So much is happening in the world of broadband these days – most of it related to the federal funding (IIJA/BEAD) coming into the states. Yet inherent in the funding are moments of waiting as the NTIA gets back to States at various parts of the application process. These are times when I think it’s helpful to step back and think broadly about what’s about to happen with this huge investment. The article from Light Reading on AI (artificial intelligence) and mobile broadband providers caught my eye…

During America’s Gilded Age, a handful of scrappy entrepreneurs built the nation’s railway system and in the process created huge piles of money by controlling shipping and travel lanes across the country.

Today, as AI hype begins consuming everything in sight, some are hinting that mobile network operators – and their equipment vendors – may be sitting in a similar position thanks to the data they own.

After all, AI models are only as good as the data they’re trained on. That’s why Google is reportedly paying Reddit $60 million every year.

And the telecom industry has an enormous amount of data.

“I think it’s extremely valuable,” said Jonathan Davidson, in discussing the amount of data owned by telecom companies. Davidson is the EVP and GM of Cisco Networking, and he made his comments during a media event here on the sidelines of the MWC Barcelona trade show. “We are doing billions of [network] measurements every single day… We have a view into all of these networks that no one else has.”