Other noteworthy regulatory developments week ending 7 May 2021 from the Assembly Analyst team
Belgium has a new broadband plan for fixed and mobile broadband for the years 2022–2024. The plan is in line with the EU’s connectivity targets for 2025, and aims to eliminate the remaining ‘white spots’ (around 2% of the territory or 138,000 households) where high-speed services are not available. The plan will rest on five pillars, including mapping white spots, facilitating deployment, stimulating investment, and creating a Broadband Competence Office and a 5G Knowledge and Learning Centre. The Federal Council of Ministers has not yet attributed a budget to the plan.
In the US, the Rural Wireless Association and other advocacy groups are asking the FCC to intervene in the dispute between T-Mobile and Dish over the shutdown of T-Mobile’s 3G CDMA network. In late 2020, T-Mobile announced it will retire its CDMA network from 1 January 2022, citing the need to refarm the spectrum for 5G. Dish planned to rely on T-Mobile’s CDMA network until July 2023 to serve about half of its 9m Boost Mobile customers, which it took over as part of the T-Mobile/Sprint merger. The letter sent to the FCC notes that the shutdown is already preventing some rural customers from roaming when they leave their home networks.
