Broadband Pulse

Lightcurve’s evolution as a fiber broadband provider represents the can-do attitude inherent in the independent ILEC industry. Formerly known as Rainier Connect, the company was founded in 1910 and has more than 110 years of regional history. Based in Tacoma, WA, Lightcurve has served Washington for more than 110 years. It offers high-speed internet, Stream TV, voice, and other business connectivity solutions serving Tacoma, ...

As a national service organization that represents America's electric cooperatives, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) has come into the telecom industry’s spotlight as a key advocate of rural broadband. Over 250 of its electric cooperatives are deploying or developing plans to deliver broadband service to their consumers.

NRECA has been a key voice on broadband regulatory issues, including the FCC&rs...

Lightmatter, an emerging photonics provider, is centering its efforts on building a photonic infrastructure for AI at scale—interconnects, lasers, and eventually compute itself. Its interconnect product line—Passage — overcomes the limitations of traditional electrical, where bandwidth is constrained by the shoreline—the physical perimeter of the chip.

Since its founding by MIT researchers in 2017, Lightmatt...

Independent cable operators and telcos, while the backbone of rural and secondary markets, often get overlooked. But what they lack in size and reach, they make up for with a similar dedication to service and innovation. Like the Tier 1 operators, independent providers are moving fast, not only enhancing their networks with fiber to offer higher-speed broadband, but are also looking to provide standalone wireless service, converged...

In this latest Broadband Pulse podcast, we talked with Mo Steinman, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Lightelligence.

About our guest Maurice (Mo) Steinman is Senior VP and General Manager, US at Lightelligence. Throughout his forty-year career, he has worked for various companies in the networking and computing industry, including Digital Equipment Corp., Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and AMD. He joined Lightelligence...

In this podcast, we're highlighting the upcoming Data Center Insights event. 

On July 15 and 16, Lightwave will join several of its “sister” media outlets to host an online conference-style event titled Data Center Insights. Comprising 11 technical sessions, the event will be broadcast from 11:00 am to 3:30 pm EDT each day.

The full agenda, available at https://endeavor.swoogo.com/DataCenterInsights2026, reflects t...

When the FCC voted last fall to strip hotspot and school bus Wi-Fi from the E-Rate program, Mission Telecom responded swiftly – growing its network of partners and launching new services to ensure vulnerable communities were not left behind. The service provider recently reached a key milestone: it connected 20,000 families and impacted 50,000 lives.

But it’s not stopping there. Through its Project: Volume Up, Miss...

Fort Collins Connexion, a municipal broadband utility that was created by and for the community, has as its sole purpose to improve life and business in Fort Collins, Colorado through what it says is better, more affordable internet. Connexion offers affordably priced symmetrical multi-gig service with no long-term contracts. In addition to residential broadband, Connexion offers competitive phone and TV services.&nb...

Broadcom is addressing the emergence of 50G PON and fixed wireless access (FWA) with a series of new products and partnerships aimed at helping service providers ensure users experience sound quality of service (quality of service) on their broadband and wireless connections.

While still emerging, the transition to 50G PON delivers the massive network headroom and deterministic latency required for the next era of broadband. Accord...

Debra Freitas, CEO of Light Source Communications (LSC), has a simple view of its role as a dark fiber provider: a primary hyperscale and data-center resource on a growth path. LSC is a carrier-neutral, customer-agnostic provider focused on designing, building, and operating custom dark fiber infrastructure purpose-built to deliver capacity for GPU-dense clusters, minimal latency for real-time processing, and diversity to ensure ne...

In the third and final episode of the Fiber Connect 2026 show-daily podcast, we're chronicling the last day and wrap-up of the Fiber Connect 2026 trade show.

Here’s a breakdown of the episode’s key moments:

0:00 Opening/Introduction

0:13 | New market research Fiber Broadband Association research highlights the requirements for fiber broadband in precision agriculture.

1:30 | Fidium’s Fiber Drive Sarah Da...

In the second episode of the Fiber Connect 2026 show daily podcast, we're tracking key trends during the show. 

Here’s a breakdown of the episode’s key moments:

0:00    Opening/Introduction

0:50    Florida’s broadband promise Leo Garcia, Director of the Florida Commerce Office of Broadband, opened the second day of Fiber Connect, highlighting Florida’s progress in...

In the first episode of the Fiber Connect 2026 show daily podcast, we're tracking key trends during the show. 

Here’s a breakdown of the episode’s key moments:

0.00    Opening

0:47    Editor’s panels Our colleague Hayden Beeson, editor of ISE, and I moderated panels during the first day of the show: Common Construction Roadblocks and How to Avoid Them and Edge Compute and Di...

If you want a broad look at the evolution of today’s optical networking industry, look no further than Lawrence Gasman, president of CIR.

In this latest episode, the Broadband Pulse sat down with Gasman, who has been conducting forecasts on enterprise computing, telecommunications, optical components since the late 1970s when he founded the firm. One of his latest pursuits has been quantum technology.

During our time together...

In this new Broadband Pulse podcast, we talked with Matt Langman, SVP and general manager of infrastructure solutions at Phononic. 

About the Podcast In the Lightwave Broadband Pulse podcast, we address key issues affecting the optical and broadband industries. Join us every week for insights from industry leaders on these topics. Visit our website at www.lightwave.com/podcasts and click on our podcast site at w...

Wireless network operators are in an ongoing evolution. Traditional wireless operators are expanding their 5G footprints while exploring new converged wireline/wireless bundles. They are also facing new competition from cable companies that are getting very involved in building out wireless network services to complement broadband.

At the same time, Tier 1 wireless operators like Verizon are finding other avenues to enhance their r...

Whether the focus is on enhancing a network foothold in additional markets, expanding an existing product line, or refocusing on serving a market segment such as fiber-based broadband, vendors and service providers actively pursued new M&A deals to meet these goals.  

PwC noted in its Media and telecommunications: US Deals 2026 outlook that in the second half of 2025, M&A activity “saw a marked uptick”...

In this podcast, we spoke with Amit Thakar, vice president of signal integrity product marketing at Semtech, about the shift from DSP-based to linear optical architectures and other issues.

About the Podcast  In the Lightwave Broadband Pulse podcast, we address key issues affecting the optical and broadband industries. Join us every week for insights from industry leaders on these topics. Visit our website at www.lightwa...

Since it was founded in 1998, LightRiver has made a name for itself in its ability to consult, commission, automate, and optimize multi-vendor, multi-generational and software-controlled networks. One of the company’s recent highlights is its Prism software product. Prism simplifies the complexities of multi-vendor, multi-generation networks, empowering stakeholders to streamline operations and make informed decisions for fut...