"We share The Wonderful Company's vision of ensuring the entire Lost Hills community has access to reliable, high-speed Internet," said Matthew Murphy, CEO of unWired Broadband. "We're proud to play a role in making that vision a reality. Partnerships like this demonstrate how collaboration between the public and private sectors can expand critical infrastructure and help ensure families, students, and local businesses have the connectivity they need to succeed."
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.
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.
We are thrilled to complete the transaction to acquire Everstream, combining two great networks to benefit businesses across the Midwest. Everstream's dedicated employees and network are completely complementary to Bluebird Fiber. I am proud to say the networks are already connected and customers can place orders between any two points on the combined network starting today.
With 25 for 5, we're redefining what customers should expect from an internet provider. People want fast internet they can rely on, without surprises. This offer delivers Optimum Fiber Internet at $25 a month - no gimmicks, no short‑term promo - just reliable, high‑speed fiber internet locked in for five years.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Light-based internet provider Taara, which spun out of Alphabet's "moonshot" incubator last year, just launched Taara Beam to provide 25Gbps connectivity within cities over invisible beams of light - line of sight permitting. Unlike last year's Taara Lightbridge, which connects communities separated by water and mountains at distances up to 20km (over 12 miles), the shoebox-sized Beam can be mounted to street poles and roof tops for city-wide connectivity at distances up to 10km. The 8kg (less than 20 pounds) device typically consumes about 90W.
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.
The company said the expansion will create regional employment opportunities, including construction workers, installation technicians, sales and marketing staff, and community engagement personnel. Ezee Fiber also plans to establish a regional office in Salem. "I'm proud to bring Ezee Fiber's multi-gig internet service to homes and businesses in Oregon," said Matt Marino, Chief Executive Officer of Ezee Fiber. Marino said customer support has contributed to the company's growth over the past two years. The company reports a 4.9-star Google rating and thousands of five-star reviews.
Though Starlink's market and capacity have grown sharply over the last year, the satellite broadband company's median speeds still fall short of the 100/20 Mbps benchmark established by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 2024, according to a new report from Ookla. The report - "2025 Global Satellite Broadband Performance Report" - was released yesterday. The report marked improvements in Starlink's cumulative network capacity, which has nearly doubled in the past year.
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.
NMSurf is one of the largest fixed wireless providers in New Mexico, serving the central and northern area of the state. La Bajada was previously served by a 3-Gig microwave middle-mile connection. But, Catanach said, the bandwidth was becoming insufficient. New microwave licenses are hard to come by in New Mexico, he added, because the state itself claims many licenses for radio communications.