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In Today’s Issue

What’s Happening On Earth?

Taara CEO: Google moonshots, new chip and where it goes from here - Taara recently graduated from Google’s X Moonshot Factory. Its technology is built around narrow, invisible light beams to transmit high-speed data through the air. During its incubation period, Taara helped T-Mobile serve crowds at festivals by supplying high-capacity backhaul

My Take: It’s invisible, so you wouldn’t have noticed 😉 Many applications for this technology, and others have products in this space as well. I’ve had brief exchanges with a couple manufacturers about what they’ve done in Canada and they have the same response — limited resources and focusing on the US and other areas first. Seems to me that the rural areas of Canada are a great application space.

John Deere's Davenport Works moves to private 5G - The factory manager at the Davenport plant Tom Johnson told Fierce Network during a dinner on Thursday evening, “5G has been enabled for a couple of months,” he said of the plant. The factory has deployed Ethernet wired connections and Wi-Fi previously.

My Take: 50 acres. Lots of space. More control and predictability with 5G than WiFi?

🇨🇦 Strong, Sovereign, Free and Fair: a 2025 digital policy platform for Canada - OpenMedia's new digital policy platform presents a point by point plan for our next government to build a free, fair and flourishing Canadian Internet.

My Take: Fiber first, keep it secure, make it sovereign, break monopolies, freedom of expression, and all that.

🇨🇦 Telus Eyes Stake Sale in Tower Assets for Debt Relief - Telus, a prominent Canadian telecom operator, is contemplating the sale of a minority stake in its wireless tower portfolio. This potential sale is part of a strategic effort to enhance its financial standing.

My Take: Why not? Everyone else is.

Almost half of Britain cannot browse internet because of poor mobile signal - Patchy connectivity is frustrating network customers and undermining productivity, data suggest

My Take: “An operator is considered to have “acceptable” coverage where their network provides users with 5 Mbps download speeds, 2 Mbps upload speeds, and latency below 40ms on any connection ranging from 2G to 5G.”

Why does 6G need advanced Wi-Fi? - According to the WBA Industry Report 2025, 81% of the 170 global industry executives surveyed are planning to deploy OpenRoaming. Of those, 25% were already rolling out the technology, 42% said they would deploy in 2025, with 27% planning for 2026. When asked why they are interested in deploying or investing in OpenRoaming or Passpoint compliant networks, Industry Report 44% of the respondents said to enable seamless access between Wi-Fi and 5G/LTE, while 43% said to provide improved security on Wi-Fi (43%). These top answers were followed by enabling frictionless access to Wi-Fi (39%) and enabling seamless access across different networks (38%).

My Take: Are we finished with 5G yet? OpenRoaming will support the seamless handoff required or suggested to take advantage of 6G’s expected ability to blend multiple networks. I think.

All in the charts: Analyzing telecom's big workforce shrinkage - Fierce’s analysis of employee figures for eight of the largest wireless and wireline operators in the U.S. found the number of workers at each shrank nearly across the board from 2023 to 2024, with two exceptions (Altice USA and T-Mobile). 

My Take: “It turns out there are several additional factors at play. Moffett Nathanson Managing Director Nick Del Deo told Fierce that over the long term, workforce declines can be attributed to everything from revenue and profit pressure, technological improvements (cough-automation-cough), better network reliability (which lowers the need for repairmen), shifts toward digital vs in-store distribution and outsourcing. “

Nokia confident of post-Infinera optical network nudge - Nokia is understandably bullish on its recently closed $2.3 billion Infinera acquisition, which comes as the once staid optical networking space is set to surge.

Nokia, armed with Infinera, takes aim at terabit targets - Ciena claims a two-year head start in the market for 1.6 terabits-per-second optical, but Nokia and Infinera are coming.

My Take: They bought Infinera for a reason. That 2 year gap may close fairly quickly.

Huawei emerges out of survival mode to fete 2024 growth - What U.S. equipment ban? Chinese telecom giant Huawei appears to be doing just fine after a few years in survival mode, reporting its 2024 performance in line with forecasts, generating $8.6 billion in net profit.

My Take: 5G for the win for Huawei.

Rural internet program on hold as Musk’s satellites get new consideration - Chris Disher, the co-owner of a rural internet provider in Louisiana, is ready to start digging to get fast and reliable internet to some of the estimated 450,000 households and small businesses in the state that don’t have it. His company, Cajun Broadband, was awarded $33 million in January under a Biden administration plan to do just that. But the money isn’t flowing while the Trump administration revamps the program and opens it up more to satellite internet, including Elon Musk’s Starlink.

