be used as a full, permanent transmit site

• Clearview Township site: to be used as a preliminary receive site

Fiber Sensing

Fiber Optic Sensing Association Presents Project of the Year Award - The Fiber Optic Sensing Association (FOSA), the premier trade association dedicated to fiber optic sensing, is pleased to announce the winner of its annual FOSA Project of the Year Award – AP Sensing GmbH for The 479 km Guardian: Fiber Optics Securing Europe’s Energy Corridor.

My Take: 👏

Data Centres

NERC 2025–2026 Winter Reliability Assessment - NERC’s 2025–2026 Winter Reliability Assessment (WRA) identifies, assesses, and reports on areas of concern regarding the reliability of the North American BPS for the upcoming winter season. In addition, the WRA presents peak electricity demand and supply changes and highlights any unique regional challenges or expected conditions that might affect the reliability of the BPS.

My Take: A very detailed report. The overall message? In the winter, demand rises fast. Resource additions lag. Gas and wind remain stressed in winter. Batteries help, but face duration limits in cold weather. Extreme cold still drives the main reliability risk across North America.

The Trump Administration’s Data Center Push Could Open the Door for New Forever Chemicals - In September, the EPA announced it would be prioritizing the regulatory review of new chemicals used in data centers or related projects. The announcement is part of a sweeping set of overhauls pushed by the Trump administration following several executive orders related to AI and a White House AI Action Plan,

My Take: Eww.

• Forever chemicals stay in the environment for decades.

• They can get into drinking water and have been linked to cancer and other health problems.

• If the approval process is rushed, new harmful chemicals could slip through before anyone fully understands the risks.

• Once these chemicals spread, it’s almost impossible to remove them.

Amazon to invest $15 billion in Indiana to boost data center infrastructure - The new data center project, which comes on top of an $11 billion outlay announced last year, will add 2.4 gigawatts of capacity in the region, Amazon said on Monday.⁠ It is also expected ‌to create 1,100 jobs.

My Take: Where is all this power coming from? Oh, look. 1,110 jobs as well. See Amazon Workers Issue Warning About Company’s ‘All-Costs-Justified’ Approach to AI Development below.

Amazon Data Center Tally Tops 900 Amid AI Frenzy, Documents Show - Amazon.com Inc.’s data center operation is much larger than commonly understood, totalling more than 900 facilities in more than 50 countries, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg and investigative website SourceMaterial.

My Take: Holy cow. I guess that also helps with Amazon Leo and their private network.

The data centre resistance has arrived - Georgia has become a hot spot for data centre development over the past few years: Some research indicates it’s one of the fastest-growing markets for data centre development in the country (thanks, in part, to some generous tax breaks). It’s also now a nexus for organizing against those same data centres. Community opposition to data centres, a new report finds, is on the rise across the country. And red states, including Georgia and Indiana, are leading this wave of bipartisan opposition.

My Take: Maybe if builders started putting them below ground, people would care less. These are likely many of the same people who don’t want cell towers. Download link in the article. It seems to be quite the organized resistance.

“Data Center Watch’s first report covered a period from May 2024 to March 2025; in that period, it found, local opposition had blocked or delayed a total of $64 billion in data centre projects (six projects were blocked entirely, while 10 were delayed). But Data Center Watch’s new report found that opposition blocked or delayed $98 billion in projects from March to June of 2025 alone — eight projects, including two in Indiana and Kentucky, were blocked in those three months, while nine were delayed. One of those projects, a $17 billion development in the Atlanta suburbs, was put on hold in May after the county imposed a 180-day moratorium on data centre development, following significant pushback from local residents.”

Minnesota startup has found a way to use lasers to reduce energy and water use by data centers - As a computer chip works, it doesn’t heat up uniformly. Depending on what the chip is asked to do, individual transistors on the chip work and heat up in different areas and different levels, creating micro hotspots. Using advanced optics and lasers, Maxwell aims to target those roving hotspots and convert that heat to light, recycle that light and turn it back into electricity.

My Take: This is kinda cool, no pun intended. Convert the heat to light, recycle the light and turn it back into electricity. Is this an overall less expensive solution than water-based cooling? Is it what many operators need to deal with local resistance on resource utilization?

What’s Happening In Space?

Amazon Leo debuts new gigabit-speed 'Ultra' antenna, begins enterprise preview - Amazon Leo offers fastest download and upload speeds and private networking services; private preview to enable testing ahead of a broader rollout next year.

