ACA Connects hopes to use the FCC's wide-reaching wireline deployment rules reform proceeding to pursue permitting reforms and stop local rate regulation efforts that Congress isn't currently tackling, President Grant Spellmeyer told reporters Wednesday. Brian Hurley, the group's senior vice president of legal and regulatory affairs, said that given the priority that FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has put on speeding up deployment, ACA expects to see action in 2026 coming out of the wireline proceeding.

Arpan Sura, an aide to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, warned Wednesday that the agency faces a huge amount of work to meet a congressional mandate to auction the upper C band in two years. “It’s a very aggressive timeline,” Sura said during a Center for Strategic and International Studies conference. Other speakers said federal spectrum work has continued despite the longest federal shutdown in history. Commissioners are to vote next week on an upper C-band NPRM (see 2510290047).

Former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and other witnesses at a Public Knowledge event Wednesday called for Congress to end what they see as actions by Chairman Brendan Carr's commission infringing media's First Amendment rights. PK CEO Chris Lewis framed the event as the first in an anticipated series of “people’s oversight” hearings on the FCC and other federal agencies in response to what he sees as Congress’ failure to counter Trump administration actions against the president's perceived enemies.

Nations worldwide are working on individual regulatory frameworks for direct-to-device (D2D) service, with satellite operators facing some challenges in dealing with the varied approaches, said Lynk Chief Global Affairs Officer Amy Mehlman at an FCBA continuing education seminar Monday. Some countries might have to revisit their rules, she said, depending on what the ITU does at its 2027 World Radiocommunication Conference and the outcomes of Agenda Item 1.13, which deals with D2D service.

Congress, and the FCC, may face reduced pressure to reform the USF with an expected drop in its contribution factor, but calls for change won’t go away, experts said Monday. The USF contribution factor is expected to decline from 38.1% in Q4 to 30.9% in Q1, as projected demand decreases, analyst Billy Jack Gregg said Saturday in an email. That’s based on new numbers from the Universal Service Administrative Co.

As the longest federal government shutdown in history likely nears an end, industry lawyers who depend on FCC decisions said there’s no question the companies they represent have taken a hit. Among the biggest problems, they said, are that everything the FCC has done has taken longer, while some transactions and license applications aren’t being processed with key systems offline.

The FCC on Thursday advised the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard oral argument last month on a challenge to the 2024 incarcerated people's communications services (IPCS) order, that the rules have changed. FCC commissioners significantly revised calling rates in an order approved 2-1 at the October open meeting (see 2510280045). The agency also released the final version of the order Thursday with some changes from the draft that was previously circulated by Chairman Brendan Carr, mostly benefiting IPCS providers.

Gray Media executives said in a Q3 earnings call Friday that the recent Democratic electoral wins will increase broadcasters' political ad revenue and that the company is waiting on the outcomes of FCC proceedings on ownership rules and pending Gray transactions to provide a clearer picture of the options for mergers and acquisitions. “Things are changing faster than I've ever, ever seen it, and for the first time in the history of our business, we are really operating in the wild, wild West,” said co-CEO Hilton Howell. “No one knows what the rules actually are.”

Europe’s history of protectionist activity in areas like Big Tech and its General Data Protection Regulation is potentially now edging into space, such as through the EU Space Act, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said Friday at a Federalist Society event in Washington. The U.S. and EU should instead be working together on space activity in the face of Chinese space ambitions, Carr added.

Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Indian Affairs Committee Vice Chairman Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, pressed top Commerce Department officials late Thursday to explain why the Trump administration has frozen $980 million in unobligated Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program (TBCP) funding and halted an additional $294 million allocated in December 2024. Meanwhile, Senate Small Business Committee Chair Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, is circulating a draft bill, called the Recovering Excess Communications Appropriations While Protecting Telecommunications Upgrades, Reinvestment and Expansion (Recapture) Act, in a bid to claw back states’ non-deployment BEAD funding.