My Take: I guess “dig, dig, dig” doesn’t apply to fiber. How frustrating this must be, especially for those who have received awards.

Watch this video and skip ahead to the 6th segment, I think it is (16 minute-ish mark)

"It's like someone designed a machine to make sure no one ever received broadband

Former BEAD director warns against straying from fiber focus - BEAD’s former program director warns that straying from a fiber focus could prove detrimental to rural Americans.

My Take: It may be cheaper for the Gov’t to fill the gap with LEO, but not necessarily for those who have to pay for the service every month.

Will tariffs impact BEAD deployments? We asked an expert.- One expert says tariffs could have a diminished impact on the BEAD Program. Indirect impacts, however, could be looming.

My Take: No, it will just impact people’s abilities to pay for services.

🇨🇦 Bram Abramson to The Canadian Independent Telecommunications Association - CITA and its members have an incredible history. It is told in books like the History of the Independent Telephone Industry that the Ontario government put out back in 1975, and some of the company-specific histories I’ve had the good fortune to have come across my desk.

My Take: Word for word 😉 CITA was great this year. Thanks for having me speak about Space!

🇨🇦 Telus still pursuing cabinet wholesale reconsideration complaint despite CRTC ruling - Earlier this month, Canada’s attorney general (AG) filed a motion to strike as moot an application filed by Telus in December that asked the Federal Court to quash a cabinet order that asked the CRTC to reconsider allowing the three largest telecoms to use the fibre facilities of Bell and Telus in Ontario and Quebec.

My Take: It all hurts my head. Don’t let the big-three compete on each others networks. Is 5 years enough to recoup the investment?

🇨🇦 Supreme Court denies request to hear wholesale rate methodology complaint - The country’s highest court ruled Thursday that it will not examine questions related to the CRTC’s decision to reverse a 2019 order that proposed lower wholesale internet access rates for competitors. 

My Take: I thought we were well past this. I guess not.

Monroe yard floods when fiber crew hits water main - Online pictures of a yard filled with water at a house in the Fryelands Neighborhood during Ziply Fiber’s underground installation work caught neighbors’ attention last week.

My Take: Is this sort of thing still acceptable in these days of digital everything and access to municipal information?

🇨🇦 Power outages, damaged equipment behind sketchy local cell service: Rogers and Bell - Your power may be back, but that doesn’t necessarily mean consistent smartphone service has returned.

My Take: Yea, I’m one of those people who still has a real landline, copper and all, for the zombie apocalypse, or when storms knock out power for a period of time that lasts beyond the backup systems.

T-Mobile tosses DEI to get its Lumos fiber deal approved - T-Mobile and EQT’s joint venture to acquire Lumos is now officially a done deal, but at what cost? Apparently, the carrier's diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) strategy.

My Take: “..purchases and contracts are awarded based on the best qualified and most competitive suppliers to enable T-Mobile’s success.".

Data center builders need cash – Frontier's CFO has a solution - Frontier Communications CFO Scott Beasley knows a thing or two about finance. After all, he’s spent the past four years guiding the operator from bankruptcy to not only profitability but a $20 billion acquisition by telecom giant Verizon. As the data center industry rolls full steam ahead into a high-cost building boom, he’s got some words of wisdom: look into asset-backed securities (ABS).

My Take: Maybe we just need smaller, modular data centres that grow over time, with more favourable economics. Will tariffs impact the viability of ABS through defaults, etc?

What’s Happening In Space?

What’s in Space This Week?

🇨🇦 Telesat is no Starlink - Telesat's Lightspeed LEO satellite constellation will extend terrestrial service providers' Carrier Ethernet services, beginning in 2027.

My Take: The carrier’s carrier with easily integrated transport.

Project Kuiper readies long-awaited operational satellite launch - United Launch Alliance is set to loft the first 27 satellites of the more than 3,200 planned for Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband constellation April 9, roughly a year behind schedule as the company races to meet deployment deadlines.

My Take: 🎉 Who will be their initial “better than nothing” test people?? 🙋‍♂️

SpinLaunch Plans LEO Broadband Constellation, Built by Kongsberg NanoAvionics - SpinLaunch, based in Long Beach, California, announced plans for a LEO constellation called Meridian Space on Thursday. The constellation is backed by a $12 million investment from Norwegian defense firm Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace. 

