FCC Announces April 'Infrastructure Month' - These Companies Stand To Benefit

To achieve this purpose, the FCC has set a three-prong strategy:

1. Make it easier for companies to build and expand broadband networks.
2. Reduce the cost of broadband deployment.
3. Eliminate unnecessary rules that slow down or deter deployment.

"Infrastructure investment is critical to closing the digital divide in our country and bringing high-speed Internet access to more rural Americans. Broadband has also made many sectors of the economy more productive, from shipping to energy. And it's has given birth to entirely new industries, like the mobile apps economy, telemedicine, online education, and the nascent Internet of Things," FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said in a March 30 release.

Pai said the FCC would be voting on several proposals at its April 20 meeting. Some of the proposals on the FCC radar include the following, detailed below.

A Few Proposals

The FCC chairman has sought support from his colleagues at the commission to back rules that would help construction of wired networks. Pai also said he would seek to lower costs for and speed deployment of the internet-equipment tied to utility poles. Additionally, the commission said it would support the transition from legacy copper networks to fiber-based network and services.

Providing a sneak-peak into the wireless infrastructure of tomorrow, Pai said wireless networks of the future would have small cells as wireless access points instead of the tall towers. The commission is also looking to expedite proposals to help private sector build 5G networks.

Pai said the commission would vote on new rules to update the rules for business data service, or BDS, which is known as special access.

The commission also intends to tweak one of the rules for the Universal Service Fund, or USF, which subsidizes broadband deployment for small carriers to ensure rural households that cannot be served by these carriers are not left stranded without broadband service.

The commission will review whether to restore the Ultra-High Frequency, or UHF, discount related to the national television ownership cap, which was scraped last September by a party-line vote.

Companies That Stand To Benefit From The Increased Thrust On Infrastructure

• AT&T Inc. T.
• Centurylink Inc CTL.
• Frontier Communications Corp FTR.
• Verizon Communications Inc. VZ.

• AT&T Mobility.
• Sprint Corp S.
• T-Mobile US Inc TMUS.
• Verizon Wireless.

• Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. BRCD.
• Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. CHKP.
• Ciena Corporation CIEN.
• Cisco Systems, Inc. CSCO.
• Extreme Networks, Inc EXTR.
• Fortinet Inc FTNT.
• Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co HPE.
• International Business Machines Corp. IBM.
• Juniper Networks, Inc. JNPR.
• NetGear, Inc. NTGR.
• Nokia Corp (ADR) NOK.
• Sierra Wireless, Inc. (USA) SWIR.
• Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson ERIC.

• Corning Incorporated GLW.

At the time of writing, the SPDR S&P International Teleco Sec (ETF) IST was down 0.12 percent at $24.06, and the SPDR Series Trust XTL was slipping 0.18 percent at $70.83.

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