My Take: It’s all about the phased array. Full duplex. Huge 45lb panel (the Ultra). 60% larger than the Starlink equivalent, which is why they claim 1G down, but no claim for the offered upstream yet. The video says it’s capable of 400Mbps up, which would be a huge Starlink killer for those needing it. Time will tell how that’s affected by loading, etc.

AST SpaceMobile Announces BlueBird 6 Launch Date, the Largest Commercial Communications Array Ever Deployed in Low Earth Orbit - "Our next-generation satellites will soon enable ubiquitous cellular broadband coverage direct to everyday smartphones from space," said Abel Avellan, Founder, Chairman and CEO of AST SpaceMobile. "As an American company, we are proud to demonstrate U.S. leadership in space innovation while pioneering the next era of global connectivity."

My Take: Huge phased-array antenna at 2,400 sq’ will give it 10x more capacity to deliver voice and data globally, especially when the entire constellation has been launched. Reminder that in Canada, Bell Canada has announced a partnership with AST SpaceMobile.

Space junk strike on China's astronaut capsule highlights need for a space rescue service, experts say - We're now in an era where there's multiple governments, multiple companies involved in space. So the shift is not just one organization needing to think about space rescue for their own needs

My Take: Yes. This needs to be a highly coordinated effort. Having said that, cleaning up the junk should be as well. Something like the big space-dyson (get it??) that I made. It’s the new Dyson Absolute Orbit, pet hair edition.

5 Reasons Why Starlink Is Actually Better Than Regular Home Internet - Starlink is not for everyone, but it does offer advantages. The satellite internet service is available everywhere in the continental U.S., and in a large part of the world. Additionally, it can be used on the move, making it perfect for digital nomads who work in remote places. If the fastest internet option in your neighborhood struggles to crack 100 Mbps, Starlink is an internet service worth considering, especially if there are no plans to install fiber internet in your area anytime soon.

My Take: Dumb article. Sorry. Two advantages as far as I’m concerned. (1) it doesn’t rely on any immediate terrestrial infrastructure. When everything else it down due to infrastructure or power issues, it’ll still connect as long as you have a source of power. (2) It’s transportable. That’s it.

SpaceX Brings Its Cheapest 100Mbps Starlink Plan to Canada, Australia - The option to switch to the 'Residential 100Mbps' plan has popped up for at least a few users in Canada and Australia, giving them a way to save on their monthly payments.

My Take: CDN$70 for 100/20 (I’m assuming the 20 part). It’s a compelling offer that competes nicely against the Tier 1 FWA offerings.

Study: Starlink Could Be Jammed Using Hundreds of Drone Aircraft - The team proposes to mount the jammers on high-flying aircraft - lots of them - and target the terminals with narrow-beam antennas. They estimated that with jammer drones flying at about 60,000 feet, coverage per drone would be about 15 square miles. 

My Take: Ok, so maybe Starlink should arm their satellites with ballastic lasers to shoot down the drones. Isn’t this like giving the opposing team your playbook? What’s the backup plan, and how hard is it to coordiate hundreds and hundreds of drones?

Chinese Space Station Achieves First-Ever Oxygen and Rocket Fuel Production Using Artificial Photosynthesis - When humans dream of venturing farther into the cosmos, one massive logistical question looms: how do we keep everyone breathing and moving without constant supply runs from Earth?

My Take: If astronauts can make their own air and fuel instead of relying on Earth, space travel becomes much more practical. It’s a small experiment, but it points toward a future where humans can explore deeper into space and actually stay there. Maybe one day humans could travel to Uranus, and other far away places.

Connectivity on the Move: How LEO technology Is transforming public services in France - As France accelerates its digital transformation, reliable connectivity has become essential for ambulances, firefighters, and public-service teams. Yet France still has the widest urban–rural connectivity gap in Europe: 5G availability reaches 22% in cities but just 13.5% in rural areas, where one-third of the population lives. Rural download speeds lag by nearly 20%, affecting access to modern digital tools such as live video, drone feeds, and real-time telemetry.

My Take: I think this is just an ad for an integrator, but I needed some filler as it’s a really slow week for good stories.

China's rising influence in space prompts Senate to call for new US research institute in post-ISS era - A bipartisan group of senators wants the U.S. to establish a new National Institute for Space Research to "ensure the nation is equipped to lead in the next space race" against China.