My Take: They started by developing a steel vacuum chamber to launch satellites to space and now want to launch a LEO constellation. Interesting.

SpaceX reportedly has a secret backdoor for Chinese investment - Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX has allowed Chinese investors to buy stakes as long as the funds are routed through the Cayman Islands or other offshore hubs, according to reporting from ProPublica. 

My Take: Well, that’s not a good look for a guy so integrated into the Federal government.

Startups demonstrate in-orbit satellite autonomy - A small spacecraft earlier this year successfully demonstrated edge autonomy — or the capability of a satellite to analyze data and make decisions independently without waiting for instructions from ground control.

My Take: “The technology allows satellites to independently adjust orbits, manage power consumption, or optimize communication links based on sensor data. In a military context, self-aware satellites could detect if they are being tracked or targeted, and respond accordingly. “

Key for automation of space operations.

How to install Starlink on a plane - The average installation time is about eight hours, excluding any de-installation of existing equipment, testing or aircraft modification. This is about ten times faster than installing non-Starlink equipment by other inflight providers.

My Take: I’ll have to keep this in mind for when I buy my jet. Maybe I’ll get the helicopter first.

Will Satellite Internet Finally Bridge India’s Digital Divide? - For millions of Indians, especially those in remote and underserved regions, reliable internet access remains a distant dream. But a new frontier is opening up, promising to bridge this digital divide: satellite internet.

My Take: This is what it’s for.

🇨🇦 Geopolitical shifts boost Lightspeed as Starlink eats into Telesat’s GEO business - Geopolitical shifts are driving government interest in Telesat’s low Earth orbit plans, according to the Canadian operator, validating its move beyond geostationary satellites as LEO frontrunner Starlink erodes its legacy broadband business.

My Take: If only they could get into space sooner..

Starlink installer in northern Ontario says business has been down since January - The owner of a company that installs Starlink satellite dishes for residential customers in northeastern Ontario says that part of his business has fallen dramatically in the last few months.

My Take: People aren’t happy with US policy of late. Yet another example of how screwing with the global economy hurts everyone. You’re fired.

🇨🇦 Starlink rival Eutelsat rolls out wifi on Air Canada planes - Eutelsat, Europe's rival to Elon Musk's Starlink constellation of internet-providing satellites, said on Wednesday it has started providing onboard wifi for passenger and business planes.

My Take: I womder if they’ll switch to Telesat when they’re able to?

SpaceX cleared to build Starlink ground station in Vietnam - Vietnam has reportedly given SpaceX regulatory clearance to establish at least one ground station in the country for its upcoming Starlink pilot offering, which would not only optimise traffic but also enable the government to police it.

My Take: The march forward continues.

The State of Satcom 2025 - The satcom industry has largely been the same for decades, dominated by a handful of legacy providers. However, with 7,000+ Starlink sats in orbit and Amazon preparing to start its Kuiper constellation this year, the sector has begun to feel the full-scale effects of rapid growth in LEO space internet services, intensifying competition among traditional satcom operators.

My Take: I think everyone is waiting to see how Kuiper impacts SpaceX

SpaceX launches Fram2 private astronaut mission - Resilience is flying a mission called Fram2, the sixth non-NASA flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft. Fram2 is the first crewed mission to go into a polar orbit, with an inclination of 90 degrees, allowing it to fly directly over the north and south poles from low Earth orbit. Previously, the highest inclination flown on a crewed flight was 65 degrees on early Soviet Vostok missions.

My Take: This is a cool first, especially since they took a Starlink terminal with them ;)

China’s SpaceSail is expanding where Elon Musk is stumbling - The Shanghai satellite company is launching deals in countries where Starlink, X or Tesla are creating friction.

My Take: There’s more where that came from.

🇨🇦 MDA Space to Acquire SatixFy for $193M, Bringing Satellite Chipsets In-House - This acquisition will now bring all of SatixFy’s technology portfolio including satellite payload chipsets, gateways, multi-beam digital antennas, user terminals, and modems into MDA Space. Approximately 165 SatixFy employees will join MDA Space as part of the acquisition. 

My Take: ✔️

Rivals are rising to challenge the dominance of SpaceX - Startups and legacy aerospace companies alike are aiming to take a chunk out of its launch business.

