Telecom Intelligence: Week of September 2, 2024
Verizon opened the fall by writing the quarter's defining check: $20 billion in cash for Frontier Communications and its fiber footprint across 25 states — the clearest statement yet that the biggest carriers now see owning the wire into the home as inseparable from winning the phone in the pocket. The week's other dramas were about leverage of a different kind: Brazil's X ban put Starlink's licenses in a regulator's crosshairs and showed how quickly satellite internet becomes a geopolitical bargaining chip, while 17,000 striking AT&T Southeast workers reminded the industry that networks still get built and fixed by people.
Telecom Intelligence: Week of August 12, 2024
Google broke with a decade of tradition and launched the Pixel 9 in August — six weeks before Apple's event — to claim the 'AI phone' label first, shipping Gemini deep in the OS while Apple Intelligence remained a promise. Cisco underlined how brutally the networking hardware business is being reshaped, cutting another 7% of its workforce — its second major layoff of the year — to redirect spending toward AI and security. And in the Southeast, 17,000 AT&T technicians walked off the job in what would become a month-long strike across nine states.