FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez said Monday that she remains concerned about the agency's proposal to allow prison officials to jam cell signals in an effort to curb the use of contraband phones (see 2601130057). Meanwhile, Arpan Sura, a top aide to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, called for policymakers to adopt a new view of spectrum, with a focus on abundance instead of scarcity. Both spoke Monday at the Silicon Flatirons conference in Boulder, Colorado.
Astronomers are viewing SpaceX's plans for a constellation of up to 1 million solar-powered data center satellites with concern about what it could mean for space sustainability and safe space operations. "That's just too many satellites to look after," said Hugh Lewis, an astronautics professor in the space environment and radio engineering research group at the U.K.'s University of Birmingham.
To the delight of Wi-Fi advocates, the FCC’s final order and further NPRM creating a new class of geofenced variable power (GVP) devices in the 6 GHz band contains a paragraph asking for broad comment on how rules for the band can be further updated, while also discouraging calls to tighten the rules. Commissioners approved the item 3-0 on Thursday (see 2601290048), and it was posted Friday.
This year should see Charter Communications largely wrapping up a rural buildout that will give it "growth for years to come," CEO Chris Winfrey said last week. Comcast, meanwhile, expects many wireless customers who are now using a free line to become paid customers in the second half of 2026 when a yearlong promotion ends, said co-CEO Mike Cavanagh. In separate calls with analysts last week to announce 2025 earnings, both companies said large portions of their footprints will have multi-gig symmetrical broadband speeds available this year.
Verizon reported Friday that it saw 616,000 postpaid phone net adds in Q4, beating the consensus estimates, and said it anticipates up to a million adds in 2026. New CEO Dan Schulman told analysts that the carrier is “at a critical inflection point” and plans to stay “fiscally responsible” as it adds subscribers. Verizon’s stock price was up 11.78% for the day to $44.52 per share.
Thirty years in, the 1996 Telecommunications Act has helped usher in some notable successes, such as increased competition and innovation, but it hasn't made nearly as much progress in guaranteeing universal service, telecom policy experts said in a Broadband Breakfast panel discussion Wednesday.
Whether an FCC licensee is controlled by or subject to the jurisdiction of an adversary nation should now be clearer, with the commissioners voting 3-0 Thursday to adopt an order requiring some licensees to certify any oversight by a foreign adversary. Thursday's meeting also included 3-0 votes to adopt an order codifying aspects of the agency's foreign-ownership review process and an NPRM about updating rules that govern internet-based telecommunications relay services -- a bookend to the analog TRS rules modernization NPRM adopted in November (see 2511200047). In addition, the commissioners approved an order creating a new category of unlicensed devices that can operate in the 6 GHz band (see 2601290048).
U.S. spectrum policy is getting better, but there’s still room for improvement, Clemson University professor Thomas Hazlett said Wednesday during a webinar hosted by the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy. Hazlett was particularly critical of the FCC’s approach to sharing spectrum in the citizens broadband radio service band, which remains a source of contention between carriers and advocates of unlicensed spectrum (see 2512160063).
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr singled out California on Thursday, criticizing its Lifeline verification and indicating that the commission would take a particularly hard look at the state for possible Lifeline fraud. The FCC's February meeting will include an NPRM about restricting funding to only American citizens and a few classes of non-citizens and about not letting “opt-out” states use their own verification processes (see 2601280058). The agency last year revoked California's ability to do its own Lifeline verification because the state barred the sharing of information about subscribers with federal agencies, including immigration authorities (see 2511200031).
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr told reporters Thursday that he anticipates that the commission “would be able to continue to operate at least to some degree for some period of time” if federal appropriations lapse at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, as the agency did during the government shutdown in the fall (see 2509300060). The chances of an appropriations lapse substantially increased Thursday after the Senate failed to clear a procedural hurdle to advance a House-passed minibus FY 2026 appropriations package that includes funding for the FCC and FTC (HR-7148).