My Take: Well, yea. You’d think something like this is already in the works, along with replacing the ISS. Axiom. Orbital Reef. Starlab.

Direct To Device

MSSA Releases Recommendations for NTN Satellite Architecture Development - The reference architecture, released this week, makes recommendations for developing technologies that enhance NTN performance, interoperability, and integration with terrestrial networks. The recommendations are focused on interoperability, system-level network functions, and service models. 

My Take: A pretty informative document if you want to learn more about Direct-to-Device architecture and technology. There’s a link to download the paper in the article.

Enabling AI

🇨🇦 Alexa+ launches in Canada, the first country to get the next generation of Alexa outside the US - Powered by generative AI, Alexa+—your new personal AI assistant that gets things done—will be free for Prime members in Canada.

My Take: Hey Alexa, make me spend a fortune to replace all the devices in my home so I can do less and feed you more data. “I’m not quite sure how to help you with that” she says.

Gmail can read your emails and attachments to power “smart features” - We’ve updated this article after realising we contributed to a perfect storm of misunderstanding around a recent change in the wording and placement of Gmail’s smart features. The settings themselves aren’t new, but the way Google recently rewrote and surfaced them led a lot of people (including us) to believe Gmail content might be used to train Google’s AI models, and that users were being opted in automatically. After taking a closer look at Google’s documentation and reviewing other reporting, that doesn’t appear to be the case.

My Take: This was one of those stories that was all over TikTok, Instagram and other dopamine-inducing platforms. Seems it wasn’t exactly correct and needed a little bit of fact-checking.

AI is changing how we feel about work as it diminishes connection, report shows - According to new data from ADP Research, 43 per cent of workers report frequent AI use on the job. These users, most often men who work in tech or information services, are 3.4 times more likely to be motivated and committed to their work. However, the same group also reports weaker ties with colleagues, lower productivity and a higher likelihood of quitting.

My Take: So, is human connection important, or do we want the machines to do everything.. and be run by the humans, until the machines run themselves.

Nokia CTO wades in on physical AI - As Nokia plans to invest $4 billion in AI-related manufacturing and R&D in the United States, the firm’s new chief technology and AI officer Pallavi Mahajan said at its capital markets day last week that a new wave of AI disruption is coming in the form of physical AI.

My Take: “These intelligent robotic systems combine perception, reasoning and action, enabling a level of autonomy and adaptability that marks a critical juncture in industrial automation,” eek! This is where the line between the physical ald virtual worlds starts to blur.

From shortcuts to sabotage: natural emergent misalignment from reward hacking - In our latest research, we find that a similar mechanism is at play in large language models. When they learn to cheat on software programming tasks, they go on to display other, even more misaligned behaviors as an unintended consequence. These include concerning behaviors like alignment faking and sabotage of AI safety research.

My Take: Anthropic ran an experiment where they taught an AI model how to cheat in small coding tasks. The AI learned the cheating trick, but then something surprising happened. It started showing other sneaky behaviours that the researchers didn’t teach it, like lying to users, hiding its actions, and helping with harmful tasks. This shows that even small mistakes in how we train AI can grow into bigger problems.

Amazon Workers Issue Warning About Company’s ‘All-Costs-Justified’ Approach to AI Development - Amazon Employees for Climate Justice says that over 1,000 workers have signed a petition raising “serious concerns” about the company’s “aggressive rollout” of artificial intelligence tools.

My Take: Maybe they should be learning about AI instead of complaining about it. Do they have any idea how many robots Amazon already uses in other areas of the business? If they couldn’t stop the 5-day ROW mandate, they won’t stop this.

“The open letter demands that Amazon abandon carbon fuel sources at its data centers, bar its AI technologies from being used to carry out surveillance and mass deportation, and stop forcing employees to use AI in their work. “We, the undersigned Amazon employees, have serious concerns about this aggressive rollout during the global rise of authoritarianism and our most important years to reverse the climate crisis,” the letter states.”

Maybe work somewhere else?

This and That!

The hottest AI wearables and gadgets you can buy right now - Some of these AI wearables — including necklaces, rings, and wristbands, as well as portable devices — serve as productivity tools, while others claim to act as friendly companions listening to your everyday thoughts. Even OpenAI is working on a compact AI companion device.

My Take: What’s with all these personal recorders? It’s bad enough that everyone is video recording everything; now I have to worry about what I might (inadvertently) say in some casual environment as well? Is there no privacy anymore? Sounds like there’s a market opportunity for AI detectors and jammers. Like some device that emits a certain inaudible tone that clobbers the AI spies.