My Take: Without cost-effective launch, you have nothing. Everyone wants a piece of the gorilla.

Aetherflux Raises $50M Series A Round to Build Space Solar Power  - The company, which exited stealth mode in October last year, is working to build a power grid in space using satellites in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) that can beam power down to remote locations. Bhatt spoke with Via Satellite on the On Orbit podcast in December about leaving Robinhood and founding a space company, and the applications for space solar power. 

MyTake: Beaming solar power from space to Earth. It would be like we’re all ants under a focused magnifying glass on a sunny day.

ESA's new documentary paints worrying picture of Earth's orbital junk problem - A new documentary short released by the European Space Agency presents an ominous statement within its first 20 seconds: "Around 70% of the 20,000 satellites ever launched remain in space today, orbiting alongside hundreds of millions of fragments left behind by collisions, explosions and intentional destruction."

My Take: So much debris. Watch the video. It’s pretty compelling.

Viasat empowers airlines to curate onboard apps - Viasat Inc., a global leader in satellite communications, unveiled an application hosting product called the Viasat Connected Partner Platform that enables airlines to enhance the in-flight Wi-Fi experience for passengers with curated apps, while simultaneously offering monetization opportunities.

My Take: Ways to extract more money on a flight 🙂 Maybe an app to order food and drink from your seat as opposed to the cart going up and down the aisles.

Direct to Device

SpaceX and Apple reported spat could spell bad news for Starlink and your iPhone’s satellite communication features - Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Apple are reportedly in a spat that could ultimately lead to spotty signals for services like Starlink and iPhone satellite communications or a homogenous monopolistic satellite service – neither of which would be great for anyone.

My Take: Spectrum wars.

China launches internet technology test satellites with Long March 2D - The satellite will be used mainly for technical tests and verification for direct-to-cell satellite broadband and space-ground network integration, according to SAST. It did not provide further details nor images of the satellite.

My Take: Ok.

🇨🇦 Satellites: Bye-bye, Elon - Quebec is a major user of Starlink, Elon Musk's satellite internet service. But the arrival of new Canadian satellite networks could put an end to this dependence.

My Take: Same story, different story. There is no direct to consumer space-based replacement today for broadband, but Terrestar is a great solution to solve the voice problem.

Enabling AI

OpenAI Academy - Unlock the opportunities of the AI era by equipping yourself with the knowledge and skills to harness artificial intelligence effectively.

My Take: So this is cool. Click on the Content tab. Also live learning events.

Do you have AI appeal? - In this report, Analysys Mason explores the AI-related needs and behaviours of medium-sized businesses (MBs), which we define as companies with 100–999 full-time employees.

My Take: Download the report! I hope the fascination with Chatbots ends soon.

The Five Things You Shouldn’t Tell ChatGPT - Don’t let your mystery rash become AI training fodder—or turn up in a data breach

My Take: There’s more than five. I’m amazed at the amount of suff people shove up there..

🇨🇦 Does artificial intelligence deserve a seat in Canada's courtrooms? - "Right off the bat, the summaries looked 100 per cent real," said MacLean. "I had no idea when I read them in court that day that these were fake."

My Take: Legal hallucinations aren’t good. AI is the tool, not the answer.

Comcast says it can do AI better than its fiber competitors - Comcast’s Elad Nafshi thinks the operator’s network can use AI better than its fiber competitors, particularly when it comes to identifying network issues

My Take: My fiber is bigger than your fiber.

Towards Autonomous Agents and Recursive Intelligence - Emergence’s Agents platform is evolving into a system that can automatically create agents and assemble multi-agent systems with minimal human intervention.

My Take: This is where it starts. Agents building agents 😉. Go and find the movie “The Demon Seed” somewhere. Watch it.

Accelerating AI with Fiber Systems and Strategies - Artificial intelligence is reshaping industries, causing a surge in demand for high-speed, low-latency data transmission. Fiber infrastructure is proving to be critical for AI’s success – enabling the data demands that powers AI in data centers, edge computing, and smart homes.

My Take: Download the report. FIber is key enabler, of course.

OpenAI has released its first research into how using ChatGPT affects people’s emotional well-being - The researchers found some intriguing differences between how men and women respond to using ChatGPT. After using the chatbot for four weeks, female study participants were slightly less likely to socialize with people than their male counterparts who did the same.

