"Lehigh Valley residents deserve internet that works as hard as they do. We're not just expanding our network—we're giving customers a superior choice. By signing up now, residents can secure early access to faster speeds, better reliability, and a customer experience built for them."
"The most important aspect of pricing for consumers is knowing their total price rather than an advertised price that comes with hidden fees: 88% of respondents believe all fees should be included in advertised pricing."
Project Spark is designed to fundamentally reshape how high-capacity services in the UK are built, priced and delivered, supporting the next wave of digital infrastructure expansion.
The firm's study, 'North American Fiber Broadband Report: FTTH Review and Forecast 2026-2030,' indicates that nearly $200 billion will be spent on fiber over the next five years, highlighting a significant investment in fiber-to-the-home services.
Put together, the two companies pass ~7.1 [million] locations in 26 states. The two companies overlap in only three counties in Texas (109k locations). Texas and Illinois will have the largest footprint for the combined entity. Cable and Fiber will cover an almost equal share of locations for the combined company.
Openreach has constructed a digital twin of the UK's transportation corridors, integrating data for 35 million homes and businesses with national road, rail and waterway networks and its existing fibre infrastructure.
Google Fiber, now just GFiber, will merge with Stonepeak's Astound Broadband to create a new network provider. Stonepeak will hold a majority ownership stake, while the existing GFiber executive team will run the company. According to the pair, the move gives GFiber the external capital and necessary focus to drive its next phase of expansion, allowing it to buildout its fiber footprint across the US.
Eight of the municipal networks studied beat their local provider competitors in median upload speed. Sherwood Broadband - in the town of the same name in Oregon - was the only one to beat its local competitor in median download speed.
GFiber has always been about pushing the boundaries of what's possible for internet speed and service. This partnership with Astound and Stonepeak is the next step in our decade-long mission to redefine what customers can expect from their internet provider. It's a strategic opportunity to scale our customer-focused approach to connect more households to a truly different type of internet service.
Wholesale access has been inherently supported by the Broadband Forum's network architecture over the past 20 years, and this project takes the best practices from copper‑based broadband to reshape and evolve them for fiber and cloud networks.
Across 2025 as a whole, the company tracked more than 180 significant disruptions, with the final quarter dominated by cable damage, power problems, and routine operational failures. There was just one confirmed government-directed shutdown during the period. Tanzania saw a sharp drop in internet traffic on October 29 as violent protests broke out during the country's presidential election, with traffic falling by more than 90 percent. Traffic returned briefly before declining again, and routing data pointed to throttling rather than a clean shutdown.
The FCC approval enables SpaceX to add 7,500 Gen2 Starlink satellites to orbit, doubling its current number and bringing its total network to 15,000 satellites. According to the FCC, the additional satellites will enable SpaceX to better provide low-latency, high-speed internet communications across the globe. The FCC approval should enable SpaceX to leverage its recently announced speed increases, which were announced on the social media platform X late last year. "Significant improvements in @starlink network performance in 2025, with median peak-hour network-wide speeds increasing by over 50%," Starlink Vice President of Engineering Michael Nicolls said in a tweet.
Ookla said the growing use of ChatGPT and other AI tools places much more demand on mobile networks than the typical activities of browsing social media and the web, watching videos, texting, and making the occasional phone call. As a result, more speed and expanded capabilities will be necessary. The report said advanced AI capabilities like AI-enabled glasses will put a particular strain on upload connections in the future.
Edge computing is a type of IT infrastructure in which data is collected, stored, and processed near the "edge" or on the device itself instead of being transmitted to a centralized processor. Edge computing systems usually involve a network of devices, sensors, or machinery capable of data processing and interconnection. A main benefit of edge computing is its low latency. Since each endpoint processes information near the source, it can be easier to process data, respond to requests, and produce detailed analytics.