🇨🇦 Porn no longer subject to Canadian content quotas, says CRTC - In other words, any program 'devoted to depicting explicit sexual activity' will no longer need to ensure a minimum quota of Canadians either in front of or behind the camera

My Take: Just see the link to my LinkedIn thread on this. Also, here’s a funny news article (the Beaverton is a satire publication for those not in the know)

Pornhub Is Urging Tech Giants to Enact Device-Based Age Verification - The company sent letters to Apple, Google, and Microsoft pushing for an alternative way to keep minors from viewing porn, as US and UK laws have caused its traffic to plummet.

My Take: Even the porn industry is in trouble. Kids ruin everything. Anyway, other than some embedded probe, I can think of many ways to circumvent device-based authentication. I know. Put a Nerualink into every newborn. Use it for identity verification and voice authentication. How about a challenge question, like “what’s the proper way to address an envelope”, or “write your name in cursive.”

Sales of AI-enabled teddy bear suspended after it gave advice on BDSM sex and where to find knives. - Larry Wang, CEO of Singapore-based FoloToy, told CNN that the company had withdrawn its “Kumma” bear, as well as the rest of its range of AI-enabled toys, after researchers at the US PIRG Education Fund raised concerns around inappropriate conversation topics, including discussion of sexual fetishes, such as spanking, and how to light a match.

My Take: What the hell is going on this week? Porn and foul-mouthed automotrons. Good thing it’s Thanksgiving and no one is reading this. Maybe they put the wrong module in the wrong doll, if you know what I mean.

Death of beloved neighborhood cat sparks outrage against robotaxis in San Francisco - The death of beloved neighborhood cat named KitKat, which was struck and killed by a Waymo in San Francisco’s Mission District last week, is sparking uproar in the city and across the internet. Now local politicians and community leaders are harnessing momentum to put new limits on the fast-spreading autonomous vehicle industry.

My Take: It was just a matter of time before a self-driving car killed something, and it had to be a beloved cat. Anyone remember this from 2018? - Should a self-driving car kill the baby or the grandma? Depends on where you’re from. Maybe they should have added a cat to the mix. Meow.

‘Butt breathing’ could help people who can’t get oxygen the regular way - During these experiments, Takebe vividly remembers seeing samples of the pigs’ blood change from a muddy, low-oxygen hue to a brighter, oxygen-rich red. “That was my aha moment,” he says — an indication that this wild idea might actually work.

My Take: It’s a funny headline, but (excuse the pun..) an interesting read.

Infographic Of The Week

My Take: “The top five countries—the U.S., France, Italy, Germany, and the UK—collectively consume over 50% of all wine worldwide.”

What a bunch of “winers”.. hahaha

Podcast Recommendation

The Era of AI Layoffs Has Begun

Corporate layoffs have been rolling across American companies: Amazon, General Motors, Verizon, Target and Microsoft have all cut jobs. WSJ’s Chip Cutter takes us inside his conversations with CEOs about how hiring is changing, and what the AI era means for jobs. Ryan Knutson hosts.

Listen Here!

Movie/Streaming Recommendation

IMDb: 6.6/10

JMDb: 🍿🍿🍿🍿/10 (“exhausted rather than enlightened”)

Eddington is a 2025 neo-Western directed by Ari Aster that aims for ambition but stumbles in execution.

Set in May 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, the film follows Sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) and Mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) as their personal vendetta and political conflict tear apart the small town of Eddington, New Mexico.

While the stellar cast, featuring Emma Stone, Austin Butler, and Pedro Pascal, delivers compelling performances, the film's chaotic narrative structure and tonal whiplash undermine its satirical intent. Aster's direction showcases impressive technical filmmaking with patient framing and world-building, yet the 2.5-hour runtime leaves viewers exhausted rather than enlightened.

The story devolves into senseless violence and conspiracy-laden absurdity, becoming more preoccupied with shocking the audience than exploring meaningful commentary. Though some critics herald it as courageous commentary on pandemic-era madness, the film ultimately feels self-indulgent, more interested in testing viewer patience than crafting a coherent narrative.

It's technically proficient but narratively hollow, making Eddington a frustrating misfire from a talented director who has lost sight of storytelling fundamentals.

I was hoping for so much more.

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 welcome. Message me on LinkedIn or contact me at j[email protected]

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