My Take: I don’t think I’ve ever had an emotional attachment to ChatGPT..

Introducing Amazon Nova Act - we’re excited to introduce Amazon Nova Act, a new AI model trained to perform actions within a web browser.

My Take: Not much to say about this. The integration into the browsers is the next step.

The ‘father of the internet’ and hundreds of tech experts worry we’ll rely on AI too much - “I fear — for the time being — that while there will be a growing minority benefitting ever more significantly with these tools, most people will continue to give up agency, creativity, decision-making and other vital skills to these still-primitive AIs,”

My Take: Indeed. Same as GPS eliminated the need for people to learn how to use maps. I wonder how many Gen-Z know how to use a compass?

Verizon on AI: ‘Who better to be the hub and highway – than the hub and highway?’ - Verizon is leveraging AI in three key areas – customer support, product personalization, and ecosystem building – to enhance network services, improve customer interactions, and automate operations for internal teams and external clients.

My Take: The focus on APIs will allow for easy service workflow and management.

This and That!

In a Sky Full of Satellites, Astronomers Find Creative Ways to Observe the Stars - Swarms of satellites launched by SpaceX and other companies are disrupting astronomical observations. Here's how scientists are coping

My Take: Cool picture! ;)

Amazon among bidders to acquire TikTok as deadline looms for a buyer to be found - Amazon and, separately, a consortium led by OnlyFans founder Tim Stokely are the latest to throw their hats into the ring for TikTok. The site faces an April 5 deadline to reach a deal to find a non-Chinese buyer under threat of being banned from the United States.

My Take: Imagine the data harvesting opportunity and integration with the Amazon commercial machine, and AWS.. Having said that, they will also inherit over 1,500 safety and privacy legal actions.

Zoom bias: The social costs of having a ‘tinny’ sound during video conferences - A new study shows that poor audio quality in videoconferencing negatively affects listeners’ judgments of the people speaking.

My Take: Yea, I can see that. I was listening to a webinar this week and one of the participants was just using computer audio. It was horrible. At the very least, anyone producing a podcast should mandate speakers have some level of quality audio.

'Be ready to move quickly to higher ground': Forecaster delivers ominous warning of 1-in-1,000-year flood coming for central US - Forecasters have warned of historic flooding in the central US this week, anticipating multiple bouts of heavy rainfall and extreme thunderstorms.

My Take: Can’t Elon fix this with DOGE?

The Tech You Need to Level Up Your Humanity - Advancements in computing and robotics are changing how people live. Here are our favorite prosthetics, smart glasses, exoskeletons, and fitness trackers.

My Take: Robots for everyone!

Infographic Of The Week

My Take: I wonder how often Elon and Zuck get together over a bottle of wine?

Podcast Recommendation

In this episode, Tom Rebbeck, Partner and expert in TMT consumer and business services, talks with Simon Sherrington, Research Director and expert in fibre infrastructure and sustainability, about FTTP network expansion in the USA and how it is affecting US cable operators (cablecos).

They discuss how the rapid expansion of FTTP networks is leading to increasing overlap between fibre broadband and cable broadband networks, how cablecos are losing market share and what this might mean for the future. In this context, they discuss how cablecos’ network upgrade strategies may be putting them at a cost disadvantage, and consider the alternative options that are open to these players and its potential ramifications for U.S. national security.

Listen Here!

Movie/Streaming Recommendation

IMDb: 8.5/10

JMDb: 9.0/10 (because it’s funny, and Canadian, even though it’s a CBC production..)

Schitt's Creek is a brilliantly crafted comedy that follows the wealthy Rose family—Johnny, Moira, and their adult children David and Alexis—as they lose their fortune to fraud and relocate to their only remaining asset: a small town Johnny once bought as a joke.

What begins as a fish-out-of-water comedy evolves into a heartwarming story about family, growth, and community. The show's genius lies in its subtle character development, as the once-pretentious Roses gradually adapt to small-town life and discover meaningful relationships and personal fulfillment.

The performances are exceptional, with Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara delivering ingenious portrayals as Johnny and Moira1. Dan Levy's David steals scenes with his facial expressions and witty retorts.

While the series starts with mixed reviews, it gained significant popularity after arriving on Netflix in 2017, with later seasons receiving universal acclaim. The show also earned praise for its positive LGBTQ representation, presenting queer characters and relationships with refreshing normalcy and without preachiness

Until Next Time

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